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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10484 ***
+
+LORD'S LECTURES
+
+BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME III
+
+ANCIENT ACHIEVEMENTS.
+
+BY JOHN LORD, LL.D.,
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE OLD ROMAN WORLD," "MODERN EUROPE,"
+ETC., ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+GOVERNMENTS AND LAWS.
+
+GREEK AND ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.
+
+Governments and laws
+Oriental laws
+Priestly jurisprudence
+The laws of Lycurgus
+The laws of Solon
+Cleisthenes
+The Ecclesia at Athens
+Struggle between patricians and plebeians at Rome
+Tribunes of the people
+Roman citizens
+The Roman senate
+The Roman constitution
+Imperial power
+The Twelve Tables
+Roman lawyers
+Jurisprudence under emperors
+Labeo
+Capito
+Gaius
+Paulus
+Ulpian
+Justinian
+Tribonian
+Code, Pandects, and Institutes
+Roman citizenship
+Laws pertaining to marriage
+Extent of paternal power
+Transfer of property
+Contracts
+The courts
+Crimes
+Fines
+Penal statutes
+Personal rights
+Slavery
+Security of property
+Authorities
+
+
+THE FINE ARTS.
+
+ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, PAINTING.
+
+Early architecture
+Egyptian monuments
+The Temple of Karnak
+The pyramids
+Babylonian architecture
+Indian architecture
+Greek architecture
+The Doric order
+The Parthenon
+The Ionic order
+The Corinthian order
+Roman architecture
+The arch
+Vitruvius
+Greek sculpture
+Phidias
+Statue of Zeus
+Praxiteles
+Scopas
+Lysippus
+Roman sculpture
+Greek painters
+Polygnotus
+Apollodorus
+Zeuxis
+Parrhasius
+Apelles
+The decline of art
+Authorities
+
+
+ANCIENT SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.
+
+ASTRONOMY, GEOGRAPHY, ETC.
+
+Ancient astronomy
+Chaldaean astronomers
+Egyptian astronomy
+The Greek astronomers
+Thales
+Anaximenes
+Aristarchus
+Archimedes
+Hipparchus
+Ptolemy
+The Roman astronomers
+Geometry
+Euclid
+Empirical science
+Hippocrates
+Galen
+Physical science
+Geography
+Pliny
+Eratosthenes
+Authorities
+
+
+MATERIAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS.
+
+MECHANICAL AND USEFUL ARTS.
+
+Mechanical arts
+Material life in Egypt
+Domestic utensils
+Houses and furniture
+Entertainments
+Glass manufacture
+Linen fabrics
+Paper manufacture
+Leather and tanners
+Carpenters and boat-builders
+Agriculture
+Field sports
+Ornaments of dress
+Greek arts
+Roman luxuries
+Material wonders
+Great cities
+Commerce
+Roman roads
+Ancient Rome
+Architectural wonders
+Roman monuments
+Roman spectacles
+Gladiatorial shows
+Roman triumphs
+Authorities
+
+
+THE MILITARY ART.
+
+WEAPONS, ENGINES, DISCIPLINE.
+
+The tendency to violence and war
+Early wars
+Progress in the art of war
+Sesostris
+Egyptian armies
+Military weapons
+Chariots of war
+Persian armies, Cyrus
+Greek warfare
+Spartan phalanx
+Alexander the Great
+Roman armies
+Hardships of Roman soldiers
+Military discipline
+The Roman legion
+Importance of the infantry
+The cavalry
+Military engines
+Ancient fortifications
+Military officers
+The praetorian cohort
+Roman camps
+Consolidation of Roman power
+Authorities
+
+
+CICERO.
+
+ROMAN LITERATURE.
+
+Condition of Roman society when Cicero was born
+His education and precocity
+He adopts the profession of the law
+His popularity as an orator
+Elected Quaestor; his Aedileship
+Prosecution of Verres
+His letters to Atticus; his vanity
+His Praetorship; declines a province
+His Consulship; conspiracy of Catiline
+Banishment of Cicero: his weakness; his recall
+His law practice; his eloquence
+His provincial government
+His return to Rome
+His fears in view of the rivalry between Caesar and Pompey
+Sides with Pompey
+Death of Tullia and divorce of Terentia
+Second marriage of Cicero
+Literary labors: his philosophical writings
+His detestation of Imperialism
+His philippics against Antony
+His proscription, flight, and death
+His great services
+Character of his eloquence
+His artistic excellence of style
+His learning and attainments; his character
+His immortal legacy
+Authorities
+
+
+CLEOPATRA.
+
+THE WOMAN OF PAGANISM.
+
+Why Cleopatra represents the woman of Paganism
+Glory of Ancient Rome
+Paganism recognizes the body rather than the soul
+Ancestors of Cleopatra
+The wonders of Alexandria
+Cleopatra of Greek origin
+The mysteries of Ancient Egypt
+Early beauty and accomplishments of Cleopatra
+Her attractions to Caesar
+Her residence in Rome
+Her first acquaintance with Antony
+The style of her beauty
+Her character
+Character of Antony
+Antony and Cleopatra in Cilicia
+Magnificence of Cleopatra
+Infatuation of Antony
+Motives of Cleopatra
+Antony's gifts to Cleopatra
+Indignation of the Romans
+Antony gives up his Parthian expedition
+Returns to Alexandria
+Contest with Octavius
+Battle of Actium
+Wisdom of Octavius
+Death of Antony
+Subsequent conduct of Cleopatra
+Nature of her love for Antony
+Immense sacrifices of Antony
+Tragic fate of Cleopatra
+Frequency of suicide at Rome
+Immorality no bar to social position in Greece and Rome
+Dulness of home in Pagan antiquity
+Drudgeries of women
+Influence of women on men
+Paganism never recognized the equality of women with men
+It denied to them education
+Consequent degradation of women
+Paganism without religious consolation
+Did not recognize the value of the soul
+And thus took no cognizance of the higher aspirations of man
+The revenge of woman under degradation
+Women, under Paganism, took no interest in what elevates society
+Men, therefore, fled to public amusements
+No true society under Paganism
+Society only created by Christianity
+
+
+PAGAN SOCIETY.
+
+GLORY AND SHAME.
+
+Glories of the ancient civilization
+A splendid external deception
+Moral evils
+Imperial despotism
+Prostration of liberties
+Some good emperors
+Disproportionate fortunes
+Luxurious living
+General extravagance
+Pride and insolence of the aristocracy
+Gibbon's description of the nobles
+The plebeian class
+Hopelessness and disgrace of poverty
+Popular superstitions
+The slaves
+The curse of slavery
+Degradation of the female sex
+Bitter satires of Juvenal
+Games and festivals
+Gladiatorial shows
+General abandonment to pleasure
+The baths
+General craze for money-making
+Universal corruption
+Saint Paul's estimate of Roman vices
+Decline and ruin a logical necessity
+The Sibylline prophecy
+Authorities
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+VOLUME III.
+
+Cleopatra Tests the Poison which She Intends for Her
+Own Destruction on Her Slaves.... _Frontispiece_
+_After the painting by Alexander Cabanel_.
+
+Justinian Orders the Compilation of the Pandects
+_After the painting by Benjamin Constant_.
+
+The Temple of Karnak
+_After a photograph_.
+
+The Laocoön
+_After the photograph from the statue in the Vatican, Rome_.
+
+The Death of Archimedes
+_After the painting by E. Vimont_.
+
+Race of Roman Chariots
+_After the painting by V. Checa_.
+
+Sale of Slaves in a Roman Camp
+_After the painting by R. Coghe_.
+
+Marcus Tullius Cicero
+_From the bust in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence_.
+
+Cleopatra Obtains an Interview with Caesar
+_After the painting by J.L. Gerome_.
+
+Death of Cleopatra
+_After the painting by John Collier_.
+
+A Roman Bacchanal
+_After the painting by W. Kotarbinski_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+GOVERNMENTS AND LAWS.
+
+
+GREEK AND ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.
+
+624 B.C.-550 A.D.
+
+
+There is not much in ancient governments and laws to interest us, except
+such as were in harmony with natural justice, and were designed for the
+welfare of all classes in the State. A jurisprudence founded on the
+edicts of absolute kings, or on the regulations of a priestly caste, is
+necessarily partial, and may be unenlightened. But those laws which are
+gradually enacted for the interests of the whole body of the
+people,--for the rich and poor, the powerful and feeble alike,--have
+generally been the result of great and diverse experiences, running
+through centuries, the work of wise men under constitutional forms of
+government. The jurisprudence of nations based on equity is a growth or
+development according to public wants and necessities, especially in
+countries having popular liberty and rights, as in England and the
+United States.
+
+We do not find in the history of ancient nations such a jurisprudence,
+except in the free States of Greece and among the Romans, who had a
+natural genius or aptitude for government, and where the people had a
+powerful influence in legislation, until even the name of liberty was
+not invoked.
+
+Among the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians the only laws were the
+edicts of kings or the regulations of priests, mostly made with a view
+of cementing their own power, except those that were dictated by
+benevolence or the pressing needs of the people, who were ground down
+and oppressed, and protected only as slaves were once protected in the
+Southern States of America. Wise and good monarchs doubtless issued
+decrees for the benefit of all classes, such as conscience or knowledge
+dictated, whenever they felt their great responsibilities, as in some of
+the absolute monarchies of Europe; but they never issued their decrees
+at the suggestions or demands of those classes for whom the laws were
+made. The voice of the people was ignored, except so far as it moved the
+pity or appealed to the hearts and consciences of their rulers; the
+people had, and claimed, no _rights_. The only men to whom rulers
+listened, or by whom they were controlled, were those whom they chose as
+counsellors and ministers, who were supposed to advise with a view to
+the sovereign's benefit, and that of the empire generally.
+
+The same may be said in general of other Oriental monarchies,
+especially when embarked in aggressive wars, where the will of the
+monarch was supreme and unresisted, as in Persia. In India and China the
+government was not so absolute, since it was checked by feudatory
+princes, almost independent like the feudal barons and dukes of
+mediaeval Europe.
+
+Nor was there probably among Oriental nations any elaborate codification
+of the decrees and laws as in Greece and Rome, except by the priests for
+their ritual service, like that which marked the jurisprudence of the
+Israelites. There were laws against murder, theft, adultery, and other
+offences, since society cannot exist anywhere without such laws; but
+there was no complicated jurisprudence produced by the friction of
+competing classes striving for justice and right, or even for the
+interests of contending parties. We do not look to Egypt or to China for
+wise punishment of ordinary crimes; but we do look to Greece and Rome,
+and to Rome especially, for a legislation which shall balance the
+complicated relations of society on principles of enlightened reason.
+Moreover, those great popular rights which we now most zealously defend
+have generally been extorted in the strife of classes and parties,
+sometimes from kings, and sometimes from princes and nobles. Where there
+has been no opposition to absolutism these rights have not been secured;
+but whenever and wherever the people have been a power they have
+imperiously made their wants known, and so far as they have been
+reasonable they have been finally secured,--perhaps after angry
+expostulations and, disputations.
+
+Now, it is this kind of legislation which is remarkable in the history
+of Greece and Rome, secured by a combination of the people against the
+ruling classes in the interests of justice and the common welfare, and
+finally endorsed and upheld even by monarchs themselves. It is from this
+legislation that modern nations have learned wisdom; for a permanent law
+in a free country may be the result of a hundred years of discussion or
+contention,--a compromise of parties, a lesson in human experience. As
+the laws of Greece and Rome alone among the ancients are rich in moral
+wisdom and adapted more or less to all nations and ages in the struggle
+for equal rights and wise social regulations, I shall confine myself to
+them. Besides, I aim not to give useless and curious details, but to
+show how far in general the enlightened nations of antiquity made
+attainments in those things which we call civilization, and particularly
+in that great department which concerns so nearly all human
+interests,--that of the regulation of mutual social relations; and this
+by modes and with results which have had their direct influence upon our
+modern times.
+
+When we consider the native genius of the Greeks, and their marvellous
+achievements in philosophy, literature, and art, we are surprised that
+they were so inferior to the Romans in jurisprudence,--although in the
+early days of the Roman republic a deputation of citizens was sent to
+Athens to study the laws of Solon. But neither nations nor individuals
+are great in everything. Before Solon lived, Lycurgus had given laws to
+the Spartans. This lawgiver, one of the descendants of Hercules, was
+born, according to Grote, about eight hundred and eighty years before
+Christ, and was the uncle of the reigning king. There is, however, no
+certainty as to the time when he lived; it was probably about the period
+when Carthage was founded by the Phoenicians. He instituted the Spartan
+senate, and gave an aristocratic form to the constitution. But the
+senate, composed of about thirty old men who acted in conjunction with
+the two kings, did not differ materially from the council of chiefs, or
+old men, found in other ancient Grecian States; the Spartan chiefs
+simply modified or curtailed the power of the kings. In the course of
+time the senate, with the kings included in it, became the governing
+body of the State, and this oligarchical form of government lasted
+several hundred years. We know but little of the especial laws given by
+Lycurgus. We know the distinctions of society,--citizens and helots,
+and their mutual relations,--the distribution of lands to check luxury,
+the public men, the public training of youth, the severe discipline to
+which all were subjected, the cruelty exercised towards slaves, the
+attention given to gymnastic exercises and athletic sports,--in short,
+the habits and customs of the people rather than any regular system of
+jurisprudence. Lycurgus was the trainer of a military brotherhood rather
+than a law-giver. Under his régime the citizen belonged to the State
+rather than to his family, and all the ends of the State were warlike
+rather than peaceful,--not looking to the settlement of quarrels on
+principles of equity, or a development of industrial interests, which
+are the great aims of modern legislation.
+
+The influence of the Athenian Solon on the laws which affected
+individuals is more apparent than that of the Spartan Lycurgus, the
+earliest of the Grecian legislators. But Solon had a predecessor in
+Athens itself,--Draco, who in 624 was appointed to reduce to writing the
+arbitrary decisions of the archons, thus giving a form of permanent law
+and a basis for a court of appeal. Draco's laws were extraordinarily
+severe, punishing small thefts and even laziness with death. The
+formulation of any system of justice would have, as Draco's did, a
+beneficial influence on the growth of the State; but the severity of
+these bloody laws caused them to be hated and in practice neglected,
+until Solon arose. Solon was born in Athens about 638 B.C., and
+belonged to the noblest family of the State. He was contemporary with
+Pisistratus and Thales. His father having lost his property, Solon
+applied himself to merchandise,--always a respectable calling in a
+mercantile city. He first became known as a writer of love poems; then
+came into prominence as a successful military commander of volunteer
+forces in a disastrous war; and at last he gained the confidence of his
+countrymen so completely that in a period of anarchy, distress, and
+mutiny,--the poor being so grievously oppressed by the rich that a sixth
+part of the produce of land went to the landlord,--he was chosen archon,
+with authority to revise the laws, and might have made himself king. He
+abolished the custom of selling the body of a debtor for debt, and even
+annulled debts in a state of general distress,--which did not please the
+rich, nor even the poor, since they desired a redivision of lands such
+as Lycurgus had made in Sparta. He repealed the severe laws of Draco,
+which inflicted capital punishment for so many small offences, retaining
+the extreme penalty only for murder and treason. In order further to
+promote the interests of the people, he empowered any man whatever to
+enter an action for one that was injured. He left the great offices of
+state, however, in the hands of the rich, giving the people a share in
+those which were not so important. He re-established the council of the
+Areopagus, composed of those who had been archons, and nine were
+appointed annually for the general guardianship of the laws; but he
+instituted another court or senate of four hundred citizens, for the
+cognizance of all matters before they were submitted to the higher
+court. Although the poorest and most numerous class were not eligible
+for office, they had the right of suffrage, and could vote for the
+principal officers. It would at first seem that the legislation of Solon
+gave especial privileges to the rich, but it is generally understood
+that he was the founder of the democracy of Athens. He gave the
+Athenians, not the best possible code, but the best they were capable of
+receiving. He intended to give to the people as much power as was
+strictly needed, and no more; but in a free State the people continually
+encroach on the privileges of the rich, and thus gradually the chief
+power falls into their hands.
+
+Whatever the power which Solon gave to the people, and however great
+their subsequent encroachments, it cannot be doubted that he was the
+first to lay the foundations of constitutional government,--that is, one
+in which the people took part in legislation and in the election of
+rulers. The greatest benefit which he conferred on the State was in the
+laws which gave relief to poor debtors, those which enabled people to
+protect themselves by constitutional means, and those which prohibited
+fathers from selling their daughters and sisters for slaves,--an
+abomination which had long disgraced the Athenian republic.
+
+Some of Solon's laws were of questionable utility. He prohibited the
+exportation of the fruits of the soil in Attica, with the exception of
+olive-oil alone,--a regulation difficult to be enforced in a mercantile
+State. Neither would he grant citizenship to immigrants; and he released
+sons from supporting their parents in old age if the parents had
+neglected to give them a trade. He encouraged all developments of
+national industries, knowing that the wealth of the State depended on
+them. Solon was the first Athenian legislator who granted the power of
+testamentary bequests when a man had no legitimate children. Sons
+succeeded to the property of their parents, with the obligation of
+giving a marriage dowry to their sisters. If there were no sons, the
+daughters inherited the property of their parents; but a person who had
+no children could bequeath his property to whom he pleased. Solon
+prohibited costly sacrifices at funerals; he forbade evil-speaking of
+the dead, and indeed of all persons before judges and archons; he
+pronounced a man infamous who took part in a sedition.
+
+When this enlightened and disinterested man had finished his work of
+legislation, 494 B.C., he visited Egypt and Cyprus, and devoted his
+leisure to the composition of poems. He also, it is said, when a
+prisoner in the hands of the Persians, visited Croesus, the rich king of
+Lydia, and gave to him an admonitory lesson on the vicissitudes of life.
+After a prolonged absence, Solon returned to Athens about the time of
+the usurpation of his kinsman Peisistratus (560 B.C.), who, however,
+suffered the aged legislator and patriot to go unharmed, and even
+allowed most of his laws to remain in force.
+
+The constitution and laws of Athens continued substantially for about a
+hundred years after the archonship of Solon, when the democratic party
+under Cleisthenes gained complete ascendency. Some modification of the
+laws was then made. The political franchise was extended to all free
+native Athenians. The command of the military forces was given to ten
+generals, one from each tribe, instead of being intrusted to one of the
+archons. The Ecclesia, a formal assembly of the citizens, met more
+frequently. The people were called into direct action as _dikasts_, or
+jurors; all citizens were eligible to the magistracy, even to the
+archonship; ostracism,--which virtually was exile without
+disgrace,--became a political necessity to check the ascendency of
+demagogues.
+
+Such were the main features of the constitution and jurisprudence of
+Athens when the struggle between the patricians and plebeians of Rome
+began, to which we now give our attention. It was the real beginning of
+constitutional liberty in Rome. Before this time the government was in
+the hands either of kings or aristocrats. The patricians were
+descendants of the original Latin, Sabine, and Etruscan families; the
+plebeians were the throng of common folk brought in by conquest or later
+immigration,--mostly of Latin origin. The senate was the ruling power
+after the expulsion of the kings, and senators were selected from the
+great patrician families, who controlled by their wealth and influence
+the popular elections, the army and navy, and all foreign relations.
+Consuls, the highest magistrates, who commanded the armies, were
+annually elected by the people; but for several centuries the consuls
+belonged to great families. The constitution was essentially
+aristocratic, and the aristocracy was based on wealth. Power was in the
+hands of nobles, whether their ancestors were patricians or plebeians,
+although in the early ages of the Republic they were mostly patricians
+by birth. But with the growth of Rome new families that were not
+descended from the ancient tribes became prominent,--like the Claudii,
+the Julii, and the Servilii,--and were incorporated with the nobility.
+There are very few names in Roman history before the time of Marius
+which did not belong to this noble class. The _plebs_, or common people,
+had at first no political privileges whatever, not even the right of
+suffrage, and were not allowed to marry into patrician rank. Indeed,
+they were politically and socially oppressed.
+
+The first great event which gave the plebs protection and political
+importance was the appointment of representatives called "tribunes of
+the people,"--a privilege extorted from the patricians. The tribunes had
+the right to be present at the deliberations of the senate; their
+persons were inviolable, and they had the power of veto over obnoxious
+laws. Their power continually increased, until they were finally elected
+from the senatorial body. In 421 B.C. the plebs had gained sufficient
+influence to establish the _connubium_, by which they were allowed to
+intermarry with patricians. In the same year they were admitted to the
+quaestorship, which office entitled the possessor to a seat in the
+senate. The quaestors had charge of the public money. In 336 B.C. the
+plebeians obtained the praetorship, a judicial office.
+
+In the year 286 B.C. the distinctions vanished between plebeians and
+patricians, and the term _populus_ instead of _plebs_, was applied to
+all Roman people alike. Originally the _populus_ comprised strictly
+Roman citizens, those who belonged to the original tribes, and who had
+the right of suffrage. When the plebeians obtained access to the great
+offices of the state, the senate represented the whole people as it
+formerly represented the _populus_, and the term _populus_ was enlarged
+to embrace the entire community.
+
+The senate was an august body, and was very powerful. It was both
+judicial and legislative, and for several centuries was composed of
+patricians alone. Its members always belonged to the aristocracy,
+whether of patrician or plebeian descent, and were supposed to be rich.
+Under Augustus it required one million two hundred thousand sesterces
+annually to support the senatorial dignity. The senate, the members of
+which were chosen for life, had the superintendence of matters of
+religion and foreign relations; it commanded the levies of troops; it
+regulated duties and taxes; it gave audience to ambassadors; it
+determined upon the way that war should be conducted; it decreed to what
+provinces governors should be sent; it declared martial law in the
+appointment of dictators; and it decreed triumphs to fortunate generals.
+The senators, as a badge of distinction, wore upon their tunics a broad
+purple stripe, and they had the privilege of the best seats in the
+theatres. Their decisions were laws _(leges)._ A large part of them had
+held curule offices, which entitled them to a seat in the senate for
+life. The curule officers were the consuls, the praetors, the aediles,
+the quaestors, the tribunes; so that an able senator was sure of a great
+office in the course of his life. A man could scarcely be a senator
+unless he had held a great office, nor could he often have held a great
+office unless he were a senator. Thus it would seem that the Roman
+constitution for three hundred years after the expulsion of the kings
+was essentially aristocratic. The _plebs_ had but small consideration
+till the time of the Gracchi.
+
+But after the institution of tribunes a change in the constitution
+gradually took place, so that it was neither aristocratic nor popular
+exclusively, but was composed of both elements, and was a system of
+balance of power between the various classes. The more complete the
+balance of power, the closer is the resemblance to a constitutional
+government. When one class acted as a check against another class, as
+gradually came to pass, until the subversion of liberties by successful
+generals, the senate, the magistrates, and the people in their
+assemblies shared between them the political power, but the senate had a
+preponderating influence. The judicial, the legislative, and the
+executive authority was as well defined in Roman legislation as it is in
+English or American. No person was above the authority of the laws; no
+one class could subvert the liberties and prerogatives of another
+class,--even the senate could not override the constitution. The
+consuls, elected by the centuries, presided over the senate and over the
+assemblies of the people. There was no absolute power exercised at Rome
+until the subversion of the constitution, except by dictators chosen by
+the senate in times of imminent danger. Nor could senators elect members
+of their own body; the censors alone had the right of electing from the
+ex-magistrates, and of excluding such as were unworthy. The consuls
+could remain in office but a year, and could be called to account when
+their terms of office had expired. The tribunes of the people ultimately
+could prevent a consul from convening the senate, could seize a consul
+and imprison him, and could veto an ordinance of the senate itself. The
+nobles had no exclusive privilege like the feudal aristocracy of
+mediaeval Europe, although it was their aim to secure the high
+magistracies to the members of their own body. The term _nobilitas_
+implied that some one of a man's ancestors had filled a curule
+magistracy. A patrician, long before the reforms of the Gracchi, had
+become a man of secondary importance, but the nobles were aristocrats to
+the close of the republic, and continued to secure the highest offices;
+they prevented their own extinction by admitting into their ranks those
+who distinguished themselves,--that is, exercising their influence in
+the popular elections to secure the magistracies from among themselves.
+
+The Roman constitution then, as gradually developed by the necessities
+and crises that arose, which I have not space to mention, was a
+wonderful monument of human wisdom. The nobility were very powerful from
+their wealth and influence, but the people were not ground down. There
+were no oppressive laws to reduce them to practical slavery; what rights
+they gained they retained. They constantly extorted new privileges,
+until they were sufficiently powerful to be courted by demagogues. It
+was the demagogues, generally aristocratic ones, like Catiline and
+Caesar, who subverted the liberties of the people by buying votes. But
+for nearly five hundred years not a man arose whom the Roman people
+feared, and the proud symbol "SPQR," on the standards of the armies of
+the republic, bore the name of the Roman Senate and People to the ends
+of the earth.
+
+When, however, the senate came to be made up of men whom the great
+generals selected; when the tribunes played into the hands of the very
+men they were created to oppose; when the high-priest of a people,
+originally religious, was chosen politically and without regard to moral
+or religious consideration; when aristocratic nobles left their own
+ranks to steal the few offices which the people controlled,--then the
+constitution, under which the Romans had advanced to the conquest of the
+world, became subverted, and the empire was a consolidated despotism.
+
+Under the emperors there was no constitution, since they combined in
+their own persons all the great offices of state, and controlled the
+senate, the army, the tribunals of the law, the distant provinces, the
+city itself, and regulated taxes and imposed burdens as they pleased.
+The senate lost its independence, the courts their justice, the army its
+spirit, and the people their hopes. And yet the old forms remained; the
+senate met as in the days of the Gracchi, and there were consuls and
+praetors as before.
+
+However much we may deplore the subversion of the Roman constitution and
+the absolute reign of the emperors, in which most historians see a
+political necessity, there was yet under these emperors, whether good or
+bad, the reign of law, the bequest of five hundred years' experience.
+The emperors reigned despotically, but under the forms of legislation.
+Nor did they attempt to subvert laws which did not interfere with their
+own political power. What is called jurisprudence they even improved, as
+that later imperial despot Napoleon gave a code to the nation he ruled.
+It is this science of jurisprudence, for which the Romans had a genius,
+that gives them their highest claim to be ranked among the benefactors
+of mankind. They created legal science. Its aim was justice,--equity in
+the relations between man and man. This was the pride of the Roman
+world, even under the rule of tyrants and madmen, and this has survived
+all the calamities of fifteen hundred years. The Roman laws--founded by
+the Republic, but symmetrically completed by the Empire--have more
+powerfully affected the interests of civilization than have the
+philosophy and arts of Greece. Roman jurisprudence was not perfectly
+developed until five hundred years after the Christian era, when
+Justinian consolidated it into the Code, the Pandects, and the
+Institutes. The classical jurists, like Gaius, Ulpian, and Paulus, may
+have laid the foundation, but the superstructure was raised under the
+auspices of the imperial despots.
+
+The earliest code of Roman laws was called the Twelve Tables, framed
+from the report of the commissioners sent to Athens and other Greek
+States, to collect what was most useful in their legal systems. The laws
+of the Twelve Tables were the basis of all the Roman laws, civil and
+religious. But the edicts of the praetors, who were the great equity
+judges as well as the common-law magistrates, proclaimed certain changes
+which custom and the practice of the courts had introduced; and these,
+added to the _leges populi_, or laws proposed by the consul and passed
+by the centuries, the _plebiscita_, or laws proposed by the tribunes
+and passed by the tribes, and the _senatus consulta,_ or decrees of the
+senate, gradually swelled the laws to a great number. Three thousand
+engraved plates of brass containing these various laws were deposited in
+the capitol.
+
+Subtleties and fictions were in the course of litigations introduced by
+the lawyers to defeat the written statutes, and jurisprudence became
+complicated as early as the time of Cicero. Even the opinions of eminent
+lawyers were adopted by the legal profession as authoritative, and were
+recognized by the courts. The evils of a complicated jurisprudence were
+so evident in the seventh century of the city, that Q. Mucius Scaevola,
+a great lawyer, when consul, published a scientific elaboration of the
+civil law. Cicero studied law under him, and his contemporaries, Varus
+and Aelius Gallus, wrote learned treatises, from which extracts appear
+in the Digest made under the Emperor Justinian, 528 A.D. Julius Caesar
+contemplated a complete revision of the laws, but did not live long
+enough to carry out his intentions. His legislation, so far as he
+directed his mind to it, was very just. Among other laws established by
+him was one which ordained that creditors should accept lands as payment
+for their outstanding debts, according to the value determined by
+commissioners. In his time the relative value of money had changed, and
+was greatly diminished. The most important law of Augustus, deserving of
+all praise, was that which related to the manumission of slaves; but he
+did not interfere with the social relations of the people after he had
+deprived them of political liberty. He once attempted, by his _Lex
+Julia_, to counteract the custom which then prevailed, of abstaining
+from legal marriage and substituting concubinage instead, by which the
+free population declined; but this attempt to improve the morals of the
+people met with such opposition from the tribes and centuries that the
+next emperor abolished popular assemblies altogether, which Augustus had
+feared to do. The senate in the time of the emperors, composed chiefly
+of lawyers and magistrates, and entirely dependent upon them, became the
+great fountain of law. By the original constitution the people were the
+source of power, and the senate merely gave or refused its approbation
+to the laws proposed; but under the emperors the _comitia_, or popular
+assemblies, disappeared, and the senate passed decrees which had the
+force of laws, subject to the veto of the Emperor. It was not until the
+time of Septimus Severus and Caracalla (second century A.D.) that the
+legislative action of the senate ceased, and the edicts and rescripts of
+emperors took the place of all legislation.
+
+The golden age of Roman jurisprudence was from the birth of Cicero to
+the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus, 222 A.D.; before this period
+it was an occult science, confined to praetors, pontiffs, and patrician
+lawyers. But in the latter days of the republic law became the
+fashionable study of Roman youth, and eminent masters arose. The first
+great lawyer who left behind him important works was Q. Mucius Scaevola,
+who wrote a treatise in eighteen books on the civil law. "He was," says
+Cicero, "the most eloquent of jurists and the most learned of orators."
+This work, George Long thinks, had a great influence on contemporaries
+and on subsequent jurists, who followed it as a model. It is the oldest
+work from which there are any excerpts in the Digest.
+
+Servius Sulpicius, the friend of Cicero and his fellow-student in
+oratory, surpassed his teachers Balbus and Gallus, and was the equal in
+reputation of the great Mucius Scaevola, the Pontifex Maximus, who said
+it was disgraceful for a patrician and a noble to be ignorant of the law
+with which he had to do. Cicero ascribes the great superiority of
+Servius as a lawyer to the study of philosophy, which disciplined and
+developed his mind, and enabled him to deduce his conclusions from his
+premises with logical precision. He left behind him one hundred and
+eighty treatises, and had numerous pupils, among whom A. Ofilius and
+Alfenus Varus, Cato, Julius Caesar, Antony, and Cicero were great
+lawyers. Labeo, in the time of Augustus, wrote four hundred books on
+jurisprudence, spending six months in the year in giving instruction to
+his pupils and in answering legal questions, and the other six months in
+the country in writing books. Like all the great Roman jurists, he was
+versed in literature and philosophy, and so devoted to his profession
+that he refused political office. His rival Capito was equally learned
+in all departments of the law, and left behind him as many treatises as
+Labeo. These two jurists were the founders of celebrated schools, like
+the ancient philosophers, and each had distinguished followers. Gaius,
+who flourished in the time of the Antonines, was a great legal
+authority; and the recent discovery of his Institutes has revealed the
+least mutilated fragment of Roman jurisprudence which exists, and one of
+the most valuable, which sheds great light on ancient Roman law; it was
+found in the library of Verona. No Roman jurist had a higher reputation
+than Papinian, who was praefectus praetorio under Septimius Severus (193
+A.D.),--an office which made him second only to the Emperor, a sort of
+grand vizier, whose power extended over all departments of the State; he
+was beheaded by Caracalla. The great commentator Cujacius declares that
+he was the first of all lawyers who have been, or who are to be; that no
+one ever surpassed him in legal knowledge, and no one will ever equal
+him. Paulus was his contemporary, and held the same office as Papinian.
+He was the most fertile of Roman law-writers, and there is more taken
+from him in Justinian's Digest than from any other jurist, except
+Ulpian. There are two thousand and eighty-three excerpts from this
+writer,--one sixth of the whole Digest. No legal writer, ancient or
+modern, has handled so many subjects. In perspicuity he is said to be
+inferior to Ulpian, one of the most famous of jurists, who was his
+contemporary. Ulpian has also exercised a great influence on modern
+jurisprudence from the copious extracts of his writings in the Digest.
+He was the chief adviser of Alexander Severus, and like Paulus was
+praefectus praetorio. The number of excerpts in the Digest from him is
+said to be two thousand four hundred and sixty-two, and they form a
+third part of it. Some fragments of his writings remain. The last of the
+great civilians associated with Gaius, Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian, as
+oracles of jurisprudence, was Modestinus, who was a pupil of Ulpian. He
+wrote both in Greek and Latin. There are three hundred and forty-five
+excerpts in the Digest from his writings, the titles of which show the
+extent and variety of his labors.
+
+These eminent lawyers shed great glory on the Roman civilization. In the
+earliest times men sought distinction on the fields of battle, but in
+the latter days of the republic honor was conferred for forensic
+ability. The first pleaders of Rome were not jurisconsults, but
+aristocratic "patrons," who looked after their "clients,"--men of lower
+social grade, who in return for protection and assistance rendered
+service, sometimes political by voting, sometimes pecuniary, sometimes
+military. But when law became complicated, a class of men arose to
+interpret it. These men were held in great honor, and reached by their
+services the highest offices,--like Cicero and Hortensius. No
+remuneration was given originally for forensic pleading beyond the
+services which the client gave to a patron, but gradually the practice
+of the law became lucrative. Hortensius, as well as Cicero, gained an
+immense fortune; he had several villas, a gallery of paintings, a large
+stock of wines, parks, fish-ponds, and aviaries. Cicero had villas in
+all parts of Italy, a house on the Palatine with columns of Numidian
+marble, and a fortune of twenty millions of sesterces, equal to eight
+hundred thousand dollars. Most of the great statesmen of Rome in the
+time of Cicero were either lawyers or generals. Crassus, Pompey, P.
+Sextus, M. Marcellus, P. Clodius, Asinius Pollio, C. Cicero, M.
+Antonius, Julius Caesar, Caelius, Brutus, Catullus, were all celebrated
+for their forensic efforts. Candidates for the bar studied four years
+under a distinguished jurist, and were required to pass a rigorous
+examination. The judges were chosen from members of the bar, as well as
+in later times the senators. The great lawyers were not only learned in
+the law, but possessed great accomplishments. Varro was a lawyer, and
+was the most learned man that Rome ever produced. But under the emperors
+the lawyers were chiefly distinguished for their legal attainments, like
+Paulus and Ulpian.
+
+During this golden age of Roman jurisprudence many commentaries were
+written on the Twelve Tables, the Perpetual Edict, the Laws of the
+People, and the Decrees of the senate, as well as a vast mass of
+treatises on every department of the law, most of which have perished.
+The Institutes of Gaius, already mentioned, are the most valuable that
+remain, and have thrown great light on some important branches
+previously involved in obscurity. Their use in explaining the Institutes
+of Justinian is spoken of very highly by Mackenzie, since the latter are
+mainly founded on the long-lost work of Gaius. The great lawyers who
+flourished from Trajan to Alexander Severus, like Gaius, Ulpian, Paulus,
+Papinian, and Modestinus, had no successors who can be compared with
+them, and their works became standard authorities in the courts of law.
+
+After the death of Alexander Severus, 235 A.D., no great accession was
+made to Roman law until Theodosius II., 438 A.D., caused the
+constitutions, from Constantine to his own time, to be collected and
+arranged in sixteen books. This was called the Theodosian Code, which
+in the West was held in high esteem. It was very influential among the
+Germanic nations, serving as the chief basis of their early legislation;
+it also paved the way for the more complete codification that followed
+in the Justinian Code, which superseded it.
+
+To Justinian belongs the immortal glory of reforming the jurisprudence
+of the Romans. "In the space of ten centuries," says Gibbon, "the
+infinite variety of laws and legal opinions had filled many thousand
+volumes, which no fortune could purchase, and no capacity could digest.
+Books could not easily be found, and the judges, poor in the midst of
+riches, were reduced to the exercise of their illiterate discretion."
+The emperors had very early begun to issue ordinances, under the
+authority of the various offices gathered into their hands; and these,
+together with the answers to appeals from the lower courts made to the
+emperors directly, or to the sort of supreme court which they
+established, were called _imperial constitutions_ and _rescripts_.
+Justinian determined to unite in one body all the rules of law, whatever
+may have been their origin; and in the year 528 appointed ten
+jurisconsults, among whom was the celebrated Tribonian, to select and
+arrange the imperial constitutions and rescripts, leaving out what was
+obsolete or useless or contradictory, and to make such alterations as
+the circumstances required. This was called the _Code_, divided into
+twelve books, and comprising the constitutions from Hadrian to
+Justinian. It was published in fourteen months after it was undertaken.
+
+Justinian thereupon authorized Tribonian, then quaestor, _vir magnificus
+magisteria dignitate inter agentes decoratus,_--"for great titles were
+now given to the officers of the crown,"--to prepare, with the
+assistance of sixteen associates, a collection of extracts from the
+writings of the most eminent jurists, so as to form a body of law for
+the government of the empire, with power to select and omit and alter;
+and this immense work was done in three years, and published under the
+title of Digest, or Pandects. Says Lord Mackenzie:
+
+"All the judicial learning of former times was laid under contribution
+by Tribonian and his colleagues. Selections from the works of
+thirty-nine of the ablest lawyers, scattered over two thousand separate
+treatises, were collected in one volume; and care was taken to inform
+posterity that three millions of lines were abridged and reduced in
+these extracts to the modest number of one hundred and fifty thousand.
+Among the selected jurists only three names belonged to the age of the
+republic,--the civilians who flourished under the first emperors are
+seldom appealed to; so that most of the writers whose works have
+contributed to the Pandects lived within a period of one hundred years.
+More than a third of the whole Pandects is from Ulpian, and next to him
+the principal writers are Paulus, Papinian, Salvius Julianus, Pomponius,
+Q. Cervidius Scaevola, and Gaius. Though the variety of subjects is
+immense, the Digest has no claims to scientific arrangement. It is a
+vast cyclopedia of heterogeneous law badly arranged; everything is
+there, but everything is not in its proper place."
+
+Neither the Digest nor the Code was adapted to elementary instruction;
+it was therefore necessary to prepare a treatise on the principles of
+Roman law. This was intrusted to Tribonian and two professors,
+Theophilus and Dorotheus. It is probable that Tribonian merely
+superintended the work, which was founded chiefly on the Institutes of
+Gaius, divided into four books. It has been universally admired for its
+method and elegant precision. It was intended merely as an introduction
+to the Pandects and the Code, and was entitled the Institutes.
+
+The _Novels_, or _New Constitutions, of Justinian_ were subsequently
+published, being the new ordinances of the Emperor and the changes he
+thought proper to make, and were therefore of high authority. The Code,
+Pandects, Institutes, and Novels of Justinian comprise the Roman law as
+received in Europe, in the form given by the school of Bologna, and is
+called the "Corpus Juris Civilis." Savigny says:--
+
+"It was in that form that the Roman law became the common law of Europe;
+and when, four centuries later, other sources came to be added to it,
+the _Corpus Juris_ of the school of Bologna had been so universally
+received, and so long established as a basis of practice, that the new
+discoveries remained in the domain of science, and served only for the
+theory of the law. For the same reason, the Ante-Justinian law is
+excluded from practice."
+
+After Justinian the old texts were left to moulder as useless though
+venerable, and they have nearly all disappeared. The Code, the Pandects,
+and the Institutes were declared to be the only legitimate authority,
+and alone were admitted to the tribunals or taught in the schools. The
+rescripts of the early emperors recognized too many popular rights to
+suit the despotic character of Justinian; and the older jurists, like
+the Scaevolas, Sulpicius, and Labeo, were distasteful from their
+sympathy with free institutions. Different opinions have been expressed
+by the jurisconsults as to the merits of the Justinian collection. By
+some it is regarded as a vast mass of legal lumber; by others, as a
+beautiful monument of human labor. After the lapse of so many centuries
+it is certain that a large portion of it is of no practical utility,
+since it is not applicable to modern wants. But again, no one doubts
+that it has exercised a great and good influence on moral and political
+science, and introduced many enlightened views concerning the
+administration of justice as well as the nature of civil government, and
+thus has modified the codes of the Teutonic nations that sprang up on
+the ruins of the old Roman world. It was used in the Greek empire until
+the fall of Constantinople. It never entirely lost authority in Italy,
+although it remained buried for centuries, till the discovery of the
+Florentine copy of the Pandects at the siege of Amalfi in 1135. Peter
+Valence, in the eleventh century, made use of it in a law-book which he
+published.
+
+With the rise of the Italian cities, the study of Roman law revived, and
+Bologna became the seat from which it spread over Europe. In the
+sixteenth century the science of theoretical law passed from Italy to
+France, under the auspices of Francis I., when Cujas, or Cujacius,
+became the great ornament of the school of Bourges and the greatest
+commentator on Roman law until Dumoulin appeared. Grotius, in Holland,
+excited the same interest in civil law that Dumoulin did in France,
+followed by eminent professors in Leyden and the German universities. It
+was reserved for Pothier, in the middle of the eighteenth century, to
+reduce the Roman law to systematic order,--one of the most gigantic
+tasks that ever taxed the industry of man. The recent discoveries,
+especially that made by Niebuhr of the long-lost work of Gaius, have
+given a great impulse to the study of Roman law in Germany; and to this
+impulse no one has contributed so greatly as Savigny of Berlin.
+
+The great importance of the subject demands a more minute notice of the
+principles of the Roman law than the limits of this work properly allow.
+I shall therefore endeavor to abridge what has been written by eminent
+authorities, taking as a basis the late work of Lord Mackenzie and the
+learned and interesting essay of Professor Maine.
+
+The Institutes of Justinian began with the law of persons, recognizing
+the distinction of ranks. All persons are capable of enjoying civil
+rights, but not all in the same degree. Greater privileges are allowed
+to men than to women, to freemen than to slaves, to fathers than
+to children.
+
+In the eye of the law all Roman citizens were equal wherever they lived,
+whether in the capital or the provinces. Citizenship embraced both
+political and civil rights. Political rights had reference to the right
+of voting in the comitia; but this was not considered the essence of
+citizenship, which was the enjoyment of the _connubium_, and
+_commercium_. By the former the citizen could contract a valid marriage
+and acquire the rights resulting from it, particularly the paternal
+power; by the latter he could acquire and dispose of property.
+Citizenship was acquired by birth and by manumission; it was lost when a
+Roman became a prisoner of war, or had been exiled for crime, or became
+a citizen of another State. An unsullied reputation was required by law
+for a citizen to exercise his rights to their full extent.
+
+The Roman jurists acknowledged all persons originally free by natural
+law; and while they recognized slavery, they ascribed the power of
+masters entirely to the law and custom of nations. Persons taken in war
+were considered at the absolute control of their captors, and were
+therefore, _de facto_, slaves; the children of a female slave followed
+the condition of their mother, and belonged to her master. But masters
+could manumit their slaves, who thus became Roman citizens with some
+restrictions. After the emancipation of a slave, he was bound to render
+certain services to his former master as patron, and if the freedman
+died intestate his property reverted to his patron.
+
+Marriage was contracted by the simple consent of the parties, though in
+early times equality of condition was required. The _lex Canuleia_,
+A.U.C. 309, authorized connubium between patricians and plebeians, and
+the _lex Julia_, A.U.C. 757, allowed it between freedmen and freeborn.
+By the _conventio in manum_, a wife passed out of her family into that
+of her husband, who acquired all her property; without it, the woman
+remained in the power of her father, and retained the free disposition
+of her property. Polygamy was not permitted; and relationship within
+certain degrees rendered the parties incapable of contracting marriage.
+(These rules as to forbidden degrees have been substantially adopted in
+England.) Celibacy was discouraged. Concubinage was allowed, if a man
+had not a wife, and provided the concubine was not the wife of another
+man; this heathenish custom was abrogated by Justinian. The wife was
+entitled to protection and support from her husband, and she retained
+her property independent of him. On her marriage the father gave his
+daughter a dowry in proportion to his means, the management of which,
+with its usufruct during marriage, belonged to the husband; but he could
+not alienate real estate without the wife's consent, and on the
+dissolution of marriage the _dos_ reverted to the wife. Divorce existed
+in all ages at Rome, and was very common at the beginning of the empire;
+to check its prevalence, laws were passed inflicting severe penalties on
+those whose bad conduct led to it. Every man, whether married or not,
+could adopt children under certain restrictions, and they passed
+entirely under paternal power. But the marriage relation among the
+Romans did not accord after all with those principles of justice which
+we see in other parts of their legislative code. The Roman husband, like
+the father, was a tyrant. The facility of divorce destroyed mutual
+confidence, and inflamed every trifling dispute; for a word or a
+message or a letter or the mandate of a freedman was quite sufficient to
+secure a separation. It was not until Christianity became the religion
+of the empire that divorce could not be easily effected without a just
+cause. This facility of divorce was a great stigma on the Roman laws,
+and the degradation of woman was the principal consequence. But woman
+never was honored in any Pagan land, although her condition at Rome was
+better than it was at Athens. She always was regarded as a possession
+rather than as a person; her virtue was mistrusted, and her aspirations
+were scorned; she was hampered and guarded more like a slave than the
+equal companion of man. But the progress of legislation, as a whole, was
+in her favor, and she continued to gain new privileges until the fall of
+the empire. The Roman Catholic Church regards marriage as one of the
+sacraments, and through all the Middle Ages and down to our own day the
+great authority of the Church has been one of the strongest supports of
+that institution, as necessary to Christianity as to civilization. We
+Americans have improved on the morality of Jesus, of the early and later
+Church, and of the great nations of modern Europe; and in many of our
+States persons are allowed to slip out of the marriage tie about as
+easily as they get into it.
+
+Nothing is more remarkable in the Roman laws than the extent of
+paternal power. It was unjust, and bears the image of a barbarous age.
+Moreover, it seems to have been coeval with the foundation of the city.
+A father could chastise his children by stripes, by imprisonment, by
+exile, by sending them to the country with chains on their feet. He was
+even armed with the power of life and death. "Neither age nor rank,"
+says Gibbon, "nor the consular office, could exempt the most illustrious
+citizen from the bonds of filial subjection. Without fear, though not
+without danger of abuse, the Roman legislators had reposed unbounded
+confidence in the sentiments of paternal love, and the oppression was
+tempered by the assurance that each generation must succeed in its turn
+to the awful dignity of parent and master." By an express law of the
+Twelve Tables a father could sell his children as slaves. But the abuse
+of paternal power was checked in the republic by the censors, and
+afterward by emperors. Alexander Severus limited the right of the father
+to simple correction, and Constantine declared the father who should
+kill his son to be guilty of murder. The rigor of parents in reference
+to the disposition of the property of children was also gradually
+relaxed. Under Augustus, the son could keep absolute possession of what
+he had acquired in war; under Constantine, he could retain any property
+acquired in the civil service, and all property inherited from the
+mother could also be retained. In later times, a father could not give
+his son or daughter to another by adoption without their consent. Thus
+this _patria potestas_ was gradually relaxed as civilization advanced,
+though it remained a peculiarity of Roman law to the latest times, and
+was severer than is ever seen in the modern world. Fathers were bound to
+maintain their children when they had no separate means to supply their
+wants, and children were also bound to maintain their parents if in
+want. These reciprocal duties, creditable to the Roman lawgivers, are
+recognized in the French Code, but not in the English, which also
+recognizes the right of a father to bequeath his whole estate to
+strangers,--a thing which Roman fathers had not power to do. The age
+when children attained majority among the Romans was twenty-five years.
+Women were condemned to the perpetual tutelage of parents, husbands, or
+guardians, as it was supposed they never could attain to the age of
+reason and experience. The relation of guardian and ward was strictly
+observed by the Romans. They made a distinction between the right to
+govern a person and the right to manage his estate, although the tutor
+or guardian could do both. If the pupil was an infant, the tutor could
+act without the intervention of the pupil; if the pupil was above seven
+years of age, he was considered to have an imperfect will. The youth
+ceased to be a pupil, if a boy, at fourteen; if a girl, at twelve. The
+tutor managed the estate of the pupil, but was liable for loss
+occasioned by bad management. He could sell movable property when
+expedient, but not real estate, without judicial authority. The tutor
+named by the father was preferred to all others.
+
+The Institutes of Justinian pass from persons to things, or the law
+relating to real rights; in other words, that which pertains to
+property. Some things common to all, like air, light, the ocean, and
+things sacred, like temples and churches, are not classed as property.
+
+Two things were required for the transfer of property, for it is the
+essence of property that the owner of a thing should have the right to
+transfer it,--first, the consent of the owner to transfer the thing upon
+some just ground; and secondly, the actual delivery of the thing to the
+person who is to acquire it. Movables were presumed to be the property
+of the possessors, until positive evidence was produced to the contrary.
+A prescriptive title to movables was acquired by possession for one
+year, and to immovables by possession for two years. Undisturbed
+possession for thirty years constituted in general a valid title.
+
+When a Roman died, his heirs succeeded to all his property by hereditary
+right. If he left no will, his estate devolved upon his relatives in a
+certain order prescribed by law. The power of making a testament only
+belonged to citizens above puberty. Children under the paternal power
+could not make a will. Males above fourteen and females above twelve,
+when not under power, could make wills without the authority of their
+guardian; but pupils, lunatics, prisoners of war, criminals, and various
+other persons were incapable of making a testament. The testator could
+divide his property among his heirs in such proportions as he saw fit;
+but if there was no distribution, all the heirs participated equally. A
+man could disinherit either of his children by declaring his intentions
+in his will, but only for grave reasons,--such as grievously injuring
+his person or character or feelings, or attempting his life. No will was
+effectual unless one or more persons were appointed heirs to represent
+the deceased. Wills were required to be signed by the testator, or some
+person for him, in the presence of seven witnesses who were Roman
+citizens. If a will was made by a parent for distributing his property
+solely among his children, no witnesses were required; and the ordinary
+formalities were dispensed with among soldiers in actual service, and
+during the prevalence of pestilence. The testament was opened in the
+presence of the witnesses, or a majority of them; and after they had
+acknowledged their seals a copy was made, and the original was deposited
+in the public archives.
+
+According to the Twelve Tables, the powers of a testator in disposing
+of his property were unlimited; but in process of time, laws were
+enacted to restrain immoderate or unnatural bequests. By the Falcidian
+law, in the time of Augustus, no one could leave in legacies more than
+three fourths of his estate, so that the heirs could inherit at least
+one fourth. Again, a law was passed by which the descendants were
+entitled to one third of the succession, and to one half if there were
+more than four. In France, if a man die leaving one lawful child, he can
+dispose of only half his estate by will; if he leaves two children, he
+can dispose only of one third; if he leaves three or more children, then
+he can dispose by will of only one fourth of his estate. In England, a
+man can disinherit both his wife and children. These, and many other
+matters,--bequests in trust, succession of men dying intestate, heirs at
+law, etc.,--were regulated by the Romans in ways on which our modern
+legislators have improved little or none.
+
+In the matter of contracts the Roman law was especially comprehensive,
+and the laws of France and Scotland are substantially based upon the
+Roman system. The Institutes of Gaius and Justinian distinguish four
+sorts of obligations,--_aut re, aut verbis, aut literis, aut consensu_.
+Gibbon, in his learned chapter, prefers to consider the specific
+obligations of men to each other under promises, benefits, and
+injuries. Lord Mackenzie treats the subject in the order of the
+Institutes:--
+
+"Obligations contracted _re_--by the intervention of _things_--are
+called by the moderns real contracts, because they are not perfected
+till something has passed from one party to another. Of this description
+are the contracts of loan, deposit, and pledge,--security for
+indebtedness. Till the subject is actually lent, deposited, or pledged,
+it does not form the special contract of loan, deposit, or pledge."
+
+Next to the perfection of contracts by _re_,--the intervention of
+things,--were obligations contracted by _verbis_, spoken _words_, and by
+_literis_, or writings. The _verborum obligatio_ was contracted by
+uttering certain words of formal style,--an interrogation being put by
+one party, and an answer given by the other. These stipulations were
+binding. In England all guarantees must be in writing.
+
+The _obligatio literis_ was a written acknowledgment of debt, chiefly
+employed when money was borrowed; but the creditor could not sue upon a
+note within two years from its date, without being called upon also to
+prove that the money was in fact paid to the debtor.
+
+Contracts perfected by consent, _consensu_, had reference to sale,
+hiring; partnership, and mandate, or orders to be carried out by agents.
+All contracts of sale were good without writing.
+
+Acts which caused damage to another opened a new class of cases. The
+law obliged the wrong-doer to make reparation, and this responsibility
+extended to damages arising not only from positive acts, but from
+negligence or imprudence. In cases of libel or slander, the truth of the
+allegation might be pleaded in justification. In all cases it was
+necessary to show that an injury had been committed maliciously; but if
+damage arose in the exercise of a right, as killing a slave in
+self-defence, no claim for reparation could be maintained. If any one
+exercised a profession or trade for which he was not qualified, he was
+liable to all the damage his want of skill or knowledge might
+occasion,--a provision that some of our modern laws might advantageously
+revive. When any damage was done by a slave or an animal, the owner of
+the same was liable for the loss, though the mischief was done without
+his knowledge and against his will. If anything was thrown from a window
+giving on the public thoroughfare so as to injure any one by the fall,
+the occupier was bound to repair the damage, though done by a stranger.
+Legal claims might be transferred to a third person by sale, exchange,
+or donation; but to prevent speculators from purchasing debts at low
+prices, it was ordered that the assignee should not be entitled to exact
+from the debtor more than he himself had paid to acquire the debt, with
+interest,--a wise and just regulation.
+
+By the ancient constitution, the king had the prerogative of
+determining civil causes. The right then devolved on the consuls,
+afterward on the praetor, and in certain cases on the curule and
+plebeian ediles, who were charged with the internal police of the city.
+
+The praetor, a magistrate next in dignity to the consuls, acted as
+supreme judge of the civil courts, assisted by a council of
+jurisconsults to determine questions in law. At first one praetor was
+sufficient, but as the limits of the city and empire extended, he was
+joined by a colleague. After the conquest of Sicily, Sardinia, and the
+two Spains, new praetors were appointed to administer justice in the
+provinces. The praetor held his court in the comitium, wore a robe
+bordered with purple, sat in a curule chair, and was attended
+by lictors.
+
+The praetor delegated his power to three classes of judges, called
+respectively _judex_, _arbiter_, and _recuperator_. When parties were at
+issue about facts, it was the custom for the praetor to fix the question
+of law upon which the action turned, and then to remit to a delegate, or
+judge, to inquire into the facts and pronounce judgment according to
+them. In the time of Augustus there were four thousand judices, who were
+merely private citizens, generally senators or men of consideration. The
+judex was invested by the magistrate with a judicial commission for a
+single case only. After being sworn to duty, he received from the
+praetor a formula containing a summary of all the points under
+litigation, from which he was not allowed to depart. He was required not
+merely to investigate facts, but to give sentence; and as law questions
+were more or less mixed up with the case, he was allowed to consult one
+or more jurisconsults. If the case was beyond his power to decide, he
+could decline to give judgment. The arbiter, like the judex, received a
+formula from the praetor, and seemed to have more extensive power. The
+recuperators heard and determined cases, but the number appointed for
+each case was usually three or five.
+
+The _centumvirs_ constituted a permanent tribunal composed of members
+annually elected, in equal numbers, from each tribe; and this tribunal
+was presided over by the praetor, and divided into four chambers, which
+under the republic was placed under the ancient quaestors. The
+centumvirs decided questions of property, embracing a wide range of
+subjects. The Romans had no class of men like the judges of modern
+times; the superior magistrates were changed annually, and political
+duties were mixed with judicial. The evil was partially remedied by the
+institution of legal assessors, selected from the most learned
+jurisconsults. Under the empire the praetors were greatly increased;
+under Tiberius there were sixteen who administered justice, besides the
+consuls, six ediles, and ten tribunes of the people. The Emperor himself
+became the supreme judge, and he was assisted in the discharge of his
+judicial duties by a council composed of the consuls, a magistrate of
+each grade, and fifteen senators. At first, the duties of the praetorian
+prefects were purely military, but finally they discharged important
+judicial functions. The prefect of the city, in the time of the
+emperors, was a great judicial personage, who heard appeals from the
+praetors themselves.
+
+In all cases brought before the courts, the burden of proof was with the
+party asserting an affirmative fact. Proof by writing was generally
+considered most certain, but proof by witnesses was also admitted.
+Pupils, lunatics, infamous persons, interested parties, near relatives,
+and slaves could not bear evidence, nor any person who had a strong
+enmity against either party. The witnesses were required to give their
+testimony on oath. In most cases two witnesses were enough to prove a
+fact. When witnesses gave conflicting testimony, the judge regarded
+those who were most worthy of credit rather than those who were most
+numerous. In the English courts the custom used to be as with the
+Romans, of refusing testimony from those who were interested; but this
+has been removed. On the failure of regular proof, the Roman law allowed
+a party to refer the facts in a civil action to the oath of his
+adversary.
+
+Under the Roman republic there was no appeal in civil suits, but under
+the emperors a regular system was established. Under Augustus there was
+an appeal from all the magistrates to the prefect of the city, and from
+him to the praetorian prefect or even to the Emperor. In the provinces
+there was an appeal from the municipal magistrates to the governors, and
+from them to the Emperor, as Paul appealed from Festus to Caesar. Under
+Justinian no appeal was allowed from a suit which did not involve at
+least twenty pounds in gold.
+
+In regard to criminal courts among the Romans during the republic, the
+only body which had absolute power of life and death was the _comitia
+centuriata_. The senate had no jurisdiction in criminal cases, so far as
+Roman citizens were concerned. It was only in extraordinary emergencies
+that the senate, with the consuls, assumed the responsibility of
+inflicting summary punishment. Under the emperors, the senate was armed
+with the power of criminal jurisdiction; and as the senate was the tool
+of the imperator, he could crush whomsoever he pleased.
+
+As it was inconvenient, when Rome had become a very great city, to
+convene the comitia for the trial of offenders, the expedient was
+adopted of delegating the jurisdiction of the people to persons invested
+with temporary authority, called _quaestors_. These were finally
+established into regular and permanent courts, called _quaestores
+perpetui_. Every case submitted to these courts was tried by a judge and
+jury. It was the duty of the judge to preside and regulate proceedings
+according to law; and it was the duty of the jury, after hearing the
+evidence and pleadings, to decide on the guilt or innocence of the
+accused. As many as fifty persons frequently composed the jury, whose
+names were drawn out of an urn. Each party had a right to challenge a
+certain number, and the verdict was decided by a majority of votes. At
+first the judices were chosen from the senate, and afterward from the
+equestrians, and then again from both orders. But in process of time the
+quaestores perpetui gave place to imperial magistrates. The accused
+defended himself in person or by counsel.
+
+The Romans divided _crimes_ into public and private. Private crimes
+could be prosecuted only by the party injured, and were generally
+punished by pecuniary fines, as among the old Germanic nations.
+
+Of public crimes the _crimen laesae majestatis_, or treason, was
+regarded as the greatest; and this was punished with death and with
+confiscation of goods, while the memory of the offender was declared
+infamous. Greater severity could scarcely be visited on a culprit.
+Treason comprehended conspiracy against the government, assisting the
+enemies of Rome, and misconduct in the command of armies. Thus Manlius,
+in spite of his magnificent services, was hurled from the Tarpeian
+Rock, because he was convicted of an intention to seize upon the
+government. Under the empire not only any attempt on the life of the
+Emperor was treason, but disrespectful words or acts. The criminal was
+even tried after death, that his memory might become infamous; and this
+barbarous practice was perpetuated in France and Scotland as late as the
+beginning of the seventeenth century. In England men have been executed
+for treasonable words. Besides treason there were other crimes against
+the State, such as a breach of the peace, extortion on the part of
+provincial governors, embezzlement of public property, stealing sacred
+things, bribery,--most of which offences were punished by pecuniary
+penalties.
+
+But there were also crimes against individuals, which were punished with
+the death penalty. Wilful murder, poisoning, and parricide were
+capitally punished. Adultery was punished by banishment, besides a
+forfeiture of considerable property; Constantine made it a capital
+offence. Rape was punished with death and confiscation of goods, as in
+England till a late period, when transportation for life became the
+penalty. The punishments inflicted for forgery, coining base money, and
+perjury were arbitrary. Robbery, theft, patrimonial damage, and injury
+to person and property were private trespasses, and not punished by the
+State. After a lapse of twenty years without accusation, crimes were
+supposed to be extinguished. The Cornelian, Pompeian, and Julian laws
+formed the foundation of criminal jurisprudence. This however never
+attained the perfection that was seen in the Civil Code, in which the
+full maturity of Roman wisdom was reached. The emperors greatly
+increased the severity of punishments, as was probably necessary in a
+corrupt state of society. After the decemviral laws fell into disuse,
+the Romans in the days of the republic passed from extreme rigor to
+great lenity, as is observable in the transition from the Puritan régime
+to our own times in the United States. Capital punishment for several
+centuries was exceedingly rare, and was frequently prevented by
+voluntary exile. Under the empire, again, public executions were
+frequent and revolting.
+
+Fines were a common mode of punishment with the Romans, as with the
+early Germans. Imprisonment in a public jail was rare, the custom of
+bail being in general use. Although retaliation was authorized by the
+Twelve Tables for bodily injuries, it was seldom exacted, since
+pecuniary compensation was taken in lieu. Corporal punishments were
+inflicted upon slaves, but rarely upon citizens, except for military
+crimes; but Roman citizens could be sold into slavery for various
+offences, chiefly military, and criminals were often condemned to labor
+in the mines or upon public works. Banishment was common,--_aquae et
+ignis interdictio_; and this was equivalent to the deprivation of the
+necessities of life and incapacitating a person from exercising the
+rights of citizenship. Under the emperors persons were confined often on
+the rocky islands off the coast, or in a compulsory residence in a
+particular place assigned. Thus Chrysostom was sent to a dreary place on
+the banks of the Euxine, and Ovid was banished to Tomi. Death, when
+inflicted, was by hanging, scourging, and beheading; also by strangling
+in prison. Slaves were often crucified, and were compelled to carry
+their cross to the place of execution. This was the most ignominious and
+lingering of all deaths; it was abolished by Constantine, from reverence
+to the sacred symbol. Under the emperors, execution took place also by
+burning alive and exposure to wild beasts; it was thus the early
+Christians were tormented, since their offence was associated with
+treason. Persons of distinction were treated with more favor than the
+lower classes, and their punishments were less cruel and ignominious;
+thus Seneca, condemned for privity to treason, was allowed to choose his
+mode of death. The criminal laws of modern European States followed too
+often the barbarous custom of the Roman emperors until a recent date.
+Since the French Revolution the severity of the penal codes has been
+much modified.
+
+The penal statutes of Rome however, as Gibbon emphatically remarks,
+"formed a very small portion of the Code and the Pandects; and in all
+judicial proceedings the life or death of the citizen was determined
+with less caution and delay than the most ordinary question of covenant
+or inheritance." This was owing to the complicated relations of society,
+by which obligations are created or annulled, while duties to the State
+are explicit and well known, being inscribed not only on tables of
+brass, but on the conscience itself. It was natural, with the growth and
+development of commerce and dominion, that questions should arise which
+could not be ordinarily settled by ancient customs, and the practice of
+lawyers and the decisions of judges continually raised new difficulties,
+to be met only by new edicts. It is a pleasing fact to record, that
+jurisprudence became more just and enlightened as it became more
+intricate. The principles of equity were more regarded under the
+emperors than in the time of Cato. It is in the application of these
+principles that the laws of the Romans have obtained so high
+consideration; their abuse consisted in the expense of litigation, and
+the advantages which the rich thus obtained over the poor.
+
+But if delays and forms led to an expensive and vexatious administration
+of justice, these were more than compensated by the checks which a
+complicated jurisprudence gave to hasty or partial decisions. It was in
+the minuteness and precision of the forms of law, and in the foresight
+with which questions were anticipated in the various transactions of
+business, that the Romans in their civil and social relations were very
+much on a level with modern times. It would be difficult to find in the
+most enlightened of modern codes greater wisdom and foresight than
+appear in the legacy of Justinian as to all questions pertaining to the
+nature, the acquisition, the possession, the use, and the transfer of
+property. Civil obligations are most admirably defined, and all
+contracts are determined by the wisest application of the natural
+principles of justice. Nothing can be more enlightened than the laws
+which relate to leases, to sales, to partnerships, to damages, to
+pledges, to hiring of work, and to quasi-contracts. The laws pertaining
+to the succession to property, to the duties of guardians, to the rights
+of wards, to legacies, to bequests in trust, and to the general
+limitation of testamentary powers were singularly clear. The regulations
+in reference to intestate succession, and to the division of property
+among males and females, were wise and just; we find no laws of entail,
+no unequal rights, no absurd distinction between brothers, no peculiar
+privileges given to males over females, or to older sons. Particularly
+was everything pertaining to property and contracts and wills guarded
+with the most jealous care. A man was sure of possessing his own, and of
+transmitting it to his children. In the Institutes of Justinian we see
+on every page a regard to the principles of natural justice: but
+moreover we find that malicious witnesses should be punished; that
+corrupt judges should be visited with severe penalties; that libels and
+satires should subject their authors to severe chastisement; that every
+culprit should be considered innocent until his guilt was proved.
+
+No infringement on personal rights could be tolerated. A citizen was
+free to go where he pleased, to do whatsoever he would, if he did not
+trespass on the rights of another; to seek his pleasure unobstructed,
+and pursue his business without vexatious incumbrances. If he was
+injured or cheated, he was sure of redress; nor could he be easily
+defrauded with the sanction of the laws. A rigorous police guarded his
+person, his house, and his property; he was supreme and uncontrolled
+within his family. This security to property and life and personal
+rights was guaranteed by the greatest tyrants. Although political
+liberty was dead, the fullest personal liberty was enjoyed under the
+emperors, and it was under their sanction that jurisprudence in some of
+the most important departments of life reached perfection. If injustice
+was suffered it was not on account of the laws, but owing to the
+depravity of men, the venality of the rich, and the tricks of lawyers;
+the laws were wise and equal. The civil jurisprudence of the Romans
+could be copied with safety by the most enlightened of European States;
+indeed, it is already the foundation of their civil codes, especially in
+France and Germany.
+
+That there were some features in the Roman laws which we in these
+Christian times cannot indorse, and which we reprehend, cannot be
+denied. Under the republic there was not sufficient limit to paternal
+power, and the _pater familias_ was necessarily a tyrant. It was unjust
+that the father should control the property of his son, and cruel that
+he was allowed an absolute control not only over his children, but also
+his wife. Yet the limits of paternal power were more and more curtailed,
+so that under the later emperors fathers were not allowed to have more
+authority than was perhaps expedient.
+
+The recognition of slavery as a domestic institution was another blot,
+and slaves could be treated with the grossest cruelty and injustice
+without possibility of redress. But here the Romans were not sinners
+beyond all other nations, and our modern times have witnessed a
+parallel. It was not the existence of slavery, however, which was the
+greatest evil, but the facility by which slaves could be made. The laws
+pertaining to debt were severe, and were most disgraceful in dooming a
+debtor to the absolute power of a creditor. To subject men of the same
+race to slavery for trifling debts which they could not discharge, was
+the great defect of the Roman laws. But even these cruel regulations
+were modified, so that in the corrupt times of the empire there was no
+greater practical severity than was common in England as late as one
+hundred years ago. The temptations to fraud were enormous in a wicked
+state of society, and demanded a severe remedy. It is possible that our
+modern laws may show too great leniency to debtors who are not merely
+unfortunate, but dishonest. The problem is not yet solved, whether men
+should be severely handled who are guilty of reckless and unprincipled
+speculations and unscrupulous dealings, or whether they should be
+allowed immunity to prosecute their dangerous and disgraceful courses.
+
+Moreover, the penal code of the Romans in reference to breaches of trust
+or carelessness or ignorance, by which property was lost or squandered,
+may have been too severe, as is still the case in England in reference
+to hunting game on another's grounds. It was hard to doom a man to death
+who drove away his neighbor's cattle, or even entered in the night his
+neighbor's house; but severe penalties alone will keep men from crimes
+where there is a low state of virtue and religion, and general
+prosperity and contentment become impossible where there is no efficient
+protection to property. Society was never more secure and happy in
+England than when vagabonds could be arrested, and when petty larcenies
+were visited with certain retribution. Every traveller in France and
+England feels that in regard to the punishment of crime, those older
+countries, restricted as are their political privileges, are in most
+questions of secure and comfortable living vastly superior to our own.
+The Romans lost under the emperors their political rights, but gained
+protection and safety in their relations with society. Where quiet and
+industrious citizens feel safe in their homes, are protected from
+scoundrels in their dealings, have ample scope for industrial
+enterprise, and are free to choose their private pleasures, they resign
+themselves to the loss of electing their rulers without great
+unhappiness. There are greater evils in the world than the deprivation
+of the elective franchise, lofty and glorious as is this privilege. The
+arbitrary rule of the emperors was fatal to political aspirations and
+rights and the growth of a genuine manhood; yet it is but fair to note
+that the evils of political slavery were qualified and set off by the
+excellence of the civil code and the privileges of social freedom.
+
+The great practical evil connected with Roman jurisprudence was the
+intricacy and perplexity and uncertainty of the laws, together with the
+expense involved in litigation. The class of lawyers was large, and
+their gains were extortionate. Justice was not always to be found on the
+side of right. The law was uncertain as well as costly. The most learned
+counsel could be employed only by the rich, and even judges were venal,
+so that the poor did not easily find adequate redress. But all this is
+the necessary attendant on a factitious state of society, and by many is
+regarded as being quite as characteristic of modern, civilized Christian
+England and America as it was of Pagan Rome. Material civilization leads
+to an undue estimate of money; and when money purchases all that
+artificial people desire, then all classes will prostitute themselves
+for its possession, and justice, dignity, and elevation of sentiment
+will be forced to retreat,--as hermits sought a solitude when society
+had reached its lowest degradation, out of pure despair of its
+renovation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+The authorities for this chapter are very numerous. Since the Institutes
+of Gaius have been recovered, many eminent writers on Roman law have
+appeared, especially in Germany and France. Many might be cited, but for
+all ordinary purposes of historical study the work of Lord Mackenzie on
+Roman Law, together with the articles of George Long in Smith's
+Dictionary, will be found most useful. Maine's Treatise on Ancient Law
+is exceedingly interesting and valuable. Gibbon's famous chapter should
+also be read by every student. There is a fine translation of the
+Institutes of Justinian, which is quite accessible, by Dr. Harris of
+Oxford. The Code, Pandects, Institutes, and Novels are of course the
+original authority, with the long-lost Institutes of Gaius.
+
+In connection with the study of the Roman law, it would be well to read
+Sir George Bowyer's Commentaries on the Modern Civil Law. Also Irving,
+Introduction to the Study of the Civil Law; Lindley, Introduction to the
+Study of Jurisprudence; Wheaton's Elements of International Law; and
+Vattel, Le Droit des Gens.
+
+
+
+
+THE FINE ARTS.
+
+
+ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, PAINTING.
+
+500-430 B.C.
+
+
+My object in the present lecture is not a criticism of the principles
+of art so much as an enumeration of its various forms among the
+ancients, to show that in this department of civilization they reached
+remarkable perfection, and were not inferior to modern Christian nations.
+
+The first development of art among all the nations of antiquity was in
+architecture. The earliest buildings erected were houses to protect
+people from heat, cold, and the fury of the elements of Nature. At that
+remote period much more attention was given to convenience and practical
+utility than to beauty or architectural effect. The earliest houses were
+built of wood, and stone was not employed until temples and palaces
+arose. Ordinary houses were probably not much better than log-huts and
+hovels, until wealth was accumulated by private persons.
+
+The earliest monuments of enduring magnificence were the temples of
+powerful priests and the palaces of kings; and in Egypt and Assyria
+these appear earliest, as well as most other works showing civilization.
+Perhaps the first great monument which arose after the deluge of Noah
+was the Tower of Babel, built probably of brick. It was intended to be
+very lofty, but of its actual height we know nothing, nor of its style
+of architecture. Indeed, we do not know that it was ever advanced beyond
+its foundations; yet there are some grounds for supposing that it was
+ultimately finished, and became the principal temple of the Chaldaean
+metropolis.
+
+From the ruins of ancient monuments we conclude that architecture
+received its earliest development in Egypt, and that its effects were
+imposing, massive, and grand. It was chiefly directed to the erection of
+palaces and temples, the ruins of which attest grandeur and vastness.
+They were built of stone, in blocks so huge and heavy that even modern
+engineers are at loss to comprehend how they could have been transported
+and erected. All the monuments of the Pharaohs are wonders, especially
+such as appear in the ruins of Karnak,--a temple formerly designated as
+that of Jupiter Ammon. It was in the time of Sesostris, or Rameses the
+Great, the first of the Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty, that
+architecture in Egypt reached its greatest development. Then we find the
+rectangular-cut blocks of stone in parallel courses, the heavy pier, the
+cylindrical column with its bell-shaped capital, and the bold and
+massive rectangular architraves extending from pier to pier and column
+to column, surmounted by a deep covered coping or cornice.
+
+The imposing architecture of Egypt was chiefly owing to the impressive
+vastness of the public buildings. It was not produced by beauty of
+proportion or graceful embellishments; it was designed to awe the
+people, and kindle sentiments of wonder and astonishment. So far as this
+end was contemplated it was nobly reached; even to this day the
+traveller stands in admiring amazement before those monuments that were
+old three thousand years ago. No structures have been so enduring as the
+Pyramids; no ruins are more extensive and majestic than those of Thebes.
+The temple of Karnak and the palace of Rameses the Great were probably
+the most imposing ever built by man. This temple was built of blocks of
+stone seventy feet in length, on a platform one thousand feet long and
+three hundred wide, with pillars sixty feet in height. But this and
+other structures did not possess that unity of design which marked the
+Grecian temples. Alleys of colossal sphinxes formed the approach. At
+Karnak the alley was six thousand feet long, and before the main body
+of the edifice stood two obelisks commemorative of the dedication. The
+principal structures of Egyptian temples do not follow the straight
+line, but begin with pyramidal towers which flank the gateways; then
+follow, usually, a court surrounded with colonnades, subordinate
+temples, and houses for the priests. A second pylon, or pyramidal tower,
+leads to the interior and most considerable part of the temple,--a
+portico inclosed with walls, which receives light only through the
+entablature or openings in the roof. Adjoining this is the cella of the
+temple, without columns, enclosed by several walls, often divided into
+various small chambers with monolithic receptacles for idols or mummies
+or animals. The columns stand within the walls. The colonnade is not, as
+among the Greeks, an expansion of the temple; it is merely the wall with
+apertures. The walls, composed of square blocks, are perpendicular only
+on the inside, and bevelled externally, so that the thickness at the
+bottom sometimes amounts to twenty-four feet; thus the whole building
+assumes a pyramidal form, the fundamental principle of Egyptian
+architecture. The columns are more slender than the early Doric, are
+placed close together, and have bases of circular plinths; the shaft
+diminishes upward, and is ornamented with perpendicular or oblique
+furrows, but not fluted like Grecian columns. The capitals are of the
+bell form, ornamented with all kinds of foliage, and have a narrow but
+high abacus. They abound with sculptured decorations, the designs of
+which were borrowed from the vegetation of the country. The highest of
+the columns of the temple of Luxor is five and a quarter times the
+greatest diameter.
+
+But no monuments have ever excited so much curiosity and wonder as the
+Pyramids, not in consequence of any particular beauty or ingenuity in
+their construction, but because of their immense size and unknown age.
+None but sacerdotal monarchs would ever have erected them; none but a
+fanatical people would ever have toiled upon them. We do not know for
+what purpose they were raised, unless as sepulchres for kings. They are
+supposed to have been built at a remote antiquity, between two thousand
+and three thousand years before Christ. Lepsius thought that the oldest
+of these Pyramids were built more than three thousand years before
+Christ. The Pyramid of Cheops, at Memphis, covers a square whose side is
+seven hundred and sixty-eight feet, and rises into the air nearly five
+hundred feet. It is a solid mass of stone, which has suffered less from
+time than the mountains near it. Possibly it stands over an immense
+substructure, in which may yet be found the lore of ancient Egypt; it
+may even prove to be the famous labyrinth of which Herodotus speaks,
+built by the twelve kings of Egypt. According to this author, one
+hundred thousand men worked on this monument for forty years.
+
+The palaces of the kings are mere imitations of the temples, their only
+difference of architecture being that their rooms are larger and in
+greater numbers. Some think that the famous labyrinth was a collective
+palace of many rulers.
+
+Of Babylonian architecture we know little beyond what the Hebrew
+Scriptures and ancient authors tell us. But though nothing survives of
+ancient magnificence, we know that a city whose walls, according to
+Herodotus, were eighty-seven feet in thickness, three hundred and
+thirty-seven in height, and sixty miles in circumference, and in which
+were one hundred gates of brass, must have had considerable
+architectural splendor. This account of Babylon, however, is probably
+exaggerated, especially as to the height of the walls. The tower of
+Belus, the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Obelisk of Semiramis were
+probably wonderful structures, certainly in size, which is one of the
+conditions of architectural effect.
+
+The Tyrians must have carried architecture to considerable perfection,
+since the Temple of Solomon, one of the most magnificent in the ancient
+world, was probably built by artists from Tyre. It was not remarkable
+for size,--it was, indeed, very small,--but it had great splendor of
+decoration. It was of quadrangular outline, erected upon a solid
+platform of stone, and bearing a striking resemblance to the oldest
+Greek temples, like those of Aegina and Paestum. The portico of the
+Temple as rebuilt by Herod was one hundred and eighty feet high, and the
+Temple itself was entered by nine gates, thickly coated with silver and
+gold. The inner sanctuary was covered on all sides with plates of gold,
+and was dazzling to the eye. The various courts and porticos and palaces
+with which it was surrounded gave to it a very imposing effect.
+
+Architectural art in India was not so impressive and grand as in Egypt,
+and was directed chiefly to the erection of temples. Nor is it of very
+ancient date. There is no stone architecture now remaining in India,
+according to Sir James Fergusson, older than two and a half centuries
+before Christ; and this is in the form of Buddhist temples, generally
+traced to the great Asoka, who reigned from 272 B.C. to 236 B.C., and
+who established Buddhism as a state religion. There were doubtless
+magnificent buildings before his time, but they were of wood, and have
+all perished. We know, however, nothing about them.
+
+The Buddhist temples were generally excavated out of the solid rock, and
+only the façades were ornamented. These were not larger than ordinary
+modern parochial churches, and do not give the impression of
+extraordinary magnificence. Besides these rock-hewn temples in India
+there remain many examples of a kind of memorial monument called
+_stupas_, or _topes_. The earliest of these are single columns; but the
+later and more numerous are in the shape of cones or circular mounds,
+resembling domes, rarely exceeding one hundred feet in diameter. Around
+the apex of each was a balustrade, or some ornamental work, about six
+feet in diameter. These topes remind one of the Pantheon at Rome in
+general form, but were of much smaller size. They were built on a stone
+basement less than fifty feet in height, above which was the brickwork.
+In process of time they came to resemble pyramidal towers rather than
+rounded domes, and were profusely ornamented with carvings. The great
+peculiarity of all Indian architectural monuments is excessive
+ornamentation rather than beauty of proportion or grand effect.
+
+In course of time, however, Indian temples became more and more
+magnificent; and a Chinese traveller in the year 400 A.D. describes one
+in Gaudhava as four hundred and seventy feet high, decorated with every
+sort of precious substance. Its dome, as it appears in a bas-relief,
+must have rivalled that of St. Peter's at Rome; but no trace of it now
+remains. The topes of India, which were numerous, indicate that the
+Hindus were acquainted with the arch, both pointed and circular, which
+was not known to the Egyptians or the Greeks. The most important of
+these buildings, in which are preserved valuable relics, are found in
+the Punjab. They were erected about twenty years before Christ. In size,
+they are about one hundred and twenty-seven feet in diameter. Connected
+with the circular topes are found what are called _rails_, surrounding
+the topes, built in the form of rectangles, with heavy pillars. One of
+the most interesting of these was found to be two hundred and
+seventy-five feet long, having square pillars twenty-two feet in height,
+profusely carved with scenes from the life of Buddha, topped by capitals
+in the shape of elephants supporting a succession of horizontal stone
+beams, all decorated with a richness of carving unknown in any other
+country. The Amravati rail, one of the finest of the ancient monuments
+of India, is found to be one hundred and ninety-five by one hundred and
+sixty-five feet, having octagonal pillars ornamented with the most
+elaborate carvings.
+
+From an architectural point of view, the rails were surpassed by the
+_chaityas_, or temple-caves, in western India. These were cut in the
+solid rock. Some one thousand different specimens are to be found. The
+facades of these caves are perfect, generally in the form of an arch,
+executed in the rock with every variety of detail, and therefore
+imperishable without violence. The process of excavation extended
+through ten centuries from the time of Asoka; and the interiors as well
+as the façades were highly ornamented with sculptures. The temple-caves
+are seldom more than one hundred and fifty feet deep and fifty feet in
+width, and the roofs are supported by pillars like the interior of
+Gothic cathedrals, some of which are of beautiful proportions with
+elaborated capitals. Though these rock-hewn temples are no larger than
+ordinary Christian churches, they are very impressive from the richly
+decorated carvings; they were lighted from a single opening in the
+façade, sometimes in the shape of a horseshoe.
+
+Besides these chaityas, or temples, there are still more numerous
+_viharas_, or monasteries, found in India, of different dates, but none
+older than the third century before Christ. They show a central hall,
+surrounded on three sides by cells for the monks. On the fourth side is
+an open verandah; facing this is generally a shrine with an image of
+Buddha. These edifices are not imposing unless surrounded by galleries,
+as some were, supported by highly decorated pillars. The halls are
+constructed in several stories with heavy masonry, in the shape of
+pyramids adorned with the figures of men and animals. One of these halls
+in southern India had fifteen hundred cells. The most celebrated was
+the Nalanda monastery, founded in the first century by Nagarjuna, which
+accommodated ten thousand priests, and was enclosed by a wall measuring
+sixteen hundred feet by four hundred. It was to Central India what Mount
+Casino was to Italy, and Cluny was to France, in the Middle Ages,--the
+seat of learning and art.
+
+It was not until the Mohammedan conquest in India that architecture
+received a new impulse from the Saracenic influence. Then arose the
+mosques, minarets, and palaces which are a wonder for their
+magnificence, and in which are seen the influence of Greek art as well
+as that of India. There is an Oriental splendor in these palaces and
+mosques which has called out the admiration of critics, although it is
+different from those types of beauty which we are accustomed to praise.
+But these later edifices were erected in the Middle Ages, coeval with
+the cathedrals of Europe, and therefore do not properly come under the
+head of ancient art, in which the ancient Hindus, whether of Aryan or
+Turanian descent, did not particularly excel. It was in matters of
+religion and philosophy that the Hindus felt most interest, even as the
+ancient Jews thought more of theology than of art and science.
+
+Architecture, however, as the expression of genius and high
+civilization, was carried to perfection only by the Greeks, who excelled
+in so many things. It was among the ancient Dorians, who descended from
+the mountains of northern Greece eighty years after the fall of Troy,
+that architectural art worthy of the name first appeared. The Pelasgi
+erected Cyclopean structures fifteen hundred years before Christ, as
+seen in the massive walls of the Acropolis at Athens, constructed of
+huge blocks of hewn stone, and in the palaces of the princes of the
+heroic times. The lintel of the doorway of the Mycenaean treasury is
+composed of a single stone twenty-seven feet long and sixteen broad. But
+these edifices, which aimed at splendor and richness merely, were
+deficient in that simplicity and harmony which have given immortality to
+the temples of the Dorians. In this style of architecture everything was
+suitable to its object, and was grand and noble. The great thickness of
+the columns, the beautiful entablature, the ample proportion of the
+capital, the great horizontal lines of the architrave and cornice
+predominating over the vertical lines of the columns, the severity of
+geometrical forms produced for the most part by straight lines, gave an
+imposing simplicity to the Doric temple.
+
+How far the Greek architects were indebted to the Egyptian we cannot
+tell, for though columns are found amid the ruins of the Egyptian
+temples, they are of different shape from any made by the Greeks. In the
+structures of Thebes we find both the tumescent and the cylindrical
+columns, from which amalgamation might have been produced the Doric
+column. The Greeks seized on beauty wherever they found it, and improved
+upon it. The Doric column was not probably an entirely new creation, but
+shaped after models furnished by the most original of all the ancient
+nations, even the Egyptians. The Doric temples were uniform in plan. The
+columns were fluted, and were generally about six diameters in height;
+they diminished gradually upward from the base, with a slightly con
+vexed swelling; they were surmounted by capitals regularly proportioned
+according to their height. The entablature which the column supported
+was also of a certain number of diameters in height. So regular and
+perfect was the plan of the temple, that "if the dimensions of a single
+column and the proportion the entablature should bear to it were given
+to two individuals acquainted with the style, with directions to compose
+a temple, they would produce designs exactly similar in size,
+arrangement, and general proportions." The Doric order possessed a
+peculiar harmony, but taste and skill were nevertheless necessary in
+order to determine the number of diameters a column should have, and
+also the height of the entablature.
+
+The Doric was the favorite order of European Greece for one thousand
+years, and also of her colonies in Sicily and Magna Graecia. It was
+used exclusively until after the Macedonian conquest, and was chiefly
+applied to temples. The massive temples of Paestum, the colossal
+magnificence of the Sicilian ruins, and the more elegant proportions of
+the Athenian structures, like the Parthenon and Temple of Theseus, show
+the perfection of the Doric architecture. Although the general style of
+all the Doric temples is so uniform, hardly two temples were alike. The
+earlier Doric was more massive; the later was more elegant, and its
+edifices were rich in sculptured decorations. Nothing could surpass the
+beauty of a Doric temple in the time of Pericles. The stylobate, or
+general base upon which the columnar story stood, from two thirds to a
+whole diameter of a column in height, was built in three equal courses,
+which gradually receded upward and formed steps, as it were, of a grand
+platform. The column, simply set upon the stylobate, without base or
+pedestal, was from four to six diameters in height, with twenty flutes,
+having a capital of half a diameter. On this rested the entablature, two
+column-diameters in height, which was divided into architrave (lower
+mouldings), frieze (broad middle space), and cornice (upper mouldings).
+The great beauty of the temple was the portico in front,--a forest of
+columns supporting the triangular pediment, about a diameter and a half
+to the apex, making an angle at the base of about fourteen degrees.
+From the pediment projects the cornice, while in the apex and at the
+base of the flat three-cornered gable are sculptured ornaments,
+generally the figures of men or animals. The whole outline of columns
+supporting the entablature is graceful, while the variety of light and
+shade arising from the arrangement of mouldings and capitals produces a
+grand effect.
+
+The Parthenon, the most beautiful specimen of the Doric, has never been
+equalled, and it still stands august in its ruins, the glory of the old
+Acropolis and the pride of Athens. It was built of white Pentelic
+marble, and rested on a basement of limestone. It was two hundred and
+twenty-seven feet in length, one hundred and one in breadth, and
+sixty-five in height, surrounded with forty-eight fluted columns, six
+feet and two inches at the base and thirty-four feet in height, while
+within the peristyle, at either end, was an interior range of columns
+standing before the end of the cella. The frieze and the pediment were
+elaborately ornamented with reliefs and statues, and the cella, within
+and without, was adorned with the choicest sculptures of Phidias, The
+remains of the exquisite sculptures of the pediment and the frieze were
+in the early part of this century brought from Greece by Lord Elgin,
+purchased by the English government, and placed in the British Museum,
+where, preserved from further dilapidation, they stand as indisputable
+evidence of the perfection of Greek art. The grandest adornment of the
+temple was the colossal statue of Minerva in the eastern apartment of
+the cella, forty feet in height, composed of gold and ivory; the inner
+walls of the chamber were decorated with paintings, and the whole temple
+was a repository of countless treasure. But the Parthenon, so regular to
+the eye with its vertical, oblique, and horizontal lines, was curved in
+every line, with the exception of the gable,--with its entablature,
+architrave, frieze, and cornice, together with the basement, all arched
+upwards; and even the columns had a slight convexity of vertical line,
+amounting to 1/550 of the entire height of shaft, though so slightly as
+not to be perceptible. These curved lines gave to the structure a
+peculiar grace which cannot be imitated, as well as an effect
+of solidity.
+
+Nearly coeval with the Doric was the Ionic order, invented by the
+Asiatic Greeks, still more graceful, though not so imposing. The
+Acropolis is a perfect example of this order. The column is nine
+diameters in height, with a base, while the capital is more ornamented
+than the Doric. The shaft is fluted with twenty-four flutes and
+alternate fillets (flat longitudinal ridges), and the fillet is about a
+quarter the width of the flute. The pediment is flatter than that of
+the Doric order, and more elaborate. The great distinction of the Ionic
+column is a base, and a capital formed with volutes (spiral scrolls),
+the shaft also being more slender. Vitruvius, the greatest authority
+among the ancients in architecture, says that "the Greeks, in inventing
+these two kinds of columns, imitated in the one the naked simplicity and
+dignity of man, and in the other the delicacy and ornaments of woman;
+the base of the Ionic was the imitation of sandals, and the volutes of
+ringlets." The discoveries of many of the Ionic ornamentations among the
+remains of Assyrian architecture indicate the Oriental source of the
+Ionic ideas, just as the Doric style seems to have originated in Egypt.
+The artistic Greeks, however, always simplified and refined upon
+their masters.
+
+The Corinthian order exhibits a still greater refinement and elegance
+than the other two, and was introduced toward the end of the
+Peloponnesian War. Its peculiarity consists in columns with foliated
+capitals modelled after the acanthus leaf, and still greater height,
+about ten diameters, surmounted with a more ornamented entablature. Of
+this order the most famous temple in Greece was that of Minerva at
+Tegea, built by Scopas of Paros, but destroyed by fire four hundred
+years before Christ.
+
+Nothing more distinguished Greek architecture than the variety, the
+grace, and the beauty of the mouldings, generally in eccentric curves.
+The general outline of the moulding is a gracefully flowing cyma, or
+wave, concave at one end and convex at the other, like an Italic _f_,
+the concavity and convexity being exactly in the same curve, according
+to the line of beauty which Hogarth describes.
+
+The most beautiful application of Greek architecture was in the temples,
+which were very numerous and of extraordinary grandeur, long before the
+Persian War. Their entrance was always from the west or the east. They
+were built either in an oblong or round form, and were mostly adorned
+with columns. Those of an oblong form had columns either in the front
+alone, or in the eastern and western fronts, or on all the four sides.
+They generally had porticos attached to them, and were without windows,
+receiving their light from the door or from above. The friezes were
+adorned with various sculptures, as were sometimes the pediments, and no
+expense was spared upon them. The most important part of the temple was
+the cell (_cella,_ or temple proper, a square chamber), in which the
+statue of the deity was kept, generally surrounded with a balustrade. In
+front of the cella was the vestibule, and in the rear or back a chamber
+in which the treasures of the temple were kept. Names were applied to
+the temples as well as to the porticos, according to the number of
+columns in the portico at either end of the temple,--such as the
+tetrastyle (four columns in front), or hexastyle (when there were six).
+There were never more than ten columns across the front. The Parthenon
+had eight, but six was the usual number. It was the rule to have twice
+as many columns along the sides as in front. Some of the temples had
+double rows of columns on all sides, like that of Diana at Ephesus and
+of Quirinus at Rome. The distance between the columns varied from one
+diameter and a half to four diameters. About five eighths of a Doric
+temple were occupied by the cella, and three eighths by the portico.
+
+That which gives to the Greek temples so much simplicity and
+harmony,--the great elements of beauty in architecture,--is the simple
+outline in parallelogrammic and pyramidal forms, in which the lines are
+uninterrupted through their entire length. This simplicity and harmony
+are more apparent in the Doric than in any of the other orders, but
+pertain to all the Grecian temples of which we have knowledge. The Ionic
+and Corinthian, or the voluted and foliated orders, do not possess that
+severe harmony which pervades the Doric; but the more beautiful
+compositions are so consummate that they will ever be taken as models
+of study.
+
+There is now no doubt that the exteriors of the Grecian temples were
+ornamented in color,--perhaps with historical pictures, etc.,--although
+as the traces have mostly disappeared it is impossible to know the
+extent or mode of decoration. It has been thought that the mouldings
+also may have been gilded or colored, and that the background of the
+sculptures had some flat color laid on as a relief to the raised
+figures. We may be sure, however it was done, that the effect was not
+gaudy or crude, but restrained within the limits of refinement and good
+taste by the infallible artistic instinct of those masters of the
+beautiful.
+
+It is not the magnitude of the Greek temples and other works of art
+which most impresses us. It is not for this that they are important
+models; it is not for this that they are copied and reproduced in all
+the modern nations of Europe. They were generally small compared with
+the temples of Egypt, and with the vast dimensions of Roman
+amphitheatres; only three or four would compare in size with a Gothic
+cathedral,--the Parthenon, the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens, and
+the Temple of Diana at Ephesus; even the Pantheon at Rome is small,
+compared with the later monuments of the Caesars. The traveller is
+always disappointed in contemplating the ruins of Greek buildings so far
+as size is concerned. But it is their matchless proportions, their
+severe symmetry, the grandeur of effect, the undying beauty, the
+graceful form which impress us, and make us feel that they are perfect.
+By the side of the Colosseum they are insignificant in magnitude; they
+do not cover acres, like the baths of Caracalla. Yet who has copied the
+Flavian amphitheatre; who erects an edifice after the style of the
+Thermae? All artists, however, copy the Parthenon. That, and not the
+colossal monuments of the Caesars, reappears in the capitals of Europe,
+and stimulates the genius of a Michael Angelo or a Christopher Wren.
+
+The flourishing period of Greek architecture was during the period from
+Pericles to Alexander,--one hundred and thirteen years. The Macedonian
+conquest introduced more magnificence and less simplicity. The Roman
+conquest accelerated the decline in severe taste, when different orders
+began to be used indiscriminately.
+
+In this state the art passed into the hands of the masters of the world,
+and they inaugurated a new era in architecture. The art was still
+essentially Greek, although the Romans derived their first knowledge
+from the Etruscans. The Cloaca Maxima, or Great Sewer, was built during
+the reign of the second Tarquin,--the grandest monument of the reign of
+the kings. It is not probable that temples and other public buildings in
+Rome were either beautiful or magnificent until the conquest of Greece,
+after which Grecian architects were employed. The Romans adopted the
+Corinthian style, which they made even more ornamental; and by the
+successful combination of the Etruscan arch with the Grecian column they
+laid the foundation of a new and original style, susceptible of great
+variety and magnificence. They entered into architecture with the
+enthusiasm of their teachers, but in their passion for novelty lost
+sight of the simplicity which is the great fascination of a Doric
+temple. Says Memes:--
+
+"They [the Romans] deemed that lightness and grace were to be attained
+not so much by proportion between the vertical and the horizontal as by
+the comparative slenderness of the former. Hence we see a poverty in
+Roman architecture in the midst of profuse ornament. The great error was
+a constant aim to lessen the diameter while they increased the elevation
+of the columns. Hence the massive simplicity and severe grandeur of the
+ancient Doric disappear in the Roman, the characteristics of the order
+being frittered down into a multiplicity of minute details."
+
+When the Romans used the Doric at all, they used a base for the column,
+which was never done at Athens. They also altered the Doric capital,
+which cannot be improved. Again, most of the Grecian Doric temples were
+peripteral,--surrounded with pillars on all the sides. But the Romans
+built with porticos on one front only, which had a greater projection
+than the Grecian. They generally were projected three columns, while the
+Greek portico had usually but a single row. Many of the Roman temples
+are circular, like the Pantheon, which has a portico of eight columns
+projected to the depth of three. Nor did the Romans construct hypaethral
+or uncovered temples with internal columns, like the Greeks. The
+Pantheon is an exception, since the dome has an open eye; and one great
+ornament of this beautiful structure is in the arrangement of internal
+columns placed in the front of niches, composed of antae, or pier-formed
+ends of walls, to carry an entablature round under an attic on which the
+cupola rests. The Romans also adopted coupled columns, broken and
+recessed entablatures, and pedestals, which are considered blemishes.
+They again paid more attention to the interior than to the exterior
+decoration of their palaces and baths,--as we may infer from the ruins
+of Hadrian's villa at Tivoli and the excavations of Pompeii.
+
+The pediments (roof-angles) used in Roman architectural works are
+steeper than those made by the Greeks, varying in inclination from
+eighteen to twenty-five degrees, instead of fourteen. The mouldings are
+the same as the Grecian in general form, although they differ from them
+in contour; they are less delicate and graceful, but were used in great
+profusion. Roman architecture is overdone with ornament, every moulding
+carved, and every straight surface sculptured with foliage or historical
+subjects in relief. The ornaments of the frieze consist of foliage and
+animals, with a variety of other things. The great exuberance of
+ornament is considered a defect, although when applied to some
+structures it is exceedingly beautiful. In the time of the first Caesars
+Roman architecture had, from the huge size of the buildings, a character
+of grandeur and magnificence. Columns and arches appeared in all the
+leading public buildings,--columns generally forming the external and
+arches the internal construction. Fabric after fabric arose on the ruins
+of others. The Flavii supplanted the edifices of Nero, which ministered
+to debauchery, by structures of public utility.
+
+The Romans invented no new principle in architecture, unless it be the
+arch, which was known, though not practically applied, by the Assyrians,
+Egyptians, and Greeks. The Romans were a practical and utilitarian
+people, and needed for their various structures greater economy of
+material than was compatible with large blocks of stone, especially for
+such as were carried to great altitudes. The arch supplied this want,
+and is perhaps the greatest invention ever made in architecture. No
+instance of its adoption occurs in the construction of Greek edifices
+before Greece became a part of the Roman empire. Its application dates
+back to the Cloaca Maxima, and may have been of Etrurian invention. Some
+maintain that Archimedes of Sicily was the inventor of the arch; but to
+whomsoever the glory of the invention is due, it is certain that the
+Romans were the first of European nations to make a practical
+application of its wonderful qualities. It enabled them to rear vast
+edifices with the humblest materials, to build bridges, aqueducts,
+sewers, amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, as well as temples and
+palaces. The merits of the arch have never been lost sight of by
+succeeding generations, and it is an essential element in the
+magnificent Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Its application
+extends to domes and cupolas, to floors and corridors and roofs, and to
+various other parts of buildings where economy of material and labor is
+desired. It was applied extensively to doorways and windows, and is an
+ornament as well as a utility. The most imposing forms of Roman
+architecture may be traced to a knowledge of the properties of the arch,
+and as brick was more extensively used than any other material, the arch
+was invaluable. The imperial palace on Mount Palatine, the Pantheon
+(except its portico and internal columns), the temples of Peace, of
+Venus and Rome, and of Minerva Medica, were of brick. So were the great
+baths of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian, the villa of Hadrian, the
+city walls, the villa of Mecaenas at Tivoli, and most of the palaces of
+the nobility,--although, like many of the temples, they were faced with
+stone. The Colosseum was of travertine, a cheap white limestone, and
+faced with marble. It was another custom to stucco the surface of brick
+walls, as favorable to decorations. In consequence of the invention of
+the arch, the Romans erected a greater variety of fine structures than
+either the Greeks or Egyptians, whose public edifices were chiefly
+confined to temples. The arch entered into almost every structure,
+public or private, and superseded the use of long stone-beams, which
+were necessary in the Grecian temples, as also of wooden timbers, in the
+use of which the Romans were not skilled, and which do not really
+pertain to architecture: an imposing edifice must always be constructed
+of stone or brick. The arch also enabled the Romans to economize in the
+use of costly marbles, of which they were very fond, as well as of other
+stones. Some of the finest columns were made of Egyptian granite, very
+highly polished.
+
+The extensive application of the arch doubtless led to the deterioration
+of the Grecian architecture, since it blended columns with arcades, and
+thus impaired the harmony which so peculiarly marked the temples of
+Athens and Corinth; and as taste became vitiated with the decline of
+the empire, monstrous combinations took place, which were a great fall
+from the simplicity of the Parthenon and the interior of the Pantheon.
+
+But whatever defects marked the age of Diocletian and Constantine, it
+can never be questioned that the Romans carried architecture to a
+perfection rarely attained in our times. They may not have equalled the
+severe simplicity of their teachers the Greeks, but they surpassed them
+in the richness of their decorations, and in all buildings designed for
+utility, especially in private houses and baths and theatres.
+
+The Romans do not seem to have used other than semicircular arches. The
+Gothic, or Pointed, or Christian architecture, as it has been variously
+called, was the creation of the Middle Ages, and arose almost
+simultaneously in Europe after the first Crusade, so that it would seem
+to be of Eastern origin. But it was a graft on the old Roman arch, in
+the curve of the ellipse rather than the circle.
+
+Aside from this invention of the arch, to which we are indebted for the
+most beautiful ecclesiastical structures ever erected, we owe everything
+in architecture to the Greeks and Romans. We have found out no new
+principles which were not known to Vitruvius. No one man was the
+inventor or creator of the wonderful structures which ornamented the
+cities of the ancient world. We have the names of great architects, who
+reared various and faultless models, but they all worked upon the same
+principles, and these can never be subverted; so that in architecture
+the ancients are our schoolmasters, whose genius we revere the more we
+are acquainted with their works. What more beautiful than one of those
+grand temples which the cultivated heathen Greeks erected to the worship
+of their unknown gods!--the graduated and receding stylobate as a base
+for the fluted columns, rising at regular distances in all their severe
+proportion and matchless harmony, with their richly carved capitals
+supporting an entablature of heavy stones, most elaborately moulded and
+ornamented with the figures of plants and animals; and rising above
+this, on the ends of the temple, or over a portico several columns deep,
+the pediment, covered with chiselled cornices, with still richer
+ornaments rising from the apices and at the feet, all carved in white
+marble, and then spread over an area larger than any modern churches,
+making a forest of columns to bear aloft those ponderous beams of stone,
+without anything tending to break the continuity of horizontal lines, by
+which the harmony and simplicity of the whole are regulated! So
+accurately squared and nicely adjusted were the stones and pillars of
+which these temples were composed, that there was scarcely need even of
+cement. Without noise or confusion or sound of hammers did those
+temples rise, since all their parts were cut and carved in the distant
+quarries, and with mathematical precision. And within the cella, nearly
+concealed by surrounding columns, were the statues of the gods, and the
+altars on which incense was offered, or sacrifices made. In every part,
+interior and exterior, do we see a matchless proportion and beauty,
+whether in the shaft or the capital or the frieze or the pilaster or the
+pediment or the cornices, or even the mouldings,--everywhere grace and
+harmony, which grow upon the mind the more they are contemplated. The
+greatest evidence of the matchless creative genius displayed in those
+architectural wonders is that after two thousand years, and with all the
+inventions of Roman and modern artists, no improvement has been made;
+and those edifices which are the admiration of our own times are deemed
+beautiful as they approximate the ancient models, which will forever
+remain objects of imitation. No science can make two and two other than
+four; no art can make a Doric temple different from the Parthenon
+without departing from the settled principles of beauty and proportion
+which all ages have indorsed. Such were the Greeks and Romans in an art
+which is one of the greatest indices of material civilization, and which
+by them was derived from geometrical forms, or the imitation of Nature.
+
+The genius displayed by the ancients in sculpture is even more
+remarkable than their skill in architecture. Sculpture was carried to
+perfection only by the Greeks; but they did not originate the art, since
+we read of sculptured images from the remotest antiquity. The earliest
+names of sculptors are furnished by the Old Testament. Assyria and Egypt
+are full of relics to show how early this art was cultivated. It was not
+carried to perfection as early, probably, as architecture; but rude
+images of gods, carved in wood, are as old as the history of idolatry.
+The history of sculpture is in fact identified with that of idols. The
+Egyptians were probably the first who made any considerable advances in
+the execution of statues. Those which remain are rude, simple, uniform,
+without beauty or grace (except a certain serenity of facial expression
+which seems to pervade all their portraiture), but colossal and grand.
+Nearly two thousand years before Christ the walls of Thebes were
+ornamented with sculptured figures, even as the gates of Babylon were
+made of sculptured bronze. The dimensions of Egyptian colossal figures
+surpass those of any other nation. The sitting statues of Memnon at
+Thebes are fifty feet in height, and the Sphinx is twenty-five,--all of
+granite. The number of colossal statues was almost incredible. The
+sculptures found among the ruins of Karnak must have been made nearly
+four thousand years ago. They exhibit great simplicity of design, but
+have not much variety of expression. They are generally carved from the
+hardest stones, and finished so nicely that we infer that the Egyptians
+were acquainted with the art of hardening metals for their tools to a
+degree not known in our times. But we see no ideal grandeur among any of
+the remains of Egyptian sculpture; however symmetrical or colossal,
+there is no diversity of expression, no trace of emotion, no
+intellectual force,--everything is calm, impassive, imperturbable. It
+was not until sculpture came into the hands of the Greeks that any
+remarkable excellence in grace of form or expression of face was
+reached. But the progress of development was slow. The earliest carvings
+were rude wooden images of the gods, and more than a thousand years
+elapsed before the great masters were produced whose works marked the
+age of Pericles.
+
+It is not my object to give a history of the development of the plastic
+art, but to show the great excellence it attained in the hands of
+immortal sculptors.
+
+The Greeks had an intuitive perception of the beautiful, and to this
+great national trait we ascribe the wonderful progress which sculpture
+made. Nature was most carefully studied by the Greek artists, and that
+which was most beautiful in Nature became the object of their imitation.
+They even attained to an ideal excellence, since they combined in a
+single statue what could not be found in a single individual,--as Zeuxis
+is said to have studied the beautiful forms of seven virgins of Crotona
+in order to paint his famous picture of Venus. Great as was the beauty
+of Phryne or Aspasia or Lais, yet no one of them could have served for a
+perfect model; and it required a great sensibility to beauty in order to
+select and idealize what was most perfect in the human figure. Beauty
+was adored in Greece, and every means were used to perfect it,
+especially beauty of form, which is the characteristic excellence of
+Grecian statuary. The gymnasia were universally frequented; and the
+great prizes of the games, bestowed for feats of strength and agility,
+were regarded as the highest honors which men could receive,--the
+subject of the poet's ode and the people's admiration. Statues of the
+victors perpetuated their fame and improved the sculptor's art. From the
+study of these statues were produced those great creations which all
+subsequent ages have admired; and from the application of the principles
+seen in these forms we owe the perpetuation of the ideas of grace and
+beauty such as no other people besides the Greeks had ever discovered,
+or indeed scarcely appreciated. The sculpture of the human figure became
+a noble object of ambition in Greece, and was most munificently
+rewarded. Great artists arose, whose works adorned the temples of Greece
+so long as she preserved her independence, and when that was lost, her
+priceless productions were scattered over Asia and Europe. The Romans
+especially seized what was most prized, whether or not they could tell
+what was most perfect. Greece lived in her marble statues more than in
+her government or laws; and when we remember the estimation in which
+sculpture was held among the Greeks, the great prices paid for
+masterpieces, the care and attention with which they were guarded and
+preserved, and the innumerable works which were produced, filling all
+the public buildings, especially consecrated places, and even open
+spaces and the houses of the rich and great, calling from all classes
+admiration and praise,--we cannot think it likely that so great
+perfection will ever be reached again in those figures which are
+designed to represent beauty of form. Even the comparatively few statues
+which have survived the wars and violence of two thousand years,
+convince us that the moderns can only imitate; they can produce no
+creations equal to those by Athenian artists. "No mechanical copying of
+Greek statues, however skilful the copyist, can ever secure for modern
+sculpture the same noble and effective character it possessed among the
+Greeks, for the simple reason that the imitation, close as may be the
+resemblance, is but the result of the eye and hand, while the original
+is the expression of a true and deeply felt sentiment. Art was not
+sustained by the patronage of a few who affect to have what is called
+_taste_; in Greece the artist, having a common feeling for the beautiful
+with his countrymen, produced his works for the public, which were
+erected in places of honor and dedicated in temples of the gods."
+
+It was not until the Persian wars awakened among the Greeks the
+slumbering consciousness of national power, and Athens became the
+central point of Grecian civilization, that sculpture, like architecture
+and painting, reached its culminating point of excellence under Phidias
+and his contemporaries. Great artists had previously made themselves
+famous, like Miron, Polycletus, and Ageladas; but the great riches which
+flowed into Athens at this time gave a peculiar stimulus to art,
+especially under the encouragement of such a ruler as Pericles, whose
+age was the golden era of Grecian history.
+
+Pheidias, or Phidias, was to sculpture what Aeschylus was to tragic
+poetry,--the representative of the sublime and grand. He was born four
+hundred and eighty-four years before Christ, and was the pupil of
+Ageladas. He stands at the head of the ancient sculptors, not from what
+_we_ know of him, for his masterpieces have perished, but from the
+estimation in which he was held by the greatest critics of antiquity. It
+was to him that Pericles intrusted the adornment of the Parthenon, and
+the numerous and beautiful sculptures of the frieze and the pediment
+were the work of artists whom he directed. His great work in that
+wonderful edifice was the statue of the goddess Minerva herself, made of
+gold and ivory, forty feet in height, standing victorious, with a spear
+in her left hand and an image of victory in her right, with helmet on
+her head, and her shield resting by her side. The cost of this statue
+may be estimated when we consider that the gold alone used upon it was
+valued at forty-four talents, equal to five hundred thousand dollars of
+our money,--an immense sum in that age. Some critics suppose that this
+statue was overloaded with ornament, but all antiquity was unanimous in
+its admiration. The exactness and finish of detail were as remarkable as
+the grandeur of the proportions. Another of the famous works of Phidias
+was a colossal bronze statue of Athene Promachos, sixty feet in height,
+on the Acropolis between the Propylaea and the Parthenon. But both of
+these yielded to the colossal statue of Zeus in his great temple at
+Olympia, represented in a sitting posture, forty feet high, on a
+pedestal of twenty feet. The god was seated on a throne. Ebony, gold,
+ivory, and precious stones formed, with a multitude of sculptured and
+painted figures, the wonderful composition of this throne. In this his
+greatest work the artist sought to embody the idea of majesty and
+repose,--of a supreme deity no longer engaged in war with Titans and
+Giants, but enthroned as a conqueror, ruling with a nod the subject
+world, and giving his blessing to those victories which gave glory to
+the Greeks. So famous was this statue, which was regarded as the
+masterpiece of Grecian art, that it was considered a calamity to die
+without having seen it; and this served for a model for all subsequent
+representations of majesty and power in repose among the ancients. It
+was removed to Constantinople by Theodosius I., and was destroyed by
+fire in the year 475 A.D. Phidias executed various other famous works,
+which have perished; but even those that were executed under his
+superintendence which have come down to our times,--like the statues
+which ornamented the pediment of the Parthenon,--are among the finest
+specimens of art that exist, and exhibit the most graceful and
+appropriate forms which could have been selected, uniting grandeur with
+simplicity, and beauty with accuracy of anatomical structure. His
+distinguishing excellence was ideal beauty, and that of the
+sublimest order.
+
+Of all the wonders and mysteries of ancient art the colossal statues of
+ivory and gold were perhaps the most remarkable, and the difficulty of
+executing them has been set forth by the ablest of modern critics, like
+Winckelmann, Heyne, and De Quincey. "The grandeur of their dimensions,
+the perfection of their workmanship, the richness of their materials,
+their majesty, beauty, and ideal truth, the splendor of the architecture
+and pictorial decoration with which they were associated,--all conspired
+to impress the beholder with wonder and awe, and induce a belief of the
+actual presence of the god."
+
+After the Peloponnesian War a new school of art arose in Athens, which
+appealed more to the passions. Of this school was Praxiteles, who aimed
+to please without seeking to elevate or instruct. No one has probably
+ever surpassed him in execution. He wrought in bronze and marble, and
+was one of the artists who adorned the Mausoleum of Artemisia. Without
+attempting the sublime impersonation of the deity, in which Phidias
+excelled, he was unsurpassed in the softer graces and beauties of the
+human form, especially in female figures. His most famous work was an
+undraped statue of Venus, for his native town of Cnidus, which was so
+remarkable that people flocked from all parts of Greece to see it. He
+did not aim at ideal majesty so much as at ideal gracefulness; his works
+were formed from the most beautiful living models, and hence expressed
+only the ideal of sensuous charms. It is probable that the Venus de
+Medici of Cleomenes was a mere copy of the Aphrodite of Praxiteles,
+which was so highly extolled by, the ancient authors; it was of Parian
+marble, and modelled from the celebrated Phryne. His statues of Dionysus
+also expressed the most consummate physical beauty, representing the god
+as a beautiful youth crowned with ivy, and expressing tender and dreamy
+emotions. Praxiteles sculptured several figures of Eros, or the god of
+love, of which that at Thespiae attracted visitors to the city in the
+time of Cicero. It was subsequently carried to Rome, and perished by a
+conflagration in the time of Titus. One of the most celebrated statues
+of this artist was an Apollo, many copies of which still exist. His
+works were very numerous, but chiefly from the circle of Dionysus,
+Aphrodite, and Eros, in which adoration for corporeal attractions is the
+most marked peculiarity, and for which the artist was fitted by his
+dissolute life.
+
+Scopas was the contemporary of Praxiteles, and was the author of the
+celebrated group of Niobe, which is one of the chief ornaments of the
+gallery of sculpture at Florence. He flourished about three hundred and
+fifty years before Christ, and wrought chiefly in marble. He was
+employed in decorating the Mausoleum which Artemisia erected to her
+husband,--one of the wonders of the world. His masterpiece is said to
+have been a group representing Achilles conducted to the island of Leuce
+by the divinities of the sea, which ornamented the shrine of Domitius in
+the Flaminian Circus. In this, tender grace, heroic grandeur, daring
+power, and luxurious fulness of life were combined with wonderful
+harmony. Like the other great artists of this school, Scopas exhibited
+the grandeur and sublimity for which Phidias was celebrated, but a
+greater refinement and luxury, as well as skill in the use of drapery.
+
+Sculpture in Greece culminated, as an art, in Lysippus, who worked
+chiefly in bronze. He is said to have executed fifteen hundred statues,
+and was much esteemed by Alexander the Great, by whom he was extensively
+patronized. He represented men not as they were, but as they appeared to
+be; and if he exaggerated, he displayed great energy of action. He aimed
+to idealize merely human beauty, and his imitation of Nature was carried
+out in the minutest details. None of his works are extant; but as he
+alone was permitted to make the statue of Alexander, we infer that he
+had no equals. The Emperor Tiberius transferred one of his statues (that
+of an athlete) from the baths of Agrippa to his own chamber, which so
+incensed the people that he was obliged to restore it. His favorite
+subject was Hercules, and a colossal statue of this god was carried to
+Rome by Fabius Maximus, when he took Tarentum, and afterward was
+transferred to Constantinople; the Farnese Hercules and the Belvidere
+Torso are probably copies of this work. He left many eminent scholars,
+among whom were Chares (who executed the famous Colossus of Rhodes),
+Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus who sculptured the group of the
+"Laocoön." The Rhodian school was the immediate offshoot from the school
+of Lysippus at Sicyon; and from this small island of Rhodes the Romans,
+when they conquered it, carried away three thousand statues. The
+Colossus was one of the wonders of the world (seventy cubits in height);
+and the Laocoön (the group of the Trojan hero and his two sons encoiled
+by serpents) is a perfect miracle of art, in which pathos is exhibited
+in the highest degree ever attained in sculpture. It was discovered in
+1506, near the baths of Titus, and is one of the choicest remains of
+ancient plastic art.
+
+The great artists of antiquity did not confine themselves to the
+representation of man, but also carved animals with exceeding accuracy
+and beauty. Nicias was famous for his dogs, Myron for his cows, and
+Lysippus for his horses. Praxiteles composed his celebrated lion after a
+living animal. "The horses of the frieze of the Elgin Marbles," says
+Flaxman, "appear to live and move; to roll their eyes, to gallop,
+prance, and curvet; the veins of their faces and legs seem distended
+with circulation. The beholder is charmed with the deer-like lightness
+and elegance of their make; and although the relief is not above an inch
+from the background, and they are so much smaller than nature, we can
+scarcely suffer reason to persuade us they are not alive." The Greeks
+also carved gems, cameos, medals, and vases, with unapproachable
+excellence. Very few specimens have come down to our times, but those
+which we possess show great beauty both in design and execution.
+
+Grecian statuary began with ideal representations of the deities, and
+was carried to the greatest perfection by Phidias in his statues of
+Jupiter and Minerva. Then succeeded the school of Praxiteles, in which
+the figures of gods and goddesses were still represented, but in mortal
+forms. The school of Lysippus was famous for the statues of celebrated
+men, especially in cities where Macedonian rulers resided. Artists were
+expected henceforth to glorify kings and powerful nobles and rulers by
+portrait statues. From this period, however, plastic art degenerated;
+nor were works of original genius produced, but rather copies or
+varieties from the three great schools to which allusion has been made.
+Sculpture may have multiplied, but not new creations; although some
+imitations of great merit were produced, like the Hermaphrodite, the
+Torso, the Farnese Hercules, and the Fighting Gladiator. When Corinth
+was sacked by Mummius, some of the finest statues of Greece were carried
+to Rome; and after the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, the Greek
+artists emigrated to Italy. The fall of Syracuse introduced many works
+of priceless value into Rome; but it was from Athens, Delphi, Corinth,
+Elis, and other great centres of art that the richest treasures were
+brought. Greece was despoiled to ornament Italy.
+
+The Romans did not create a school of sculpture. They borrowed wholly
+from the Greeks, yet made, especially in the time of Hadrian, many
+beautiful statues. They were fond of this art, and all eminent men had
+statues erected to their memory. The busts of emperors were found in
+every great city, and Rome was filled with statues. The monuments of the
+Romans were even more numerous than those of the Greeks, and among them
+some admirable portraits are found. These sculptures did not express
+that consummation of beauty and grace, of refinement and sentiment,
+which marked the Greeks; but the imitations were good. Art had reached
+its perfection under Lysippus; there was nothing more to learn. Genius
+in that department could soar no higher. It will never rise to
+loftier heights.
+
+It is noteworthy that the purest forms of Grecian art arose in its
+earlier stages. From a moral point of view, sculpture declined from the
+time of Phidias. It was prostituted at Rome under the emperors. The
+specimens which have often been found among the ruins of ancient baths
+make us blush for human nature. The skill of execution did not decline
+for several centuries; but the lofty ideal was lost sight of, and gross
+appeals to human passions were made by those who sought to please
+corrupt leaders of society in an effeminate age. The turgidity and
+luxuriance of art gradually passed into tameness and poverty. The
+reliefs on the Arch of Constantine are rude and clumsy compared with
+those on the column of Marcus Aurelius.
+
+It is not my purpose to describe the decline of art, or enumerate the
+names of the celebrated masters who exalted sculpture in the palmy days
+of Pericles or even Alexander. I simply speak of sculpture as an art
+which reached a great perfection among the Greeks and Romans, as we have
+a right to infer from the specimens that have been preserved. How many
+more must have perished, we may infer from the criticisms of the ancient
+authors. The finest productions of our own age are in a measure
+reproductions; they cannot be called creations, like the statue of the
+Olympian Jove. Even the Moses of Michael Angelo is a Grecian god, and
+Powers's Greek Slave is a copy of an ancient Venus. The very tints which
+have been admired in some of the works of modern sculptors are borrowed
+from Praxiteles, who succeeded in giving to his statues an appearance of
+living flesh. The Museum of the Vatican alone contains several thousand
+specimens of ancient sculpture which have been found among the débris of
+former magnificence, many of which are the productions of Greek artists
+transported to Rome. Among them are antique copies of the Cupid and the
+Faun of Praxiteles, the statue of Demosthenes, the Minerva Medica, the
+Athlete of Lysippus, the Torso Belvedere sculptured by Apollonius, the
+Belvidere Antinous, of faultless anatomy and a study for Domenichino,
+the Laocoön, so panegyrized by Pliny, the Apollo Belvedere, the work of
+Agasias of Ephesus, the Sleeping Ariadne, with numerous other statues of
+gods and goddesses, emperors, philosophers, poets, and statesmen of
+antiquity. The Dying Gladiator, which ornaments the capitol, is alone a
+magnificent proof of the perfection to which sculpture was carried
+centuries after the art had culminated at Athens. And these are only a
+few which stand out among the twenty thousand recovered statues that now
+embellish Italy, to say nothing of those that are scattered over Europe.
+We have the names of hundreds of artists who were famous in their day.
+Not merely the figures of men are chiselled, but of animals and plants.
+Nature in all her forms was imitated; and not merely Nature, but the
+dresses of the ancients are perpetuated in marble. No modern sculptor
+has equalled, in delicacy of finish, the draperies of those ancient
+statues as they appear to us even after the exposure and accidents of
+two thousand years. No one, after a careful study of the museums of
+Europe, can question that of all the nations who have claimed to be
+civilized, the ancient Greeks and Romans deserve a proud pre-eminence in
+an art which is still regarded as among the highest triumphs of human
+genius. All these matchless productions of antiquity are the result of
+native genius alone, without the aid of Christian ideas. Nor with the
+aid of Christianity are we sure that any nation will ever soar to
+loftier heights than did the Greeks in that proud realm which was
+consecrated to Paganism.
+
+We are not so certain in regard to the excellence of the ancients in the
+art of painting as we are in regard to sculpture and architecture, since
+so few specimens of painting have been preserved. We have only the
+testimony of the ancients themselves; and as they had so severe a taste
+and so great a susceptibility to beauty in all its forms, we cannot
+suppose that their notions were crude in this great art which the
+moderns have carried to such great perfection. In this art the moderns
+doubtless excel, especially in perspective and drawing, and light and
+shade. No age, we fancy, can surpass Italy in the fifteenth and
+sixteenth centuries, when the genius of Raphael, Correggio, and
+Domenichino blazed with such wonderful brilliancy.
+
+Painting in some form, however, is very ancient, though not so ancient
+as are the temples of the gods and the statues that were erected to
+their worship. It arose with the susceptibility to beauty of form and
+color, and with the view of conveying thoughts and emotions of the soul
+by imitation of their outward expression. The walls of Babylon were
+painted after Nature with representations of different species of
+animals and of combats between them and man. Semiramis was represented
+as on horseback, striking a leopard with a dart, and her husband Ninus
+as wounding a lion. Ezekiel describes various idols and beasts portrayed
+upon the walls, and even princes painted in vermilion, with girdles
+around their loins. In ages almost fabulous there were some rude
+attempts in this art, which probably arose from the coloring of statues
+and reliefs. The wooden chests of Egyptian mummies are covered with
+painted and hieroglyphic presentations of religious subjects; but the
+colors were laid without regard to light and shade. The Egyptians did
+not seek to represent the passions and emotions which agitate the soul,
+but rather to authenticate events and actions; and hence their
+paintings, like hieroglyphics, are but inscriptions. It was their great
+festivals and religious rites which they sought to perpetuate, not ideas
+of beauty or of grace. Thus their paintings abound with dismembered
+animals, plants, and flowers, with censers, entrails,--whatever was used
+in their religious worship. In Greece also the original painting
+consisted in coloring statues and reliefs of wood and clay. At Corinth,
+painting was early united with the fabrication of vases, on which were
+rudely painted figures of men and animals. Among the Etruscans, before
+Rome was founded, it is said there were beautiful paintings, and it is
+probable that these people were advanced in art before the Greeks. There
+were paintings in some of the old Etruscan cities which the Roman
+emperors wished to remove, so much admired were they even in the days of
+the greatest splendor. The ancient Etruscan vases are famous for designs
+which have never been exceeded in purity of form, but it is probable
+that these were copied from the Greeks.
+
+Whether the Greeks or the Etruscans were the first to paint, however,
+the art was certainly carried to the greatest perfection among the
+former. The development of it was, like all arts, very gradual. It
+probably began by drawing the outline of a shadow, without intermediate
+markings; the next step was the complete outline with the inner
+markings,--such as are represented on the ancient vases, or like the
+designs of Flaxman. They were originally practised on a white ground;
+then light and shade were introduced, and then the application of colors
+in accordance with Nature. We read of a great painting by Bularchus, of
+the battle of Magnete, purchased by a king of Lydia seven hundred and
+eighteen years before Christ. As the subject was a battle, it must have
+represented the movement of figures, although we know nothing of the
+coloring or of the real excellence of the work, except that the artist
+was paid munificently. Cimon of Cleona is the first great name connected
+with the art in Greece. He is praised by Pliny, to whom we owe the
+history of ancient painting more than to any other author. Cimon was not
+satisfied with drawing simply the outlines of his figures, such as we
+see in the oldest painted vases, but he also represented limbs, and
+folds of garments. He invented the art of foreshortening, or the various
+representations of the diminution of the length of figures as they
+appear when looked at obliquely; and hence was the first painter of
+perspective. He first made muscular articulations, indicated the veins,
+and gave natural folds to drapery.
+
+A much greater painter than he was Polygnotus of Thasos, the
+contemporary of Phidias, who came to Athens about the year 463
+B.C.,--one of the greatest geniuses of any age, and one of the most
+magnanimous, who had the good fortune to live in an age of exceeding
+intellectual activity. He painted on panels, which were afterward let
+into the walls, being employed on the public buildings of Athens, and on
+the great temple of Delphi, the hall of which he painted gratuitously.
+He also decorated the Propylaea, which was erected under the
+superintendence of Phidias. The pictures of Polygnotus had nothing of
+that elaborate grouping, aided by the powers of perspective, so much
+admired in modern art. His greatness lay in statuesque painting, which
+he brought nearly to perfection by ideal expression, accurate drawing,
+and improved coloring. He used but few colors, and softened the rigidity
+of his predecessors by making the mouth of beauty smile. He gave great
+expression to the face and figure, and his pictures were models of
+excellence for the beauty of the eyebrows, the blush upon the cheeks,
+and the gracefulness of the draperies. He strove, like Phidias, to
+express character in repose. He imitated the personages and the subjects
+of the old mythology, and treated them in an epic spirit, his subjects
+being almost invariably taken from Homer and the Epic cycle.
+
+Among the works of Polygnotus, as mentioned by Pliny, are his paintings
+in the Temple at Delphi, in the Propylaea of the Acropolis, in the
+Temple of Theseus, and in the Temple of the Dioscuri at Athens. He
+painted in a truly religious spirit, and upon symmetrical principles,
+with great grandeur and freedom, resembling Michael Angelo more than any
+other modern artist.
+
+The use of oil was unknown to the ancients. The artists painted upon
+wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, but not upon canvas, which was
+not used till the time of Nero. They painted upon tablets or panels, and
+not upon the walls,--the panels being afterward framed and encased in
+the walls. The stylus, or cestrum, used in drawing and for spreading the
+wax colors was pointed on one end and flat on the other, and generally
+made of metal. Wax was prepared by purifying and bleaching, and then
+mixed with colors. When painting was practised in watercolors, glue was
+used with the white of an egg or with gums; but wax and resins were also
+worked with water, with certain preparations. This latter mode was
+called encaustic, and was, according to Plutarch, the most durable of
+all methods. It was not generally adopted till the time of Alexander the
+Great. Wax was a most essential ingredient, since it prevented the
+colors from cracking. Encaustic painting was practised both with the
+cestrum and the pencil, and the colors were also burned in.
+
+Fresco, or water-color, on fresh plaster, was used for coloring walls,
+which were divided into compartments or panels. The composition of the
+stucco, and the method of preparing the walls for painting, is described
+by the ancient writers: "They first covered the walls with a layer of
+ordinary plaster, over which, when dry, were successively added three
+other layers of a finer quality, mixed with sand. Above these were
+placed three layers of a composition of chalk and marble-dust, the upper
+one being laid on before the under one was dry; by which process the
+different layers were so bound together that the whole mass formed one
+beautiful and solid slab, resembling marble, and was capable of being
+detached from the wall and transported in a wooden frame to any
+distance. The colors were applied when the composition was still wet.
+The fresco wall, when painted, was covered with an encaustic varnish,
+both to heighten the color and to preserve it from the effects of the
+sun or the weather; but this process required so much care, and was
+attended with so much expense, that it was used only in the better
+houses and palaces." The later discoveries at Pompeii show the same
+correctness of design in painting as in sculpture, and also considerable
+perfection in coloring. The great artists of Greece--Phidias and
+Euphranor, Zeuxis and Protogenes, Polygnotus and Lysippus--were both
+sculptors and painters, like Michael Angelo; and the ancient writers
+praise the paintings of these great artists as much as their sculpture.
+The Aldobrandini Marriage, found on the Esquiline Mount during the
+pontificate of Clement VIII., and placed in the Vatican by Pius VII., is
+admired both for drawing and color. Polygnotus was praised by Aristotle
+for his designs, and by Lucian for his color.
+
+Dionysius and Mikon were the great contemporaries of Polygnotus, the
+former being celebrated for his portraits. His pictures were deficient
+in the ideal, but were remarkable for expression and elegant drawing.
+Mikon was particularly skilled in painting horses, and was the first who
+used for a color the light Attic ochre, and the black made from burnt
+vine-twigs. He painted three of the walls of the Temple of Theseus, and
+also the walls of the Temple of the Dioscuri.
+
+A greater painter still was Apollodorus of Athens. Through his labors,
+about 408 B.C., dramatic effect was added to the style of Polygnotus,
+without departing from his pictures as models. "The acuteness of his
+taste," says Fuseli, "led him to discover that as all men were connected
+by one general form, so they were separated each by some predominant
+power, which fixed character and bound them to a class. Thence he drew
+his line of imitation, and personified the central form of the class to
+which his object belonged, and to which the rest of its qualities
+administered without being absorbed. Agility was not suffered to destroy
+firmness, solidity, or weight; nor strength and weight, agility.
+Elegance did not degenerate into effeminacy, nor grandeur swell to
+hugeness." His aim was to deceive the eye of the spectator by the
+semblance of reality: he painted men and things as they really appeared.
+He also made a great advance in coloring: he invented chiaro-oscuro.
+Other painters had given attention to the proper gradation of light and
+shade; he heightened this effect by the gradation of tints, and thus
+obtained what the moderns call _tone_. He was the first who conferred
+due honor on the pencil,--_primusque gloriam penicillo jure contulit_.
+
+This great painter was succeeded by Zeuxis, who belonged to his school,
+but who surpassed him in the power to give ideal form to rich effects.
+He began his great career four hundred and twenty-four years before
+Christ, and was most remarkable for his female figures. His Helen,
+painted from five of the most beautiful women of Croton, was one of the
+most renowned productions of antiquity, to see which the painter
+demanded money. He gave away his pictures, because, with an artist's
+pride, he maintained that their price could not be estimated. There is
+a tradition that Zeuxis laughed himself to death over an old woman
+painted by him. He arrived at illusion of the senses, regarded as a high
+attainment in art,--as in the instance recorded of his grapes, at which
+the birds pecked. He belonged to the Asiatic school, whose headquarters
+were at Ephesus,--the peculiarities of which were accuracy of imitation,
+the exhibition of sensuous charms, and the gratification of sensual
+tastes. He went to Athens about the time that the sculpture of Phidias
+was completed, which modified his style. His marvellous powers were
+displayed in the contrast of light and shade, which he learned from
+Apollodorus. He gave ideal beauty to his figures, but it was in form
+rather than in expression. He taught the true method of grouping, by
+making each figure the perfect representation of the class to which it
+belonged. His works were deficient in those qualities which elevate the
+feelings and the character. He was the Euripides rather than the Homer
+of his art. He exactly imitated natural objects, which are incapable of
+ideal representation. His works were not so numerous as they were
+perfect in their way, in some of which, as in the Infant Hercules
+strangling the Serpent, he displayed great dramatic power. Lucian highly
+praises his Female Centaur as one of the most remarkable paintings of
+the world, in which he showed great ingenuity of contrasts. His Jupiter
+Enthroned is also extolled by Pliny, as one of his finest works. Zeuxis
+acquired a great fortune, and lived ostentatiously.
+
+Contemporaneous with Zeuxis, and equal in fame, was Parrhasius, a native
+of Ephesus, whose skill lay in accuracy of drawing and power of
+expression. He gave to painting true proportion, and attended to minute
+details of the countenance and the hair. In his gods and heroes, he did
+for painting what Phidias did in sculpture. His outlines were so perfect
+as to indicate those parts of the figure which they did not express. He
+established a rule of proportion which was followed by all succeeding
+artists. While many of his pieces were of a lofty character, some were
+demoralizing. Zeuxis yielded the palm to him, since Parrhasius painted a
+curtain which deceived his rival, whereas the grapes of Zeuxis had
+deceived only birds. Parrhasius was exceedingly arrogant and luxurious,
+and boasted of having reached the utmost limits of his art. He combined
+the magic tone of Apollodorus with the exquisite design of Zeuxis and
+the classic expression of Polygnotus.
+
+Many were the eminent painters that adorned the fifth century before
+Christ, not only in Athens, but in the Ionian cities of Asia. Timanthes
+of Sicyon was distinguished for invention, and Eupompus of the same
+city founded a school. His advice to Lysippus is memorable: "Let Nature,
+not an artist, be your model." Protogenes was celebrated for his high
+finish. His Talissus took him seven years to complete. Pamphilus was
+celebrated for composition, Antiphilus for facility, Theon of Samos for
+prolific fancy, Apelles for grace, Pausias for his chiaro-oscuro,
+Nicomachus for his bold and rapid pencil, Aristides for depth of
+expression.
+
+The art probably culminated in Apelles, who was at once a rich colorist
+and portrayer of sensuous charm and a scientific artist, while he added
+a peculiar grace of his own, which distinguished him above both his
+predecessors and contemporaries. He was contemporaneous with Alexander,
+and was alone allowed to paint the picture of the great conqueror.
+Apelles was a native of Ephesus, studied under Pamphilus of Amphipolis,
+and when he had gained reputation he went to Sicyon and took lessons
+from Melanthius. He spent the best part of his life at the court of
+Philip and Alexander, and painted many portraits of these great men and
+of their generals. He excelled in portraits, and labored so assiduously
+to perfect himself in drawing that he never spent a day without
+practising. He made great improvement in the mechanical part of his art,
+inventing some colors, and being the first to varnish pictures. By the
+general consent of ancient authors, Apelles stands at the head of all
+the painters of their world. His greatest work was his Venus Anadyomene,
+or Venus rising out of the sea, in which female grace was personified;
+the falling drops of water from her hair gave the appearance of a
+transparent silver veil over her form. This picture cost one hundred
+talents, was painted for the Temple of Aesculapius at Cos, and afterward
+placed by Augustus in the temple which he dedicated to Julius Caesar.
+The lower part of it becoming injured, no one could be found to repair
+it; nor was there an artist who could complete an unfinished picture
+which Apelles left. He feared no criticism, and was unenvious of the
+fame of rivals.
+
+After Apelles, the art of painting declined, although great painters
+occasionally appeared, especially from the school of Sicyon, which was
+renowned for nearly two hundred years. The destruction of Corinth by
+Mummius, 146 B.C., gave a severe blow to Grecian art. This general
+destroyed, or carried to Rome, more works than all his predecessors
+combined. Sulla, when he spoiled Athens, inflicted a still greater
+injury; and from that time artists resorted to Rome and Alexandria and
+other flourishing cities for patronage and remuneration. The
+masterpieces of famous artists brought enormous prices, and Greece and
+Asia were ransacked for old pictures. The paintings which Aemilius
+Paulus brought from Greece required two hundred and fifty wagons to
+carry them in the triumphal procession. With the spoliation of Greece,
+the migration of artists began; and this spoliation of Greece, Asia, and
+Sicily continued for two centuries. We have already said that such was
+the wealth of Rhodes in works of art that three thousand statues were
+found there by the conquerors; nor could there have been less at Athens,
+Olympia, and Delphi. Scaurus had all the public pictures of Sicyon
+transported to Rome. Verres plundered every temple and public building
+in Sicily.
+
+Thus Rome was possessed of the finest paintings in the world, without
+the slightest claim to the advancement of the art. And if the opinion of
+Sir Joshua Reynolds is correct, art could advance no higher in the realm
+of painting, as well as of statuary, than the Greeks had already borne
+it. Yet the Romans learned to place as high value on the works of
+Grecian genius as the English do on the paintings of the old masters of
+Italy and Flanders. And if they did not add to the art, they gave such
+encouragement that under the emperors it may be said to have been
+flourishing. Varro had a gallery of seven hundred portraits of eminent
+men. The portraits as well as the statues of the great were placed in
+the temples, libraries, and public buildings. The baths especially were
+filled with paintings.
+
+The great masterpieces of the Greeks were either historical or
+mythological. Paintings of gods and heroes, groups of men and women, in
+which character and passion could be delineated, were the most highly
+prized. It was in the expression given to the human figure--in beauty of
+form and countenance, in which all the emotions of the soul, as well as
+the graces of the body were portrayed--that the Greek artists sought to
+reach the ideal, and to gain immortality. And they painted for a people
+who had both a natural and a cultivated taste and sensibility.
+
+Among the Romans portrait, decorative, and scene painting engrossed the
+art, much to the regret of such critics as Pliny and Vitruvius. Nothing
+could be in more execrable taste than a colossal painting of Nero, one
+hundred and twenty feet high. From the time of Augustus landscape
+decorations were common, and were carried out with every species of
+license. Among the Greeks we do not read of landscape painting. This has
+been reserved for our age, and is much admired, as it was at Rome in the
+latter days of the empire. Mosaic work, of inlaid stones or composition
+of varying shades and colors, gradually superseded painting in Rome; it
+was first used for floors, and finally walls and ceilings were
+ornamented with it. It is true, the ancients could show no such
+exquisite perfection of colors, tints, and shades as may be seen to-day
+in the wonderful reproductions of world-renowned paintings on the walls
+of St. Peter's at Rome; but many ancient mosaics have been preserved
+which attest beauty of design of the highest character,--like the Battle
+of Issus, lately discovered at Pompeii; and this brilliant art had its
+origin and a splendid development at the hands of the old Romans.
+
+Thus in all those arts of which modern civilization is proudest, and in
+which the genius of man has soared to the loftiest heights, the ancients
+were not merely our equals,--they were our superiors. It is greater to
+originate than to copy. In architecture, in sculpture, and perhaps in
+painting, the Greeks attained absolute perfection. Any architect of our
+time, who should build an edifice in different proportions from those
+that were recognized in the great cities of antiquity, would make a
+mistake. Who can improve upon the Doric columns of the Parthenon, or
+upon the Corinthian capitals of the Temple of Jupiter? Indeed, it is in
+proportion as we accurately copy the faultless models of the age of
+Pericles that excellence with us is attained and recognized; when we
+differ from them we furnish grounds of just criticism. So in
+sculpture,--the finest modern works are inspired by antique models. It
+is only when the artist seeks to bring out the purest and loftiest
+sentiments of the soul, such as only Christianity can inspire, that he
+may hope to surpass the sculpture of antiquity in one department of that
+art alone,--in expression, rather than in beauty of form, on which no
+improvement can be made. And if we possessed the painted Venus of
+Apelles, as we can boast of having the sculptured Venus of Cleomenes, we
+should probably discover greater richness of coloring as well as grace
+of figure than appear in that famous picture of Titian which is one of
+the proudest ornaments of the galleries of Florence, and one of the
+greatest marvels of Italian art.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Winckelmann's History of Ancient Art; Müller's Ancient Art and its
+Remains; A.J. Guattani, Antiquités de la Grande Grèce; Mazois,
+Antiquités de Pompeii; Sir W. Gill, Pompeiana; Donaldson's Antiquities
+of Athens; Vitruvius, Stuart, Chandler, Clarke, Dodwell, Cleghorn, De
+Quincey, Fergusson, Schliemann,--these are some of the innumerable
+authorities on Architecture among the ancients.
+
+In Sculpture, Pliny and Cicero are the most noted critics. There is a
+fine article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica on this subject. In Smith's
+Dictionary are the Lives and works of the most noted masters. Müller's
+Ancient Art alludes to the leading masterpieces. Montfauçon's Antiquité
+Expliquée en Figures; Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, by the Society of
+Dilettanti, London, 1809; Ancient Marbles of the British Museum, by
+Taylor Combe; Millin, Introduction à l'Étude des Monuments Antiques;
+Monuments Inédits d'Antiquité figurée, recuellis et publiés par
+Raoul-Rochette; Gerhard's Archäologische Zeitung; David's Essai sur le
+Classement Chronologique des Sculpteurs Grecs les plus célèbres.
+
+In Painting, see Müller's Ancient Art; Fuseli's Lectures; Sir Joshua
+Reynolds's Lectures; Lanzi's History of Painting in Italy (translated by
+Roscoe); and the Article on "Painting," Encyclopaedia Britannica, and
+Article "Pictura," Smith's Dictionary, both of which last mentioned
+refer to numerous German, French, and other authorities, should the
+reader care to pursue the subject. Vitruvius (on Architecture,
+translated by Gwilt) writes at some length on ancient wall-paintings.
+The finest specimens of ancient paintings are found in catacombs, the
+baths, and the ruins of Pompeii. On this subject Winckelmann is the
+great authority.
+
+
+
+
+ANCIENT SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.
+
+
+ASTRONOMY, GEOGRAPHY, ETC.
+
+2000-100 B.C.
+
+
+It would be absurd to claim for the ancients any great attainments in
+science, such as they made in the field of letters or the realm of art.
+It is in science, especially when applied to practical life, that the
+moderns show their great superiority to the most enlightened nations of
+antiquity. In this great department of human inquiry modern genius
+shines with the lustre of the sun. It is this which most strikingly
+attests the advance of civilization. It is this which has distinguished
+and elevated the races of Europe, and carried them in the line of
+progress beyond the attainments of the Greeks and Romans. With the
+magnificent discoveries and inventions of the last three hundred years
+in almost every department of science, especially in the explorations of
+distant seas and continents, in the analysis of chemical compounds, in
+the wonders of steam and electricity, in mechanical appliances to
+abridge human labor, in astronomical researches, in the explanation of
+the phenomena of the heavens, in the miracles which inventive genius has
+wrought,--seen in our ships, our manufactories, our printing-presses,
+our observatories, our fortifications, our laboratories, our mills, our
+machines to cultivate the earth, to make our clothes, to build our
+houses, to multiply our means of offence and defence, to make weak
+children do the work of Titans, to measure our time with the accuracy of
+the planetary orbits, to use the sun itself in perpetuating our
+likenesses to distant generations, to cause a needle to guide the
+mariner with assurance on the darkest night, to propel a heavy ship
+against wind and tide without oars or sails, to make carriages ascend
+mountains without horses at the rate of thirty miles an hour, to convey
+intelligence with the speed of lightning from continent to continent and
+under oceans that ancient navigators never dared to cross,--these and
+other wonders attest an ingenuity and audacity of intellect which would
+have overwhelmed with amazement the most adventurous of Greeks and the
+most potent of Romans.
+
+But the great discoveries and inventions to which we owe this marked
+superiority are either accidental or the result of generations of
+experiment, assisted by an immense array of ascertained facts from which
+safe inductions can be made. It is not, probably, the superiority of
+the European races over the Greeks and Romans to which we may ascribe
+the wonderful advance of modern society, but the particular direction
+which genius was made to take. Had the Greeks given the energy of their
+minds to mechanical forces as they did to artistic creations, they might
+have made wonderful inventions. But it was not so ordered by Providence.
+At that time the world was not in the stage of development when this
+particular direction of intellect could have been favored. The
+development of the physical sciences, with their infinite multiplicity
+and complexity, required more centuries of observation, collection and
+collation of facts, deductions from known phenomena, than the ancients
+had had to work with; while the more ethereal realms of philosophy,
+ethics, aesthetics, and religion, though needing keen study of Nature
+and of man, depended more upon inner spiritual forces, and less upon
+accumulated detail of external knowledge. Yet as there were some
+subjects which the Greeks and Romans seemed to exhaust, some fields of
+labor and thought in which they never have been and perhaps never will
+be surpassed, so some future age may direct its energies into channels
+that are as unknown to us as clocks and steam-engines were to the
+Greeks. This is the age of mechanism and of science; and mechanism and
+science sweep everything before them, and will probably be carried to
+their utmost capacity and development. After that the human mind may
+seek some new department, some new scope for its energies, and an age of
+new wonders may arise,--perhaps after the present dominant races shall
+have become intoxicated with the greatness of their triumphs and have
+shared the fate of the old monarchies of the East. But I would not
+speculate on the destinies of the European nations, whether they are to
+make indefinite advances until they occupy and rule the whole world, or
+are destined to be succeeded by nations as yet undeveloped,--savages, as
+their fathers were when Rome was in the fulness of material wealth
+and grandeur.
+
+I have shown that in the field of artistic excellence, in literary
+composition, in the arts of government and legislation, and even in the
+realm of philosophical speculation, the ancients were our
+school-masters, and that among them were some men of most marvellous
+genius, who have had no superiors among us. But we do not see among them
+the exhibition of genius in what we call science, at least in its
+application to practical life. It would be difficult to show any
+department of science which the ancients carried to any considerable
+degree of perfection. Nevertheless, there were departments in which they
+made noble attempts, and in which they showed large capacity, even if
+they were unsuccessful in great practical results.
+
+Astronomy was one of these. In this science such men as Eratosthenes,
+Aristarchus, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy were great lights of whom humanity
+may be proud; and had they been assisted by our modern inventions, they
+might have earned a fame scarcely eclipsed by that of Kepler and Newton.
+The old astronomers did little to place this science on a true
+foundation, but they showed great ingenuity, and discovered some truths
+which no succeeding age has repudiated. They determined the
+circumference of the earth by a method identical with that which would
+be employed by modern astronomers; they ascertained the position of the
+stars by right ascension and declination; they knew the obliquity of the
+ecliptic, and determined the place of the sun's apogee as well as its
+mean motion. Their calculations on the eccentricity of the moon prove
+that they had a rectilinear trigonometry and tables of chords. They had
+an approximate knowledge of parallax; they could calculate eclipses of
+the moon, and use them for the correction of their lunar tables. They
+understood spherical trigonometry, and determined the motions of the sun
+and moon, involving an accurate definition of the year and a method of
+predicting eclipses; they ascertained that the earth was a sphere, and
+reduced the phenomena of the heavenly bodies to uniform movements of
+circular orbits. We have settled by physical geography the exact form
+of the earth, but the ancients arrived at their knowledge by
+astronomical reasoning. Says Whewell:--
+
+"The reduction of the motions of the sun, moon, and five planets to
+circular orbits, as was done by Hipparchus, implies deep concentrated
+thought and scientific abstraction. The theories of eccentrics and
+epicycles accomplished the end of explaining all the known phenomena.
+The resolution of the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies into an
+assemblage of circular motions was a great triumph of genius, and was
+equivalent to the most recent and improved processes by which modern
+astronomers deal with such motions."
+
+Astronomy was probably born in Chaldaea as early as the time of Abraham.
+The glories of the firmament were impressed upon the minds of the rude
+primitive races with an intensity which we do not feel, with all the
+triumphs of modern science. The Chaldaean shepherds, as they watched
+their flocks by night, noted the movements of the planets, and gave
+names to the more brilliant constellations. Before religious rituals
+were established, before great superstitions arose, before poetry was
+sung, before musical instruments were invented, before artists
+sculptured marble or melted bronze, before coins were stamped, before
+temples arose, before diseases were healed by the arts of medicine,
+before commerce was known, those Oriental shepherds counted the anxious
+hours by the position of certain constellations. Astronomy is therefore
+the oldest of the ancient sciences, although it remained imperfect for
+more than four thousand years. The old Assyrians, Egyptians, and Greeks
+made but few discoveries which are valued by modern astronomers, but
+they laid the foundation of the science, and ever regarded it as one of
+the noblest subjects that could stimulate the faculties of man. It was
+invested with all that was religious and poetical.
+
+The spacious level and unclouded horizon of Chaldaea afforded peculiar
+facilities of observation; and its pastoral and contemplative
+inhabitants, uncontaminated by the vices and superstitions of subsequent
+ages, active-minded and fresh, discovered after a long observation of
+eclipses--some say extending over nineteen centuries--the cycle of two
+hundred and twenty-three lunations, which brings back the eclipses in
+the same order. Having once established their cycle, they laid the
+foundation for the most sublime of all the sciences. Callisthenes
+transmitted from Babylon to Aristotle a collection of observations of
+all the eclipses that preceded the conquests of Alexander, together with
+the definite knowledge which the Chaldaeans had collected about the
+motions of the heavenly bodies. Such knowledge was rude and simple, and
+amounted to little beyond the fact that there were spherical
+revolutions about an inclined axis, and that the poles pointed always to
+particular stars. The Egyptians also recorded their observations, from
+which it would appear that they observed eclipses at least sixteen
+hundred years before the beginning of our era,--which is not improbable,
+if the speculations of modern philosophers respecting the age of the
+world are entitled to credit. The Egyptians discovered by the rising of
+Sirius that the year consists of three hundred and sixty-five and
+one-quarter days; and this was their sacred year, in distinction from
+the civil, which consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days. They
+also had observed the courses of the planets, and could explain the
+phenomena of the stations and retrogradations; and it is asserted too
+that they regarded Mercury and Venus as satellites of the sun. Some have
+maintained that the obelisks which the Egyptians erected served the
+purpose of gnomons for determining the obliquity of the ecliptic, the
+altitude of the pole, and the length of the tropical year. It is thought
+even that the Pyramids, by the position of their sides toward the
+cardinal points, attest Egyptian acquaintance with a meridional line.
+The Chinese boast of having noticed and recorded a series of eclipses
+extending over a period of thirty-eight hundred and fifty-eight years;
+and it is probable that they anticipated the Greeks two thousand years
+in the discovery of the Metonic cycle,--or the cycle of nineteen years,
+at the end of which time the new moons fall on the same days of the
+year. The Chinese also determined the obliquity of the ecliptic eleven
+hundred years before our era. The Hindus at a remote antiquity
+represented celestial phenomena with considerable exactness, and
+constructed tables by which the longitude of the sun and moon were
+determined, and dials to measure time. Bailly thinks that thirty-one
+hundred and two years before Christ astronomy was cultivated in Siam
+which hardly yields in accuracy to that which modern science has built
+on the theory of universal gravitation.
+
+But the Greeks after all were the only people of antiquity who elevated
+astronomy to the dignity of a science. They however confessed that they
+derived their earliest knowledge from the Babylonian and Egyptian
+priests, while the priests of Thebes claimed to be the originators of
+exact astronomical observations. Diodorus asserts that the Chaldaeans
+used the Temple of Belus, in the centre of Babylon, for their survey of
+the heavens. But whether the Babylonians or the Egyptians were the
+earliest astronomers is of little consequence, although the pedants make
+it a grave matter of investigation. All we know is that astronomy was
+cultivated by both Babylonians and Egyptians, and that they made but
+very limited attainments. They approximated to the truth in reference
+to the solar year, by observing the equinoxes and solstices and the
+heliacal rising of particular stars.
+
+The early Greek philosophers who visited Egypt and the East in search of
+knowledge, found very little to reward their curiosity or industry,--not
+much beyond preposterous claims to a high antiquity, and to an esoteric
+wisdom which has not yet been revealed. Plato and Eudoxus spent thirteen
+years in Heliopolis for the purpose of extracting the scientific
+knowledge of the Egyptian priests, yet they learned but little beyond
+the fact that the solar year was a trifle beyond three hundred and
+sixty-five days. No great names have come down to us from the priests of
+Babylon or Egypt; no one gained an individual reputation. The Chaldaean
+and Egyptian priests may have furnished the raw material of observation
+to the Greeks, but the latter alone possessed the scientific genius by
+which undigested facts were converted into a symmetrical system. The
+East never gave valuable knowledge to the West; it gave the tendency to
+religious mysticism, which in its turn tended to superstition. Instead
+of astronomy, it gave astrology; instead of science, it gave magic,
+incantations, and dreams. The Eastern astronomers connected their
+astronomy with divination from the stars, and made their antiquity reach
+back to two hundred and seventy thousand years. There were soothsayers
+in the time of Daniel, and magicians, exorcists, and interpreters of
+signs. They were not men of scientific research, seeking truth; it was
+power they sought, by perverting the intellect of the people. The
+astrology of the East was founded on the principle that a star or
+constellation presided over the birth of an individual, and that it
+either portended his fate, or shed a good or bad influence upon his
+future life. The star which looked upon a child at the hour of his birth
+was called the "horoscopus," and the peculiar influence of each planet
+was determined by the astrologers. The superstitions of Egypt and
+Chaldaea unfortunately spread among both the Greeks and Romans, and
+these were about all that the Western nations learned from the boastful
+priests of occult Oriental science. Whatever was known of real value
+among the ancients is due to the earnest inquiries of the Greeks.
+
+And yet their researches were very unsatisfactory until the time of
+Hipparchus. The primitive knowledge was almost nothing. The Homeric
+poems regarded the earth as a circular plain bounded by the heaven,
+which was a solid vault or hemisphere, with its concavity turned
+downward. This absurdity was believed until the time of Herodotus, five
+centuries after; nor was it exploded fully in the time of Aristotle. The
+sun, moon, and stars were supposed to move upon or with the inner
+surface of the heavenly hemisphere, and the ocean was thought to gird
+the earth around as a great belt, into which the heavenly bodies sank at
+night. Homer believed that the sun arose out of the ocean, ascended the
+heaven, and again plunged into the ocean, passing under the earth, and
+producing darkness. The Greeks even personified the sun as a divine
+charioteer driving his fiery steeds over the steep of heaven, until he
+bathed them at evening in the western waves. Apollo became the god of
+the sun, as Diana was the goddess of the moon. But the early Greek
+inquirers did not attempt to explain how the sun found his way from the
+west back again to the east; they merely took note of the diurnal
+course, the alternation of day and night, the number of the seasons, and
+their regular successions. They found the points of the compass by
+determining the recurrence of the equinoxes and solstices; but they had
+no conception of the ecliptic,--of that great circle in the heaven
+formed by the sun's annual course,--and of its obliquity when compared
+with our equator. Like the Egyptians and Babylonians, the Greeks
+ascertained the length of the year to be three hundred and sixty-five
+days; but perfect accuracy was lacking, for want of scientific
+instruments and of recorded observations of the heavenly bodies. The
+Greeks had not even a common chronological era for the designation of
+years. Herodotus informs us that the Trojan War preceded his time by
+eight hundred years: he merely states the interval between the event in
+question and his own time; he had certain data for distant periods. The
+Greeks reckoned dates from the Trojan War, and the Romans from the
+building of their city. The Greeks also divided the year into twelve
+months, and introduced the intercalary circle of eight years, although
+the Romans disused it afterward, until the calendar was reformed by
+Julius Caesar. Thus there was no scientific astronomical knowledge worth
+mentioning among the primitive Greeks.
+
+Immense research and learning have been expended by modern critics to
+show the state of scientific astronomy among the Greeks. I am amazed
+equally at the amount of research and its comparative worthlessness; for
+what addition to science can be made by an enumeration of the
+puerilities and errors of the Greeks, and how wasted and pedantic the
+learning which ransacks all antiquity to prove that the Greeks adopted
+this or that absurdity![1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The style of modern historical criticism is well
+exemplified in the discussions of the Germans whether the Arx on the
+Capitoline Hill occupied the northeastern or southwestern corner, which
+take up nearly one half of the learned article on the Capitoline in
+Smith's Dictionary.]
+
+The earliest historic name associated with astronomy in Greece was
+Thales, the founder of the Ionic school of philosophers. He is reported
+to have made a visit to Egypt, to have fixed the year at three hundred
+and sixty-five days, to have determined the course of the sun from
+solstice to solstice, and to have calculated eclipses. He attributed an
+eclipse of the moon to the interposition of the earth between the sun
+and moon, and an eclipse of the sun to the interposition of the moon
+between the sun and earth,--and thus taught the rotundity of the earth,
+sun, and moon. He also determined the ratio of the sun's diameter to its
+apparent orbit. As he first solved the problem of inscribing a
+right-angled triangle in a circle, he is the founder of geometrical
+science in Greece. He left, however, nothing to writing; hence all
+accounts of him are confused,--some doubting even if he made the
+discoveries attributed to him. His philosophical speculations, which
+science rejects,--such as that water is the principle of all
+things,--are irrelevant to a description of the progress of astronomy.
+That he was a great light no one questions, considering the ignorance
+with which he was surrounded.
+
+Anaximander, who followed Thales in philosophy, held to puerile
+doctrines concerning the motions and nature of the stars, which it is
+useless to repeat. His addition to science, if he made any, was in
+treating the magnitudes and distances of the planets. He constructed
+geographical charts, and attempted to delineate the celestial sphere,
+and to measure time with a gnomon, or time-pillar, by the motion of its
+shadow upon a dial.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: Dr. E.H. Knight, in his "American Mechanical Dictionary"
+(i. 692), cites the Scriptural account of the beautiful altar seen by
+King Ahaz of Jerusalem, in Damascus, when he went thither to greet
+Tiglath-Pileser, the Assyrian who had helped him against his Samarian
+enemy. Ahaz erected a similar altar at Jerusalem, and also a _sun-dial,_
+the same one mentioned in the account of the miraculous cure of his son
+Hezekiah. "This," says Dr. Knight, "was probably the first dial on
+record, and is one hundred and forty years before Thales, and nearly
+four hundred before Plato and Aristotle, and just a little previous to
+the lunar eclipses observed at Babylon, as recorded by Ptolemy.... The
+Hebrew word [for this dial] is said by Colonel White of the Bengal army
+to signify a _staircase_, which much strengthens the inference that it
+was like the equinoctial dial of the Indian nations and of Mesopotamia,
+from whence its pattern is assumed to have been derived."]
+
+Anaximenes of Miletus taught, like his predecessors, crude notions of
+the sun and stars, and speculated on the nature of the moon, but did
+nothing to advance his science on true grounds, except by the
+construction of sun-dials. The same may be said of Heraclitus,
+Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Anaxagoras: they were great men, but they
+gave to the world mere speculations, some of which are very puerile.
+They all held to the idea that the heavenly bodies revolved around the
+earth, and that the earth was a plain; but they explained eclipses, and
+supposed that the moon derived its light from the sun. Some of them
+knew the difference between the planets and the fixed stars. Anaxagoras
+scouted the notion that the sun was a god, and supposed it to be a mass
+of ignited stone,--for which he was called an atheist.
+
+Socrates, who belonged to another school, avoided all barren
+speculations concerning the universe, and confined himself to human
+actions and interests. He looked even upon geometry in a very practical
+way, valuing it only so far as it could be made serviceable to
+land-measuring. As for the stars and planets, he supposed it was
+impossible to arrive at a true knowledge of them, and regarded
+speculations upon them as useless.
+
+It must be admitted that the Greek astronomers, however barren were
+their general theories, laid the foundation of science. Pythagoras
+taught the obliquity of the ecliptic, probably learned in Egypt, and the
+identity of the morning and evening stars. It is supposed that he
+maintained that the sun was the centre of the universe, and that the
+earth revolved around it; but this he did not demonstrate, and his whole
+system was unscientific, assuming certain arbitrary principles, from
+which he reasoned deductively. "He assumed that fire is more worthy than
+earth; that the more worthy place must be given to the more worthy; that
+the extremity is more worthy than the intermediate parts,--and hence,
+as the centre is an extremity, the place of fire is at the centre of the
+universe, and that therefore the earth and other heavenly bodies move
+round the fiery centre." But this was no heliocentric system, since the
+sun moved, like the earth, in a circle around the central fire. This was
+merely the work of the imagination, utterly unscientific, though bold
+and original. Nor did this hypothesis gain credit, since it was the
+fixed opinion of philosophers that the earth was the centre of the
+universe, around which the sun, moon, and planets revolved. But the
+Pythagoreans were the first to teach that the motions of the sun, moon,
+and planets are circular and equable. Their idea that the celestial
+bodies emitted a sound, and were combined into a harmonious symphony,
+was exceedingly crude, however beautiful "The music of the spheres"
+belongs to poetry, as well as to the speculations of Plato.
+
+Eudoxus, in the fifth century before Christ, contributed to science by
+making a descriptive map of the heavens, which was used as a manual of
+sidereal astronomy to the sixth century of our era.
+
+The error of only one hundred and ninety days in the periodic time of
+Saturn shows that there had been for a long time close observations.
+Aristotle--whose comprehensive intellect, like that of Bacon, took in
+all forms of knowledge--condensed all that was known in his day into a
+treatise concerning the heavens. He regarded astronomy as more
+intimately connected with mathematics than any other branch of science.
+But even he did not soar far beyond the philosophers of his day, since
+he held to the immobility of the earth,--the grand error of the
+ancients. Some few speculators in science (like Heraclitus of Pontus,
+and Hicetas) conceived a motion of the earth itself upon its axis, so as
+to account for the apparent motion of the sun; but they also thought it
+was in the centre of the universe.
+
+The introduction of the gnomon (time-pillar) and dial into Greece
+advanced astronomical knowledge, since they were used to determine the
+equinoxes and solstices, as well as parts of the day. Meton set up a
+sun-dial at Athens in the year 433 B.C., but the length of the hour
+varied with the time of the year, since the Greeks divided the day into
+twelve equal parts. Dials were common at Rome in the time of Plautus,
+224 B.C.; but there was a difficulty in using them, since they failed at
+night and in cloudy weather, and could not be relied on. Hence the
+introduction of water-clocks instead.
+
+Aristarchus is said to have combated (280 B.C.) the geocentric theory so
+generally received by philosophers, and to have promulgated the
+hypothesis "that the fixed stars and the sun are immovable; that the
+earth is carried round the sun in the circumference of a circle of
+which the sun is the centre; and that the sphere of the fixed stars,
+having the same centre as the sun, is of such magnitude that the orbit
+of the earth is to the distance of the fixed stars as the centre of the
+sphere of the fixed stars is to its surface." Aristarchus also,
+according to Plutarch, explained the apparent annual motion of the sun
+in the ecliptic by supposing the orbit of the earth to be inclined to
+its axis. There is no evidence that this great astronomer supported his
+heliocentric theory with any geometrical proof, although Plutarch
+maintains that he demonstrated it. This theory gave great offence,
+especially to the Stoics; and Cleanthes, the head of the school at that
+time, maintained that the author of such an impious doctrine should be
+punished. Aristarchus left a treatise "On the Magnitudes and Distances
+of the Sun and Moon;" and his methods to measure the apparent diameters
+of the sun and moon are considered theoretically sound by modern
+astronomers, but practically inexact owing to defective instruments. He
+estimated the diameter of the sun at the seven hundred and twentieth
+part of the circumference of the circle which it describes in its
+diurnal revolution, which is not far from the truth; but in this
+treatise he does not allude to his heliocentric theory.
+
+Archimedes of Syracuse, born 287 B.C., is stated to have measured the
+distance of the sun, moon, and planets, and he constructed an orrery in
+which he exhibited their motions. But it was not in the Grecian colony
+of Syracuse, but of Alexandria, that the greatest light was shed on
+astronomical science. Here Aristarchus resided, and also Eratosthenes,
+who lived between the years 276 and 196 B.C. The latter was a native of
+Athens, but was invited by Ptolemy Euergetes to Alexandria, and placed
+at the head of the library. His great achievement was the determination
+of the circumference of the earth. This was done by measuring on the
+ground the distance between Syene, a city exactly under the tropic, and
+Alexandria, situated on the same meridian. The distance was found to be
+five thousand stadia. The meridional distance of the sun from the zenith
+of Alexandria he estimated to be 7° 12', or a fiftieth part of the
+circumference of the meridian. Hence the circumference of the earth was
+fixed at two hundred and fifty thousand stadia,--which is not very
+different from our modern computation. The circumference being known,
+the diameter of the earth was easily determined. The moderns have added
+nothing to this method. He also calculated the diameter of the sun to be
+twenty-seven times greater than that of the earth, and the distance of
+the sun from the earth to be eight hundred and four million stadia, and
+that of the moon seven hundred and eighty thousand stadia,--a close
+approximation to the truth.
+
+Astronomical science received a great impulse from the school of
+Alexandria, the greatest light of which was Hipparchus, who flourished
+early in the second century before Christ. He laid the foundation of
+astronomy upon a scientific basis. "He determined," says Delambre, "the
+position of the stars by right ascensions and declinations, and was
+acquainted with the obliquity of the ecliptic. He determined the
+inequality of the sun and the place of its apogee, as well as its mean
+motion; the mean motion of the moon, of its nodes and apogee; the
+equation of the moon's centre, and the inclination of its orbit. He
+calculated eclipses of the moon, and used them for the correction of his
+lunar tables, and he had an approximate knowledge of parallax." His
+determination of the motions of the sun and moon, and his method of
+predicting eclipses evince great mathematical genius. But he combined
+with this determination a theory of epicycles and eccentrics which
+modern astronomy discards. It was however a great thing to conceive of
+the earth as a solid sphere, and to reduce the phenomena of the heavenly
+bodies to uniform motions in circular orbits. "That Hipparchus should
+have succeeded in the first great steps of the resolution of the
+heavenly bodies into circular motions is a circumstance," says Whewell,
+"which gives him one of the most distinguished places in the roll of
+great astronomers." But he did even more than this: he discovered that
+apparent motion of the fixed stars round the axis of the ecliptic, which
+is called the Precession of the Equinoxes,--one of the greatest
+discoveries in astronomy. He maintained that the precession was not
+greater than fifty-nine seconds, and not less than thirty-six seconds.
+Hipparchus also framed a catalogue of the stars, and determined their
+places with reference to the ecliptic by their latitudes and longitudes.
+Altogether he seems to have been one of the greatest geniuses of
+antiquity, and his works imply a prodigious amount of calculation.
+
+Astronomy made no progress for three hundred years, although it was
+expounded by improved methods. Posidonius constructed an orrery, which
+exhibited the diurnal motions of the sun, moon, and five planets.
+Posidonius calculated the circumference of the earth to be two hundred
+and forty thousand stadia, by a different method from Eratosthenes. The
+barrenness of discovery from Hipparchus to Ptolemy,--the Alexandrian
+mathematician, astronomer, and geographer in the second century of the
+Christian era,--in spite of the patronage of the royal Ptolemies of
+Egypt, was owing to the want of instruments for the accurate measure of
+time (like our clocks), to the imperfection of astronomical tables, and
+to the want of telescopes. Hence the great Greek astronomers were unable
+to realize their theories. Their theories however were magnificent, and
+evinced great power of mathematical combination; but what could they do
+without that wondrous instrument by which the human eye indefinitely
+multiplies its power? Moreover, the ancients had no accurate almanacs,
+since the care of the calendar belonged not so much to the astronomers
+as to the priests, who tampered with the computation of time for
+sacerdotal objects. The calendars of different communities differed.
+Hence Julius Caesar rendered a great service to science by the reform of
+the Roman calendar, which was exclusively under the control of the
+college of pontiffs, or general religious overseers. The Roman year
+consisted of three hundred and fifty-five days; and in the time of
+Caesar the calendar was in great confusion, being ninety days in
+advance, so that January was an autumn month. He inserted the regular
+intercalary month of twenty-three days, and two additional ones of
+sixty-seven days. These, together with ninety days, were added to three
+hundred and sixty-five days, making a year of transition of four hundred
+and forty-five days, by which January was brought back to the first
+month in the year after the winter solstice; and to prevent the
+repetition of the error, he directed that in future the year should
+consist of three hundred and sixty-five and one-quarter days, which he
+effected by adding one day to the months of April, June, September, and
+November, and two days to the months of January, Sextilis, and
+December, making an addition of ten days to the old year of three
+hundred and fifty-five. And he provided for a uniform intercalation of
+one day in every fourth year, which accounted for the remaining
+quarter of a day.
+
+Caesar was a student of astronomy, and always found time for its
+contemplation. He is said even to have written a treatise on the motion
+of the stars. He was assisted in his reform of the calendar by
+Sosigines, an Alexandrian astronomer. He took it out of the hands of the
+priests, and made it a matter of pure civil regulation. The year was
+defined by the sun, and not as before by the moon.
+
+Thus the Romans were the first to bring the scientific knowledge of the
+Greeks into practical use; but while they measured the year with a great
+approximation to accuracy, they still used sun-dials and water-clocks to
+measure diurnal time. Yet even these were not constructed as they should
+have been. The hour-marks on the sun-dial were all made equal, instead
+of varying with the periods of the day,--so that the length of the hour
+varied with the length of the day. The illuminated interval was divided
+into twelve equal parts; so that if the sun rose at five A.M., and set
+at eight P.M., each hour was equal to eighty minutes. And this rude
+method of measurement of diurnal time remained in use till the sixth
+century. Clocks, with wheels and weights, were not invented till the
+twelfth century.
+
+The last great light among the ancients in astronomical science was
+Ptolemy, who lived from 100 to 170 A.D., in Alexandria. He was
+acquainted with the writings of all the previous astronomers, but
+accepted Hipparchus as his guide. He held that the heaven is spherical
+and revolves upon its axis; that the earth is a sphere, and is situated
+within the celestial sphere, and nearly at its centre; that it is a mere
+point in reference to the distance and magnitude of the fixed stars, and
+that it has no motion. He adopted the views of the ancient astronomers,
+who placed Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars next under the sphere of the fixed
+stars, then the sun above Venus and Mercury, and lastly the moon next to
+the earth. But he differed from Aristotle, who conceived that the earth
+revolves in an orbit around the centre of the planetary system, and
+turns upon its axis,--two ideas in common with the doctrines which
+Copernicus afterward unfolded. But even Ptolemy did not conceive the
+heliocentric theory,--the sun the centre of our system. Archimedes and
+Hipparchus both rejected this theory.
+
+In regard to the practical value of the speculations of the ancient
+astronomers, it may be said that had they possessed clocks and
+telescopes, their scientific methods would have sufficed for all
+practical purposes. The greatness of modern discoveries lies in the
+great stretch of the perceptive powers, and the magnificent field they
+afford for sublime contemplation. "But," as Sir G. Cornewall Lewis
+remarks, "modern astronomy is a science of pure curiosity, and is
+directed exclusively to the extension of knowledge in a field which
+human interests can never enter. The periodic time of Uranus, the nature
+of Saturn's ring, and the occultation of Jupiter's satellites are as far
+removed from the concerns of mankind as the heliacal rising of Sirius,
+or the northern position of the Great Bear." This may seem to be a
+utilitarian view, with which those philosophers who have cultivated
+science for its own sake, finding in the same a sufficient reward, can
+have no sympathy.
+
+The upshot of the scientific attainments of the ancients, in the
+magnificent realm of the heavenly bodies, would seem to be that they
+laid the foundation of all the definite knowledge which is useful to
+mankind; while in the field of abstract calculation they evinced
+reasoning and mathematical powers that have never been surpassed.
+Eratosthenes, Archimedes, and Hipparchus were geniuses worthy to be
+placed by the side of Kepler, Newton, and La Place, and all ages will
+reverence their efforts and their memory. It is truly surprising that
+with their imperfect instruments, and the absence of definite data,
+they reached a height so sublime and grand. They explained the doctrine
+of the sphere and the apparent motions of the planets, but they had no
+instruments capable of measuring angular distances. The ingenious
+epicycles of Ptolemy prepared the way for the elliptic orbits and laws
+of Kepler, which in turn conducted Newton to the discovery of the law of
+gravitation,--the grandest scientific discovery in the annals of
+our race.
+
+Closely connected with astronomical science was geometry, which was
+first taught in Egypt,--the nurse and cradle of ancient wisdom. It arose
+from the necessity of adjusting the landmarks disturbed by the
+inundations of the Nile. There is hardly any trace of geometry among the
+Hebrews. Among the Hindus there are some works on this science, of great
+antiquity. Their mathematicians knew the rule for finding the area of a
+triangle from its sides, and also the celebrated proposition concerning
+the squares on the sides of the right-angled triangle. The Chinese, it
+is said, also knew this proposition before it was known to the Greeks,
+among whom it was first propounded by Thales. He applied a circle to the
+measurement of angles. Anaximander made geographical charts, which
+required considerable geometrical knowledge. Anaxagoras employed
+himself in prison in attempting to square the circle. Thales, as has
+been said, discovered the important theorem that in a right-angled
+triangle the squares on the sides containing the right angle are
+together equal to the square on the opposite side of it. Pythagoras
+discovered that of all figures having the same boundary, the circle
+among plane figures and the sphere among solids are the most capacious.
+Hippocrates treated of the duplication of the cube, and wrote elements
+of geometry, and knew that the area of a circle was equal to a triangle
+whose base is equal to its circumference and altitude equal to its
+radius. The disciples of Plato invented conic sections, and discovered
+the geometrical foci.
+
+It was however reserved for Euclid to make his name almost synonymous
+with geometry. He was born 323 B.C., and belonged to the Platonic sect,
+which ever attached great importance to mathematics. His "Elements" are
+still in use, as nearly perfect as any human production can be. They
+consist of thirteen books. The first four are on plane geometry; the
+fifth is on the theory of proportion, and applies to magnitude in
+general; the seventh, eighth, and ninth are on arithmetic; the tenth on
+the arithmetical characteristics of the division of a straight line; the
+eleventh and twelfth on the elements of solid geometry; the thirteenth
+on the regular solids. These "Elements" soon became the universal study
+of geometers throughout the civilized world; they were translated into
+the Arabic, and through the Arabians were made known to mediaeval
+Europe. There can be no doubt that this work is one of the highest
+triumphs of human genius, and it has been valued more than any single
+monument of antiquity; it is still a text-book, in various English
+translations, in all our schools. Euclid also wrote various other works,
+showing great mathematical talent.
+
+Perhaps a greater even than Euclid was Archimedes, born 287 B.C. He
+wrote on the sphere and cylinder, terminating in the discovery that the
+solidity and surface of a sphere are two thirds respectively of the
+solidity and surface of the circumscribing cylinder. He also wrote on
+conoids and spheroids. "The properties of the spiral and the quadrature
+of the parabola were added to ancient geometry by Archimedes, the last
+being a great step in the progress of the science, since it was the
+first curvilineal space legitimately squared." Modern mathematicians may
+not have the patience to go through his investigations, since the
+conclusions he arrived at may now be reached by shorter methods; but the
+great conclusions of the old geometers were reached by only prodigious
+mathematical power. Archimedes is popularly better known as the inventor
+of engines of war and of various ingenious machines than as a
+mathematician, great as were his attainments in this direction. His
+theory of the lever was the foundation of statics till the discovery of
+the composition of forces in the time of Newton, and no essential
+addition was made to the principles of the equilibrium of fluids and
+floating bodies till the time of Stevin, in 1608. Archimedes detected
+the mixture of silver in a crown of gold which his patron, Hiero of
+Syracuse, ordered to be made; and he invented a water-screw for pumping
+water out of the hold of a great ship which he had built. He contrived
+also the combination of pulleys, and he constructed an orrery to
+represent the movement of the heavenly bodies. He had an extraordinary
+inventive genius for discovering new provinces of inquiry and new points
+of view for old and familiar objects. Like Newton, he had a habit of
+abstraction from outward things, and would forget to take his meals. He
+was killed by Roman soldiers when Syracuse was taken; and the Sicilians
+so soon forgot his greatness that in the time of Cicero they did not
+know where his tomb was.
+
+Eratosthenes was another of the famous geometers of antiquity, and did
+much to improve geometrical analysis. He was also a philosopher and
+geographer. He gave a solution of the problem of the duplication of the
+cube, and applied his geometrical knowledge to the measurement of the
+magnitude of the earth,--being one of the first who brought
+mathematical methods to the aid of astronomy, which in our day is almost
+exclusively the province of the mathematician.
+
+Apollonius of Perga, probably about forty years younger than Archimedes,
+and his equal in mathematical genius, was the most fertile and profound
+writer among the ancients who treated of geometry. He was called the
+Great Geometer. His most important work is a treatise on conic sections,
+which was regarded with unbounded admiration by contemporaries, and in
+some respects is unsurpassed by any thing produced by modern
+mathematicians. He however made use of the labors of his predecessors,
+so that it is difficult to tell how far he is original. But all men of
+science must necessarily be indebted to those who have preceded them.
+Even Homer, in the field of poetry, made use of the bards who had sung
+for a thousand years before him; and in the realms of philosophy the
+great men of all ages have built up new systems on the foundations which
+others have established. If Plato or Aristotle had been contemporaries
+with Thales, would they have matured so wonderful a system of
+dialectics? Yet if Thales had been contemporaneous with Plato, he might
+have added to the great Athenian's sublime science even more than did
+Aristotle. So of the great mathematicians of antiquity; they were all
+wonderful men, and worthy to be classed with the Newtons and Keplers of
+our times. Considering their means and the state of science, they made
+as _great_ though not as _fortunate_ discoveries,--discoveries which
+show patience, genius, and power of calculation. Apollonius was one of
+these,--one of the master intellects of antiquity, like Euclid and
+Archimedes; one of the master intellects of all ages, like Newton
+himself. I might mention the subjects of his various works, but they
+would not be understood except by those familiar with mathematics.
+
+Other famous geometers could also be named, but such men as Euclid,
+Archimedes, and Apollonius are enough to show that geometry was
+cultivated to a great extent by the philosophers of antiquity. It
+progressively advanced, like philosophy itself, from the time of Thales
+until it had reached the perfection of which it was capable, when it
+became merged into astronomical science. It was cultivated more
+particularly by the disciples of Plato, who placed over his school this
+inscription: "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here." He believed
+that the laws by which the universe is governed are in accordance with
+the doctrines of mathematics. The same opinion was shared by Pythagoras,
+the great founder of the science, whose main formula was that _number_
+is the essence or first principle of all things. No thinkers ever
+surpassed the Greeks in originality and profundity; and mathematics,
+being highly prized by them, were carried to the greatest perfection
+their method would allow. They did not understand algebra, by the
+application of which to geometry modern mathematicians have climbed to
+greater heights than the ancients; but then it is all the more
+remarkable that without the aid of algebraic analysis they were able to
+solve such difficult problems as occupied the minds of Archimedes and
+Apollonius. No positive science can boast of such rapid development as
+geometry for two or three hundred years before Christ, and never was the
+intellect of man more severely tasked than by the ancient
+mathematicians.
+
+No empirical science can be carried to perfection by any one nation or
+in any particular epoch; it can only expand with the progressive
+developments of the human race itself. Nevertheless, in that science
+which for three thousand years has been held in the greatest honor, and
+which is one of the three great liberal professions of our modern times,
+the ancients, especially the Greeks, made considerable advance. The
+science of medicine, having in view the amelioration of human misery and
+the prolongation of life itself, was very early cultivated. It was,
+indeed, in old times another word for _physics_,--the science of
+Nature,--and the _physician_ was the observer and expounder of physics.
+The physician was supposed to be acquainted with the secrets of
+Nature,--that is, the knowledge of drugs, of poisons, of antidotes to
+them, and the way to administer them. He was also supposed to know the
+process of preserving the body after death. Thus Joseph, seventeen
+hundred years before the birth of Christ, commanded his physician to
+embalm the body of his father; and the process of embalming was probably
+known to the Egyptians before the period when history begins. Helen, of
+Trojan fame, put into wine a drug that "frees man from grief and anger,
+and causes oblivion of all ills." Solomon was a great botanist,--a realm
+with which the science of medicine is indissolubly connected. The origin
+of Hindu medicine is lost in remote antiquity. The Ayur Veda, written
+nine hundred years before Hippocrates was born, sums up the knowledge of
+previous periods relating to obstetric surgery, to general pathology, to
+the treatment of insanity, to infantile diseases, to toxicology, to
+personal hygiene, and to diseases of the generative functions.
+
+Thus Hippocrates, the father of European medicine, must have derived his
+knowledge not merely from his own observations, but from the writings of
+men unknown to us and from systems practised for an indefinite period.
+The real founders of Greek medicine are fabled characters, like Hercules
+and Aesculapius,--that is, benefactors whose fictitious names alone
+have descended to us. They are mythical personages, like Hermes and
+Chiron. Twelve hundred years before Christ temples were erected to
+Aesculapius in Greece, the priests of which were really physicians, and
+the temples themselves hospitals. In them were practised rites
+apparently mysterious, but which modern science calls by the names of
+mesmerism, hydropathy, the use of mineral springs, and other essential
+elements of empirical science. And these temples were also medical
+schools. That of Cos gave birth to Hippocrates, and it was there that
+his writings were begun. Pythagoras--for those old Grecian philosophers
+were the fathers of all wisdom and knowledge, in mathematics and
+empirical sciences as well as philosophy itself--studied medicine in the
+schools of Egypt, Phoenicia, Chaldaea, and India, and came in conflict
+with sacerdotal power, which has ever been antagonistic to new ideas in
+science. He travelled from town to town as a teacher or lecturer,
+establishing communities in which _medicine_ as well as _numbers_
+was taught.
+
+The greatest name in medical science in ancient or in modern times, the
+man who did the most to advance it, the greatest medical genius of whom
+we have any early record, was Hippocrates, born on the island of Cos,
+460 B.C., of the great Aesculapian family. He received his instruction
+from his father. We know scarcely more of his life than we do of Homer
+himself, although he lived in the period of the highest splendor of
+Athens. Even his writings, like those of Homer, are thought by some to
+be the work of different men. They were translated into Arabic, and were
+no slight means of giving an impulse to the Saracenic schools of the
+Middle Ages in that science in which the Saracens especially excelled.
+The Hippocratic collection consists of more than sixty works, which were
+held in the highest estimation by the ancient physicians. Hippocrates
+introduced a new era in medicine, which before his time had been
+monopolized by the priests. He carried out a system of severe induction
+from the observation of facts, and is as truly the creator of the
+inductive method as Bacon himself. He abhorred theories which could not
+be established by facts; he was always open to conviction, and candidly
+confessed his mistakes; he was conscientious in the practice of his
+profession, and valued the success of his art more than silver and gold.
+The Athenians revered Hippocrates for his benevolence as well as genius.
+The great principle of his practice was _trust in Nature_; hence he was
+accused of allowing his patients to die. But this principle has many
+advocates among scientific men in our day; and some suppose that the
+whole successful practice of Homoeopathy rests on the primal principle
+which Hippocrates advanced, although the philosophy of it claims a
+distinctly scientific basis in the principle _similia similibus
+curantur_. Hippocrates had great skill in diagnosis, by which medical
+genius is most severely tested; his practice was cautious and timid in
+contrast with that of his contemporaries. He is the author of the
+celebrated maxim, "Life is short and art is long." He divides the causes
+of disease into two principal classes,--the one comprehending the
+influence of seasons, climates, and other external forces; the other
+including the effects of food and exercise. To the influence of climate
+he attributes the conformation of the body and the disposition of the
+mind; to a vicious system of diet he attributes innumerable forms of
+disease. For more than twenty centuries his pathology was the foundation
+of all the medical sects. He was well acquainted with the medicinal
+properties of drugs, and was the first to assign three periods to the
+course of a malady. He knew but little of surgery, although he was in
+the habit of bleeding, and often employed the knife; he was also
+acquainted with cupping, and used violent purgatives. He was not aware
+of the importance of the pulse, and confounded the veins with the
+arteries. Hippocrates wrote in the Ionic dialect, and some of his works
+have gone through three hundred editions, so highly have they been
+valued. His authority passed away, like that of Aristotle, on the
+revival of science in Europe. Yet who have been greater ornaments and
+lights than these two distinguished Greeks?
+
+The school of Alexandria produced eminent physicians, as well as
+mathematicians, after the glory of Greece had departed. So highly was it
+esteemed that Galen in the second century,--born in Greece, but famous
+in the service of Rome,--went there to study, five hundred years after
+its foundation. It was distinguished for inquiries into scientific
+anatomy and physiology, for which Aristotle had prepared the way. Galen
+was the Humboldt of his day, and gave great attention to physics. In
+eight books he developed the general principles of natural science known
+to the Greeks. On the basis of the Aristotelian researches, the
+Alexandrian physicians carried out extensive inquiries in physiology.
+Herophilus discovered the fundamental principles of neurology, and
+advanced the anatomy of the brain and spinal cord.
+
+Although the Romans had but little sympathy with science or philosophy,
+being essentially political and warlike in their turn of mind, yet when
+they had conquered the world, and had turned their attention to arts,
+medicine received a good share of their attention. The first physicians
+in Rome were Greek slaves. Of these was Asclepiades, who enjoyed the
+friendship of Cicero. It is from him that the popular medical theories
+as to the "pores" have descended. He was the inventor of the
+shower-bath. Celsus wrote a work on medicine which takes almost equal
+rank with the Hippocratic writings.
+
+Medical science at Rome culminated in Galen, as it did at Athens in
+Hippocrates. Galen was patronized by Marcus Aurelius, and availed
+himself of all the knowledge of preceding naturalists and physicians. He
+was born at Pergamos about the year 130 A.D., where he learned, under
+able masters, anatomy, pathology, and therapeutics. He finished his
+studies at Alexandria, and came to Rome at the invitation of the
+Emperor. Like his imperial patron, Galen was one of the brightest
+ornaments of the heathen world, and one of the most learned and
+accomplished men of any age. He left five hundred treatises, most of
+them relating to some branch of medical science, which give him the name
+of being one of the most voluminous of authors. His celebrity is founded
+chiefly on his anatomical and physiological works. He was familiar with
+practical anatomy, deriving his knowledge from dissection. His
+observations about health are practical and useful; he lays great stress
+on gymnastic exercises, and recommends the pleasures of the chase, the
+cold bath in hot weather, hot baths for old people, the use of wine, and
+three meals a day. The great principles of his practice were that
+disease is to be overcome by that which is contrary to the disease
+itself,--hence the name Allopathy, invented by the founder of
+Homoeopathy to designate the fundamental principle of the general
+practice,--and that nature is to be preserved by that which has relation
+with nature. His "Commentaries on Hippocrates" served as a treasure of
+medical criticism, from which succeeding annotators borrowed. No one
+ever set before the medical profession a higher standard than Galen
+advanced, and few have more nearly approached it. He did not attach
+himself to any particular school, but studied the doctrines of each. The
+works of Galen constituted the last production of ancient Roman
+medicine, and from his day the decline in medical science was rapid,
+until it was revived among the Arabs.
+
+The physical sciences, it must be confessed, were not carried by the
+ancients to any such length as geometry and astronomy. In physical
+geography they were particularly deficient. Yet even this branch of
+knowledge can boast of some eminent names. When men sailed timidly along
+the coasts, and dared not explore distant seas, the true position and
+characteristics of countries could not be ascertained with the
+definiteness that it is at present. But geography was not utterly
+neglected in those early times, nor was natural history.
+
+Herodotus gives us most valuable information respecting the manners and
+customs of Oriental and barbarous nations; and Pliny wrote a Natural
+History in thirty-seven books, which is compiled from upwards of two
+thousand volumes, and refers to twenty thousand matters of importance.
+He was born 23 A.D., and was fifty-six when the eruption of Vesuvius
+took place, which caused his death. Pliny cannot be called a scientific
+genius in the sense understood by modern savants; nor was he an original
+observer,--his materials being drawn up second-hand, like a modern
+encyclopaedia. Nor did he evince great judgment in his selection: he had
+a great love of the marvellous, and his work was often unintelligible;
+but it remains a wonderful monument of human industry. His Natural
+History treats of everything in the natural world,--of the heavenly
+bodies, of the elements, of thunder and lightning, of the winds and
+seasons, of the changes and phenomena of the earth, of countries and
+nations, of seas and rivers, of men, animals, birds, fishes, and plants,
+of minerals and medicines and precious stones, of commerce and the fine
+arts. He is full of errors, but his work is among the most valuable
+productions of antiquity. Buffon pronounced his Natural History to
+contain an infinity of knowledge in every department of human
+occupation, conveyed in a dress ornate and brilliant. It is a literary
+rather than a scientific monument, and as such it is wonderful. In
+strict scientific value, it is inferior to the works of modern research;
+but there are few minds, even in these times, who have directed
+inquiries to such a variety of subjects as are treated in Pliny's
+masterpiece.
+
+If we would compare the geographical knowledge of the ancients with that
+of the moderns, we confess to the immeasurable inferiority of
+the ancients.
+
+Eratosthenes, though more properly an astronomer, and the most
+distinguished among the ancients, was also a considerable writer on
+geography, indeed, the first who treated the subject systematically,
+although none of his writings have reached us. The improvements he
+pointed out were applied by Ptolemy himself. His work was a presentation
+of the geographical knowledge known in his day, so far as geography is
+the science of determining the position of places on the earth's
+surface. When Eratosthenes began his labors, in the third century before
+Christ, it was known that the surface of the earth was spherical; he
+established parallels of latitude and longitude, and attempted the
+difficult undertaking of measuring the circumference of the globe by the
+actual measurement of a segment of one of its great circles.
+
+Hipparchus (beginning of second century before Christ) introduced into
+geography a great improvement; namely, the relative situation of
+places, by the same process that he determined the positions of the
+heavenly bodies. He also pointed out how longitude might be determined
+by observing the eclipses of the sun and moon. This led to the
+construction of maps; but none have reached us except those that were
+used to illustrate the geography of Ptolemy. Hipparchus was the first
+who raised geography to the rank of a science. He starved himself to
+death, being tired of life.
+
+Posidonius, who was nearly a century later, determined the arc of a
+meridian between Rhodes and Alexandria to be a forty-eighth part of the
+whole circumference,--an enormous calculation, yet a remarkable one in
+the infancy of astronomical science. His writings on history and
+geography are preserved only in quotations by Cicero, Strabo,
+and others.
+
+Geographical knowledge however was most notably advanced by Strabo, who
+lived in the Augustan era; although his researches were chiefly confined
+to the Roman empire. Strabo was, like Herodotus, a great traveller, and
+much of his geographical information is the result of his own
+observations. It is probable he was much indebted to Eratosthenes, who
+preceded him by three centuries. The authorities of Strabo were chiefly
+Greek, but his work is defective from the imperfect notions which the
+ancients had of astronomy; so that the determination of the earth's
+figure by the measure of latitude and longitude, the essential
+foundation of geographical description, was unknown. The enormous
+strides which all forms of physical science have made since the
+discovery of America throw all ancient descriptions and investigations
+into the shade, and Strabo appears at as great disadvantage as Pliny or
+Ptolemy; yet the work of Strabo, considering his means, and the
+imperfect knowledge of the earth's surface and astronomical science in
+his day, was really a great achievement. He treats of the form and
+magnitude of the earth, and devotes eight books to Europe, six to Asia,
+and one to Africa. The description of places belongs to Strabo, whose
+work was accepted as the text-book of the science till the fifteenth
+century, for in his day the Roman empire had been well surveyed. He
+maintained that the earth is spherical, and established the terms
+_longitude_ and _latitude_, which Eratosthenes had introduced, and
+computed the earth to be one hundred and eighty thousand stadia in
+circumference, and a degree to be five hundred stadia in length, or
+sixty-two and a-half Roman miles. His estimates of the length of a
+degree of latitude were nearly correct; but he made great errors in the
+degrees of longitude, making the length of the world from east to west
+too great, which led to the belief in the practicability of a western
+passage to India. He also assigned too great length to the
+Mediterranean, arising from the difficulty of finding the longitude with
+accuracy. But it was impossible, with the scientific knowledge of his
+day, to avoid errors, and we are surprised that he made so few.
+
+Whatever may be said of the accuracy of the great geographer of
+antiquity, it cannot be denied that he was a man of immense research and
+learning. His work in seventeen books is one of the most valuable that
+have come down from antiquity, both from the discussions which run
+through it, and the curious facts which can be found nowhere else. It is
+scarcely fair to estimate the genius of Strabo by the correctness and
+extent of his geographical knowledge. All men are comparatively ignorant
+in science, because science is confessedly a progressive study. The
+great scientific lights of our day may be insignificant, compared with
+those who are to arise, if profundity and accuracy of knowledge be made
+the test. It is the genius of the ancients, their grasp and power of
+mind, their original labors, which we are to consider.
+
+Thus it would seem that among the ancients, in those departments of
+science which are inductive, there were not sufficient facts, well
+established, from which to make sound inductions; but in those
+departments which are deductive, like pure mathematics, and which
+require great reasoning powers, there were lofty attainments,--which
+indeed gave the foundation for the achievements of modern science.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+An exceedingly learned work (London, 1862) on the Astronomy of the
+Ancients, by Sir George Cornewall Lewis, though rather ostentatious in
+the parade of authorities, and minute on points which are not of much
+consequence, is worth consulting. Delambre's History of Ancient
+Astronomy has long been a classic, but is richer in materials for a
+history than a history itself. There is a valuable essay in the
+Encyclopaedia Britannica, which refers to a list of special authors.
+Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences may also be consulted with
+profit. Dunglison's History of Medicine is a standard, giving much
+detailed information, and Leclerc among the French and Speugel among the
+Germans are esteemed authorities. Strabo's Geography is the most
+valuable of antiquity; see also Polybius: both of these have been
+translated and edited for English readers.
+
+
+
+
+MATERIAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS.
+
+
+MECHANICAL AND USEFUL ARTS.
+
+4000-50 B.C.
+
+
+While the fine arts made great progress among the cultivated nations of
+antiquity, and with the Greeks reached a refinement that has never since
+been surpassed, the ancients were far behind modern nations in
+everything that has utility for its object. In implements of war, in
+agricultural instruments, in the variety of manufactures, in machinery,
+in chemical compounds, in domestic utensils, in grand engineering works,
+in the comfort of houses, in modes of land-travel and transportation, in
+navigation, in the multiplication of books, in triumphs over the forces
+of Nature, in those discoveries and inventions which abridge the labors
+of mankind and bring races into closer intercourse,--especially by such
+wonders as are wrought by steam, gas, electricity, gunpowder, the
+mariner's compass, and the art of printing,--the modern world feels its
+immense superiority to all the ages that have gone before. And yet,
+considering the infancy of science and the youth of nations, more was
+accomplished by the ancients for the comfort and convenience and luxury
+of man than we naturally might suppose.
+
+Egypt was the primeval seat of what may be called material civilization,
+and many arts and inventions were known there when the rest of the world
+was still in ignorance and barbarism. More than four thousand years ago
+the Egyptians had chariots of war and most of the military weapons known
+afterward to the Greeks,--especially the spear and bow, which were the
+most effective offensive weapons known to antiquity or the Middle Ages.
+Some of their warriors were clothed in coats of brass equal to the steel
+or iron cuirass worn by the Mediaeval knights of chivalry. They had the
+battle-axe, the shield, the sword, the javelin, the metal-headed arrow.
+One of the early Egyptian kings marched against his enemies with six
+hundred thousand infantry, twenty thousand cavalry, and twenty-three
+thousand chariots of war, each drawn by two horses. The saddles and
+bridles of their horses were nearly as perfect as ours are at the
+present time; the leather they used was dyed in various colors, and
+adorned with metal edges. The wheels of their chariots were bound with
+hoops of metal, and had six spokes. Umbrellas to protect from the rays
+of the sun were held over the heads of their women of rank when they
+rode in their highly-decorated chariots. Walls of solid masonry, thick
+and high, surrounded their principal cities, while an attacking or
+besieging army used movable towers. Their disciplined troops advanced to
+battle in true military precision, at the sound of the trumpet.
+
+The public works of Egyptian kings were on a grand scale. They united
+rivers with seas by canals which employed hundreds of thousands of
+workmen. They transported heavy blocks of stone, of immense weight and
+magnitude, for their temples, palaces, and tombs. They erected obelisks
+in single shafts nearly one hundred feet in height, and they engraved
+the sides of these obelisks from top to bottom with representations of
+warriors, priests, and captives. They ornamented their vast temples with
+sculptures which required the hardest metals. Rameses the Great, the
+Sesostris of the Greeks, had a fleet of four hundred vessels in the
+Arabian Gulf, and the rowers wore quilted helmets. His vessels had
+sails, which implies the weaving of flax and the twisting of heavy
+ropes; some of his war-galleys were propelled by forty-four oars, and
+were one hundred and twenty feet in length.
+
+Among their domestic utensils the Egyptians used the same kind of
+buckets for wells that we find to-day among the farmhouses of New
+England. Skilful gardeners were employed in ornamenting grounds and in
+raising fruits and vegetables. The leather cutters and dressers were
+famous for their skill, as well as workers in linen. Most products of
+the land, as well as domestic animals, were sold by weight in carefully
+adjusted scales. Instead of coins, money was in rings of gold, silver,
+and copper. The skill used by the Egyptians in rearing fowls, geese, and
+domestic animals greatly surpassed that known to modern farmers.
+According to Wilkinson, they caught fish in nets equal to the seines
+employed by modern fishermen. Their houses as well as their monuments
+were built of brick, and were sometimes four or five stories in height,
+and secured by bolts on the doors. Locks and keys were also in use, made
+of iron; and the doorways were ornamented. Some of the roofs of their
+public buildings were arched with stone. In their mills for grinding
+wheat circular stones were used, resembling in form those now employed,
+generally turned by women, but sometimes so large that asses and mules
+were employed in the work. The walls and ceilings of their buildings
+were richly painted, the devices being as elaborate as those of the
+Greeks. Besides town-houses, the rich had villas and gardens, where they
+amused themselves with angling and spearing fish in the ponds. The
+gardens were laid in walks shaded with trees, and were well watered from
+large tanks. Vines were trained on trellis-work supported by pillars,
+and sometimes in the form of bowers. For gathering fruit, baskets were
+used somewhat similar to those now employed. Their wine-presses showed
+considerable ingenuity, and after the necessary fermentation the wine
+was poured into large earthen jars, corresponding to the amphorae of the
+Romans, and covered with lids made air-tight by resin and bitumen. The
+Egyptians had several kinds of wine, highly praised by the ancients; and
+wine among them was cheap and abundant. Egypt was also renowned for
+drugs unknown to other nations, and for beer made of barley, as well as
+wine. As for fruits, they had the same variety as we have at the present
+day, their favorite fruit being dates. "So fond were the Egyptians of
+trees and flowers that they exacted a contribution from the nations
+tributary to them of their rarest plants, so that their gardens bloomed
+with flowers of every variety in all seasons of the year." Wreaths and
+chaplets were in common use from the earliest antiquity. It was in their
+gardens, abounding with vegetables as well as with fruits and flowers,
+that the Egyptians entertained their friends.
+
+In Egyptian houses were handsome chairs and fauteuils, stools and
+couches, the legs of which were carved in imitation of the feet of
+animals; and these were made of rare woods, inlaid with ivory, and
+covered with rich stuffs. Some of the Egyptian chairs were furnished
+with cushions and covered with the skins of leopards and lions; the
+seats were made of leather, painted with flowers. Footstools were
+sometimes made of elegant patterns, inlaid with ivory and precious
+woods. Mats were used in the sitting-rooms. The couches were of every
+variety of form, and utilized in some instances as beds. The tables were
+round, square, and oblong, and were sometimes made of stone and highly
+ornamented with carvings. Bronze bedsteads were used by the
+wealthy classes.
+
+In their entertainments nothing was omitted by the Egyptians which would
+produce festivity,--music, songs, dancing, and games of chance. The
+guests arrived in chariots or palanquins, borne by servants on foot, who
+also carried parasols over the heads of their masters. Previous to
+entering the festive chamber water was brought for the feet and hands,
+the ewers employed being made often of gold and silver, of beautiful
+form and workmanship. Servants in attendance anointed the head with
+sweet-scented ointment from alabaster vases, and put around the heads of
+the guests garlands and wreaths in which the lotus was conspicuous; they
+also perfumed the apartments with myrrh and frankincense, obtained
+chiefly from Syria. Then wine was brought, and emptied into
+drinking-cups of silver or bronze, and even of porcelain, beautifully
+engraved, one of which was exclusively reserved for the master of the
+house. While at dinner the party were enlivened with musical
+instruments, the chief of which were the harp, the lyre, the guitar, the
+tambourine, the pipe, the flute, and the cymbal. Music was looked upon
+by the Egyptians as an important science, and was diligently studied and
+highly prized; the song and the dance were united with the sounds of
+musical instruments. Many of the ornamented vases and other vessels used
+by the Egyptians in their banquets were not inferior in elegance of form
+and artistic finish to those made by the Greeks at a later day. The
+Pharaoh of the Jewish Exodus had drinking-vessels of gold and silver,
+exquisitely engraved and ornamented with precious stones.
+
+Some of the bronze vases found at Thebes and other parts of Egypt show
+great skill in the art of compounding metals, and were highly polished.
+Their bronze knives and daggers had an elastic spring, as if made of
+steel. Wilkinson expresses his surprise at the porcelain vessels
+recently discovered, as well as admiration of them, especially of their
+rich colors and beautiful shapes. There is a porcelain bowl of exquisite
+workmanship in the British Museum inscribed with the name of Rameses
+II., proving that the arts of pottery were carried to great perfection
+two thousand years before Christ. Boxes of elaborate workmanship, made
+of precious woods finely carved and inlaid with ivory, are also
+preserved in the different museums of Europe, all dating from a remote
+antiquity. These boxes are of every form, with admirably fitting lids,
+representing fishes, birds, and animals. The rings, bracelets, and other
+articles of jewelry that have been preserved show great facility on the
+part of the Egyptians in cutting the hardest stones. The skill displayed
+in the sculptures on the hard obelisks and granite monuments of Egypt
+was remarkable, since they were executed with hardened bronze.
+
+Glass-blowing was another art in which the Egyptians excelled. Fifteen
+hundred years before Christ they made ornaments of glass, and glass
+vessels of large size were used for holding wine. Such was their skill
+in the manufacture of glass that they counterfeited precious stones with
+a success unknown to the moderns. We read of a counterfeited emerald six
+feet in length. Counterfeited necklaces were sold at Thebes which
+deceived strangers. The uses to which glass was applied were in the
+manufacture of bottles, beads, mosaic work, and drinking-cups, and their
+different colors show considerable knowledge of chemistry. The art of
+cutting and engraving stones was doubtless learned by the Israelites in
+their sojourn in Egypt. So perfect were the Egyptians in the arts of
+cutting precious stones that they were sought by foreign merchants, and
+they furnished an important material in commerce.
+
+From the earliest times the Egyptians were celebrated for their
+manufacture of linen, which was one of the principal articles of
+commerce; and cotton and woollen cloths as well as linen were woven.
+Cotton was used not only for articles of dress, but for the covering of
+chairs and other kinds of furniture. The great mass of the mummy cloths
+is of coarse texture; but the "fine linen" spoken of in the Scripture
+was as fine as muslin, in some instances containing more than five
+hundred threads to an inch, while the finest productions of the looms of
+India have only one hundred threads to the inch. Not only were the
+threads of linen cloth of extraordinary fineness, but the dyes were
+equally remarkable, and were unaffected by strong alkalies. Spinning was
+principally the occupation of women, who also practised the art of
+embroidery, in which gold thread was used, supposed to be beaten out by
+the hammer; but in the arts of dyeing and embroidery the Egyptians were
+surpassed by the Babylonians, who were renowned for their cloths of
+various colors.
+
+The manufacture of paper was another art for which the Egyptians were
+famous, made from the papyrus, a plant growing in the marsh-land of the
+Nile. The papyrus was also applied to the manufacture of sails, baskets,
+canoes, and parts of sandals. Some of the papyri, on which is
+hieroglyphic writing dating from two thousand years before our era, are
+in good preservation. Sheep-skin parchment also was used for writing.
+
+The Egyptians were especially skilled in the preparation of leather for
+sandals, shields, and chairs. The curriers used the same semicircular
+knife which is now in use. The great consumption of leather created a
+demand far greater than could be satisfied by the produce of the
+country, and therefore skins from foreign countries were imported as
+part of the tribute laid on conquered nations or tribes.
+
+More numerous than the tanners in Egypt were the potters, among whom the
+pottery-wheel was known from a remote antiquity, previous to the arrival
+of Joseph from Canaan, and long before the foundation of the Greek
+Athens. Earthenware was used for holding wine, oils, and other liquids;
+but the finest production of the potter were the vases, covered with a
+vitreous glaze and modelled in every variety of forms, some of which
+were as elegant as those made later by the Greeks, who excelled in this
+department of art.
+
+Carpenters and cabinet-makers formed a large class of Egyptian workmen
+for making coffins, boxes, tables, chairs, doors, sofas, and other
+articles of furniture, frequently inlaid with ivory and rare woods.
+Veneering was known to these workmen, probably arising from the scarcity
+of wood. The tools used by the carpenters, as appear from the
+representations on the monuments, were the axe, the adze, the hand-saw,
+the chisel, the drill, and the plane. These tools were made of bronze,
+with handles of acacia, tamarisk, and other hard woods. The hatchet, by
+which trees were felled, was used by boat-builders. The boxes and other
+articles of furniture were highly ornamented with inlaid work.
+
+Boat-building in Egypt also employed many workmen. Boats were made of
+the papyrus plant, deal, cedar, and other woods, and were propelled both
+by sails and oars. One ship-of-war built for Ptolemy Philopater is said
+by ancient writers to have been 478 feet long, to have had forty banks
+of oars, and to have carried 400 sailors, 4,000 rowers, and 3,000
+soldiers. This is doubtless an exaggeration, but indicates great
+progress in naval architecture. The construction of boats varied
+according to the purpose for which they were intended. They were built
+with ribs as at the present day, with small keels, square sails, with
+spacious cabins in the centre, and ornamented sterns; there was usually
+but one mast, and the prows terminated in the heads of animals. The
+boats of burden were somewhat similar to our barges; the sails were
+generally painted with rich colors. The origin of boat-building was
+probably the raft, and improvement followed improvement until the
+ship-of-war rivalled in size our largest vessels, while Egyptian
+merchant vessels penetrated to distant seas, and probably doubled the
+Cape of Good Hope.
+
+In regard to agriculture the Egyptians were the most advanced of the
+nations of antiquity, since the fertility of their soil made the
+occupation one of primary importance. Irrigation was universally
+practised, the Nile furnishing water for innumerable canals. The soil
+was often turned up with the hoe rather than the plough. The grain was
+sown broadcast, and was trodden in by goats. Their plough was very
+simple, and was drawn by oxen; the yoke being attached to the horns.
+Although the soil was rich, manures were frequently used. The chief
+crops were those of wheat, barley, beans, peas, lentils, vetches,
+lupines, clover, rice, indigo, cotton, lettuce, flax, hemp, cumin,
+coriander, poppy, melons, cucumbers, onions, and leeks. We do not read
+of carrots, cabbages, beets, or potatoes, which enter so largely into
+modern husbandry. Oil was obtained from the olive, the castor-berry,
+simsin, and coleseed. Among the principal trees which were cultivated
+were the vine, olive, locust, acacia, date, sycamore, pomegranate, and
+tamarisk. Grain, after harvest, was trodden out by oxen, and the straw
+was used as provender. To protect the fields from inundation dykes
+were built.
+
+All classes in Egypt delighted in the sports of the field, especially in
+the hunting of wild animals, in which the arrow was most frequently
+used. Sometimes the animals were caught in nets, in enclosed places near
+water-brooks. The Egyptians also had numerous fish-ponds, since they
+were as fond of angling as they were of hunting. Hunting in Egypt was an
+amusement, not an occupation as among nomadic people. Not only was
+hunting for pleasure a great amusement among Egyptians, but also among
+Babylonians and Persians, who coursed the plains with dogs. They used
+the noose or lasso also to catch antelopes and wild cattle, which were
+hunted with lions; the bow used in the chase was similar to that
+employed in war. All the subjects of the chase were sculptured on the
+monuments with great spirit and fidelity, especially the stag, the ibex,
+the porcupine, the wolf, the hare, the lion, the fox, and the giraffe.
+The camel is not found among the Egyptian sculptures, nor the bear. Of
+the birds found in their sculptures were vultures, eagles, kites, hawks,
+owls, ravens, larks, swallows, turtle-doves, quails, ostriches, storks,
+plovers, snipes, geese, and ducks, many of which were taken in nets. The
+Nile and Lake Birket el Keroun furnished fish in great abundance. The
+profits of the fisheries were enormous, and were farmed out by the
+government.
+
+The Egyptians were very fond of ornaments in dress, especially the
+women. They paid great attention to their sandals; they wore their hair
+long and plaited, bound round with an ornamented fillet fastened by a
+lotus bud; they wore ear-rings and a profusion of rings on the fingers
+and bracelets for the arms, made of gold and set with precious stones.
+The scarabaeus, or sacred beetle, was the adornment of rings and
+necklaces; even the men wore necklaces and rings and chains. Both men
+and women stained the eyelids and brows. Pins and needles were among the
+articles of the toilet, usually made of bronze; also metallic mirrors
+finely polished. The men carried canes or walking-sticks,--the wands of
+Moses and Aaron.
+
+As the Egyptians paid great attention to health, physicians were held in
+great repute; and none were permitted to practise but in some particular
+branch, such as diseases of the eye, the ear, the head, the teeth, and
+the internal maladies. They were paid by government, and were skilled in
+the knowledge of drugs. The art of curing diseases originated, according
+to Pliny, in Egypt. Connected with the healing art was the practice of
+embalming dead bodies, which was carried to great perfection.
+
+In elegance of life the Greeks and Romans, however, far surpassed any
+of the nations of antiquity, if not in luxury itself, which was confined
+to the palaces of kings. In social refinements the Greeks were not
+behind any modern nation, as one infers from reading Becker's Charicles.
+Among the Greeks was the network of trades and professions, as in Paris
+and London, and a complicated social life in which all the amenities
+known to the modern world were seen, especially in Athens and Corinth
+and the Ionian capitals. What could be more polite and courteous than
+the intercourse carried on in Greece among cultivated and famous people?
+When were symposia more attractive than when the _élite_ of Athens, in
+the time of Pericles, feasted and communed together? When was art ever
+brought in support of luxury to greater perfection? We read of libraries
+and books and booksellers, of social games, of attractive gardens and
+villas, as well as of baths and spectacles, of markets and fora in
+Athens. The common life of a Pericles or a Cicero differed but little
+from that of modern men of rank and fortune.
+
+In describing the various arts which marked the nations of antiquity, we
+cannot but feel that in a material point of view the ancient
+civilization in its important features was as splendid as our own. In
+the decoration of houses, in social entertainments, in cookery, the
+Romans were our equals. The mosaics, the signet rings, cameos,
+bracelets, bronzes, vases, couches, banqueting-tables, lamps, colored
+glass, potteries, all attest great elegance and beauty. The tables of
+thuga root and Delian bronze were as expensive as modern sideboards;
+wood and ivory were carved in Rome as exquisitely as in Japan and China;
+mirrors were made of polished silver. Glass-cutters could imitate the
+colors of precious stones so well that the Portland vase, from the tomb
+of Alexander Severus, was long considered as a genuine sardonyx. The
+palace of Nero glittered with gold and jewels; perfumes and flowers were
+showered from ivory ceilings. The halls of Heliogabalus were hung with
+cloth of gold, enriched with jewels; his beds were silver, and his
+tables of gold. A banquet dish of Drusillus weighed five hundred pounds
+of silver. Tunics were embroidered with the figures of various animals;
+sandals were garnished with precious stones. Paulina wore jewels, when
+she paid visits, valued at $800,000. Drinking-cups were engraved with
+scenes from the poets; libraries were adorned with busts, and presses of
+rare woods; sofas were inlaid with tortoise-shell, and covered with
+gorgeous purple. The Roman grandees rode in gilded chariots, bathed in
+marble baths, dined from golden plate, drank from crystal cups, slept on
+beds of down, reclined on luxurious couches, wore embroidered robes,
+and were adorned with precious stones. They ransacked the earth and the
+seas for rare dishes for their banquets, and ornamented their houses
+with carpets from Babylon, onyx cups from Bithynia, marbles from
+Numidia, bronzes from Corinth, statues from Athens,--whatever, in short,
+was precious or rare or curious in the most distant countries.
+
+What a concentration of material wonders was to be seen in all the
+countries that bordered on the Mediterranean,--not merely in Italy and
+Greece, but in Sicily and Asia Minor, and even in Gaul and Spain! Every
+country was dotted with cities, villas, and farms. Every country was
+famous for oil, or fruit, or wine, or vegetables, or timber, or flocks,
+or pastures, or horses. More than two hundred and fifty cities or towns
+in Italy alone are historical, and some were famous.
+
+The excavations of Pompeii attest great luxury and elegance of life.
+Cortona, Clusium, Veii, Ancona, Ostia, Praeneste, Antium, Misenum,
+Baiae, Puteoli, Neapolis, Brundusium, Sybaris, were all celebrated.
+
+And still more remarkable were the old capitals of Greece, Asia Minor,
+and Africa. Syracuse was older than Rome, and had a fortress of a mile
+and a half in length. Carthage, under the emperors, nearly equalled its
+ancient magnificence. Athens was never more splendid than in the time of
+the Roman Antonines. In spite of successive conquests, there still
+towered upon the Acropolis the most wonderful temple of antiquity, built
+of Pentelic marble, and adorned with the sculptures of Phidias. Corinth
+was richer and more luxurious than Athens, and possessed the most
+valuable pictures of Greece, as well as the finest statues; a single
+street for three miles was adorned with costly edifices. And even the
+islands which were colonized by Greeks were seats of sculpture and
+painting, as well as of schools of learning. Still grander were the
+cities of Asia Minor. Antioch had a street four miles in length, with
+double colonnades; and its baths, theatres, museums, and temples excited
+universal admiration. At Ephesus was the grand temple of Diana, four
+times as large as the Parthenon at Athens, covering as much ground as
+Cologne Cathedral, with one hundred and twenty-eight columns sixty feet
+high. The Ephesian theatre was capable of seating sixty thousand
+spectators. Tarsus, the birthplace of Paul, was no mean city; and
+Damascus, the old capital of Syria, was both beautiful and rich.
+
+Laodicea was famous for tapestries, Hierapolis for its iron wares,
+Cybara for its dyes, Sardis for its wines, Smyrna for its beautiful
+monuments, Delos for its slave-trade, Cyrene for its horses, Paphos for
+its temple of Venus, in which were a hundred altars. Seleucia, on the
+Tigris, had a population of four hundred thousand. Caesarea in
+Palestine, founded by Herod the Great, and the principal seat of
+government to the Roman prefects, had a harbor equal in size to the
+renowned Piraeus, and was secured against the southwest winds by a mole
+of such massive construction that the blocks of stone, sunk under the
+water, were fifty feet in length, eighteen in width, and nine in
+thickness. The city itself was constructed of polished stone, with an
+agora, a theatre, a circus, a praetorium, and a temple to Caesar. Tyre,
+which had resisted for seven months the armies of Alexander, remained to
+the fall of the empire a great emporium of trade; it monopolized the
+manufacture of imperial purple. Sidon was equally celebrated for its
+glass and embroidered robes. The Sidonians cast glass mirrors, and
+imitated precious stones. But the glory of both Tyre and Sidon was in
+ships, which visited all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and even
+penetrated to Britain and India.
+
+But greater than Tyre or Antioch, or any eastern city, was Alexandria,
+the capital of Egypt. Egypt even in its decline was still a great
+monarchy; and when the sceptre of three hundred kings passed from
+Cleopatra the last of the Ptolemies, to Augustus Caesar the conqueror at
+Actium, the military force of Egypt is said to have amounted to seven
+hundred thousand men. The annual revenues of this State under the
+Ptolemies amounted to about seventeen million dollars in gold and
+silver, besides the produce of the earth. A single feast cost
+Philadelphus more than half a million of pounds sterling, and he had
+accumulated treasures to the amount of seven hundred and forty thousand
+talents, or about eight hundred and sixty million dollars. What European
+monarch ever possessed such a sum? The kings of Egypt, even when
+tributary to Rome, were richer in gold and silver than was Louis XIV. in
+the proudest hour of his life.
+
+The ground-plan of Alexandria was traced by Alexander himself, but it
+was not completed until the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Its
+circumference was about fifteen miles; the streets were regular, and
+crossed one another at right angles, being wide enough for free passage
+of both carriages and foot passengers. Its harbor could hold the largest
+fleet ever congregated; its walls and gates were constructed with all
+the skill and strength known to antiquity; its population numbered six
+hundred thousand, and all nations were represented in its crowded
+streets. The wealth of the city may be inferred from the fact that in
+one year sixty-two hundred and fifty talents, or more than six million
+dollars, were paid to the public treasury for port dues. The library was
+the largest in the world, numbering over seven hundred thousand
+volumes; and this was connected with a museum, a menagerie, a botanical
+garden, and various halls for lectures, altogether forming the most
+famous university in the Roman empire. The inhabitants were chiefly
+Greek, and had all the cultivated tastes and mercantile thrift of that
+quick-witted people. In a commercial point of view Alexandria was the
+most important city in the world, and its ships whitened every sea.
+Unlike most commercial cities, it was intellectual, and its schools of
+poetry, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, and theology were more
+renowned than even those of Athens during the third and fourth
+centuries. Alexandria, could it have been transported in its former
+splendor to our modern world, would be a great capital in these times.
+
+And all these cities were connected with one another and with Rome by
+magnificent roads, perfectly straight, and paved with large blocks of
+stone. They were originally constructed for military purposes, but were
+used by travellers, and on them posts were regularly established; they
+crossed valleys upon arches, and penetrated mountains; in Italy,
+especially, they were great works of art, and connected all the
+provinces. There was an uninterrupted communication from the wall of
+Antoninus through York, London, Sandwich, Boulogne, Rheims, Lyons,
+Milan, Rome, Brundusium, Dyrrachium, Byzantium, Ancyra, Tarsus,
+Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem,--a distance of thirty-seven hundred and forty
+miles; and these roads were divided by milestones, and houses for
+travellers erected upon them at points of every five or six miles.
+
+Commerce under the Roman emperors was not what it now is, but still was
+very considerable, and thus united the various provinces together. The
+most remote countries were ransacked to furnish luxuries for Rome; every
+year a fleet of one hundred and twenty vessels sailed from the Red Sea
+for the islands of the Indian Ocean. But the Mediterranean, with the
+rivers which flowed into it, was the great highway of the ancient
+navigator. Navigation by the ancients was even more rapid than in modern
+times before the invention of steam, since oars were employed as well as
+sails. In summer one hundred and sixty-two Roman miles were sailed over
+in twenty-four hours; this was the average speed, or about seven knots.
+From the mouth of the Tiber vessels could usually reach Africa in two
+days, Massilia in three, and the Pillars of Hercules in seven; from
+Puteoli the passage to Alexandria had been effected, with moderate
+winds, in nine days. These facts, however, apply only to the summer, and
+to favorable winds. The Romans did not navigate in the inclement
+seasons; but in summer the great inland sea was white with sails. Great
+fleets brought corn from Gaul, Spain, Sardinia, Africa, Sicily, and
+Egypt. This was the most important trade; but a considerable commerce
+was carried on also in ivory, tortoise-shell, cotton and silk fabrics,
+pearls and precious stones, gums, spices, wines, wool, and oil. Greek
+and Asiatic wines, especially the Chian and Lesbian, were in great
+demand at Rome. The transport of earthenware, made generally in the
+Grecian cities, of wild animals for the amphitheatre, of marble, of the
+spoils of eastern cities, of military engines and stores, and of horses,
+required very large fleets and thousands of mariners, which probably
+belonged chiefly to great maritime cities. These cities with their
+dependencies required even more vessels for communication with one
+another than for Rome herself,--the great central object of enterprise
+and cupidity.
+
+In this survey of ancient cities I have not yet spoken of the great
+central city,--the City of the Seven Hills, to which all the world was
+tributary. Whatever was costly or rare or beautiful, in Greece or Asia
+or Egypt, was appropriated by her citizen kings, since citizens were
+provincial governors. All the great highways, from the Atlantic to the
+Tigris, converged to the capital,--all roads led to Rome; all the ships
+of Alexandria and Carthage and Tarentum, and other commercial capitals,
+were employed in furnishing her with luxuries or necessities. Never was
+there so proud a city as this "Epitome of the Universe." London, Paris,
+Vienna, Constantinople, St. Petersburg, Berlin, are great centres of
+fashion and power; but they are rivals, and excel only in some great
+department of human enterprise and genius, as in letters, or fashions,
+or commerce, or manufactures,--centres of influence and power in the
+countries of which they are capitals, yet they do not monopolize the
+wealth and energies of the world. London may contain more people than
+did ancient Rome, and may possess more commercial wealth; but London
+represents only the British monarchy, not a universal empire. Rome,
+however, monopolized every thing, and controlled all nations and
+peoples; she could shut up the schools of Athens, or disperse the ships
+of Alexandria, or regulate the shops of Antioch. What Lyons and Bordeaux
+are to Paris, Corinth and Babylon were to Rome,--mere dependent cities.
+Paul, condemned at Jerusalem, stretched out his arms to Rome, and Rome
+protected him. The philosophers of Greece were the tutors of Roman
+nobility. The kings of the East resorted to the palaces of Mount
+Palatine for favors or safety; the governors of Syria and Egypt,
+reigning in the palaces of ancient kings, returned to Rome to squander
+the riches they had accumulated. Senators and nobles took their turn as
+sovereign rulers of all the known countries of the world. The halls in
+which Darius and Alexander and Pericles and Croesus and Solomon and
+Cleopatra had feasted, became the witness of the banquets of Roman
+proconsuls. Babylon, Thebes, and Athens were only what Delhi and
+Calcutta are to the English of our day,--cities to be ruled by the
+delegates of the imperial Senate. Rome was the only "home" of the proud
+governors who reigned on the banks of the Thames, of the Seine, of the
+Rhine, of the Nile, of the Tigris. After they had enriched themselves
+with the spoils of the ancient monarchies they returned to their estates
+in Italy, or to their palaces on the Aventine. What a concentration of
+works of art on the hills, and around the Forum, and in the Campus
+Martius, and other celebrated quarters! There were temples rivalling
+those of Athens and Ephesus; baths covering more ground than the
+Pyramids, surrounded with Corinthian columns, and filled with the
+choicest treasures ransacked from the cities of Greece and Asia; palaces
+in comparison with which the Tuileries and Versailles are small;
+theatres which seated a larger audience than any present public
+buildings in Europe; amphitheatres more extensive and costly than
+Cologne, Milan, and York Minster cathedrals combined, and seating eight
+times as many spectators as could be crowded into St. Peter's Church;
+circuses where, it is said, three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+persons could witness the games and chariot-races at a time; bridges,
+still standing, which have furnished models for the most beautiful at
+Paris and London; aqueducts carried over arches one hundred feet in
+height, through which flowed the surplus water of distant lakes; drains
+of solid masonry in which large boats could float; pillars more than one
+hundred feet in height, coated with precious marbles or plates of brass,
+and covered with bas-reliefs; obelisks brought from Egypt; fora and
+basilicas connected together, and extending more than three thousand
+feet in length, every part of which was filled with "animated busts" of
+conquerors, kings, statesmen, poets, publicists, and philosophers;
+mausoleums greater and more splendid than that Artemisia erected to the
+memory of her husband; triumphal arches under which marched in stately
+procession the victorious armies of the Eternal City, preceded by the
+spoils and trophies of conquered empires.
+
+Such was the proud capital,--a city of palaces, a residence of nobles
+who were virtually kings, enriched with the accumulated treasures of
+ancient civilization. Great were the capitals of Greece and Asia, but
+how pre-eminent was Rome, since all were subordinate to her! How
+bewildering and bewitching to a traveller must have been the varied
+wonders of the city! Go where he would, his eye rested on something
+which was both a study and a marvel. Let him drive or walk about the
+suburbs,--there were villas, tombs, aqueducts looking like our railroads
+on arches, sculptured monuments, and gardens of surpassing beauty and
+luxury. Let him approach the walls,--they were great fortifications
+extending twenty-one miles in circuit, according to the measurement of
+Ammon as adopted by Gibbon, and forty-five miles according to other
+authorities. Let him enter any of the various gates that opened into the
+city from the roads which radiated to all parts of Italy and the
+world,--they were of monumental brass covered with bas-reliefs, on which
+the victories of generals for a thousand years were commemorated. Let
+him pass through any of the crowded thoroughfares,--he saw houses
+towering scarcely ever less than seventy feet, as tall as those of
+Edinburgh in its oldest sections. Most of the houses in which this vast
+population lived, according to Strabo, possessed pipes which gave a
+never-failing supply of water from the rivers that flowed into the city
+through the aqueducts and out again through the sewers into the Tiber.
+Let the traveller walk up the Via Sacra,--that short street, scarcely
+half a mile in length,--and he passed the Flavian Amphitheatre, the
+Temple of Venus and Rome, the Arch of Titus, the Temples of Peace, of
+Vesta, and of Castor, the Forum Romanum, the Basilica Julia, the Arch
+of Severus, the Temple of Saturn, and stood before the majestic ascent
+to the Capitoline Jupiter, with its magnificent portico and ornamented
+pediment, surpassing the façade of any modern church. On his left, as he
+emerged from beneath the sculptured Arch of Titus, was the Palatine
+Mount, nearly covered by the palace of the Caesars, the magnificent
+residences of the higher nobility, and various temples, of which that of
+Apollo was the most magnificent, built by Augustus, of solid white
+marble from Luna. Here were the palaces of Vaccus, of Flaccus, of
+Cicero, of Catiline, of Scaurus, of Antoninus, of Clodius, of Agrippa,
+and of Hortensius. Still on his left, in the valley between the Palatine
+and the Capitoline, though he could not see it, concealed from view by
+the great Temples of Vesta and of Castor, and the still greater edifice
+known as the Basilica Julia, was the quarter called the Velabrum,
+extending to the river, where the Pons Aemilius crossed it,--a low
+quarter of narrow streets and tall houses where the rabble lived and
+died. On his right, concealed from view by the Aedes Divi Julii and the
+Forum Romanum, was that magnificent series of edifices extending from
+the Temple of Peace to the Temple of Trajan, including the Basilica
+Pauli, the Forum Julii, the Forum Augusti, the Forum Trajani, the
+Basilica Ulpia,--a space more than three thousand feet in length, and
+six hundred in breadth, almost entirely surrounded by porticos and
+colonnades, and filled with statues and pictures,--displaying on the
+whole probably the grandest series of public buildings clustered
+together ever erected, especially if we include the Forum Romanum and
+the various temples and basilicas which connected the whole,--a forest
+of marble pillars and statues. Ascending the steps which led from the
+Temple of Concord to the Temple of Juno Moneta upon the Arx, or Tarpeian
+Rock, on the southwestern summit of the hill, itself one of the most
+beautiful temples in Rome, erected by Camillus on the spot where the
+house of M. Manlius Capitolinus had stood, and one came upon the Roman
+mint. Near this was the temple erected by Augustus to Jupiter Tonans,
+and that built by Domitian to Jupiter Custos. But all the sacred
+edifices which crowned the Capitoline were subordinate to the Templum
+Jovis Capitolini, standing on a platform of eight thousand square feet,
+and built of the richest materials. The portico which faced the Via
+Sacra consisted of three rows of Doric columns, the pediment profusely
+ornamented with the choicest sculptures, the apex of the roof surmounted
+by the bronze horses of Lysippus, and the roof itself covered with
+gilded tiles. The temple had three separate cells, though covered with
+one roof; in front of each stood colossal statues of the three deities
+to whom it was consecrated. Here were preserved what was most sacred in
+the eyes of Romans, and it was itself the richest of all the temples
+of the city.
+
+What a beautiful panorama was presented to the view from the summit of
+this consecrated hill, only mounted by a steep ascent of one hundred
+steps! To the south was the Via Sacra extending to the Colosseum, and
+beyond it the Appia Via, lined with monuments as far as the eye could
+reach. A little beyond the fora to the east was the Carinae, a
+fashionable quarter of beautiful shops and houses, and still farther off
+were the Baths of Titus, extending from the Carinae to the Esquiline
+Mount. To the northeast were the Viminal and Quirinal hills, after the
+Palatine the most ancient part of the city, the seat of the Sabine
+population, abounding in fanes and temples, the most splendid of which
+was the Temple of Quirinus, erected originally to Romulus by Numa, but
+rebuilt by Augustus, with a double row of columns on each of its sides,
+seventy-six in number. Near by was the house of Atticus, and the gardens
+of Sallust in the valley between the Quirinal and Pincian, afterward the
+property of the Emperor. Far back on the Quirinal, near the wall of
+Servius, were the Baths of Diocletian, and still farther to the east the
+Pretorian Camp established by Tiberius, and included within the wall of
+Aurelian. To the northeast the eye lighted on the Pincian Hill covered
+with the gardens of Lucullus, to possess which Messalina caused the
+death of Valerius Asiaticus, into whose possession they had fallen. In
+the valley which lay between the fora and the Quirinal was the
+celebrated Subura, the quarter of shops, markets, and artificers,--a
+busy, noisy, vulgar section, not beautiful, but full of life and
+enterprise and wickedness. The eye then turned to the north, and the
+whole length of the Via Flamina was exposed to view, extending from the
+Capitoline to the Flaminian gate, perfectly straight, the finest street
+in Rome, and parallel to the modern Corso; it was the great highway to
+the north of Italy. Monuments and temples and palaces lined this
+celebrated street; it was spanned by the triumphal arches of Claudius
+and Marcus Aurelius. To the west of it was the Campus Martius, with its
+innumerable objects of interest,--the Baths of Agrippa, the Pantheon,
+the Thermae Alexandrinae, the Column of Marcus Aurelius, and the
+Mausoleum of Augustus. Beneath the Capitoline on the west, toward the
+river, was the Circus Flaminius, the Portico of Octavius, the Theatre of
+Balbus, and the Theatre of Pompey, where forty thousand spectators were
+accommodated. Stretching beyond the Thermae Alexandrinae, near the
+Pantheon, was the magnificent bridge which crossed the Tiber, built by
+Hadrian when he founded his Mausoleum, to which it led, still standing
+under the name of the Ponte S. Angelo. The eye took in eight or nine
+bridges over the Tiber, some of wood, but generally of stone, of
+beautiful masonry, and crowned with statues. In the valley between the
+Palatine and the Aventine, was the great Circus Maximus, founded by the
+early Tarquin; it was the largest open space, inclosed by walls and
+porticos, in the city; it seated three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+spectators. How vast a city, which could spare nearly four hundred
+thousand of its population to see the chariot-races! Beyond was the
+Aventine itself. This also was rich in legendary monuments and in the
+palaces of the great, though originally a plebeian quarter. Here dwelt
+Trajan before he was emperor, and Ennius the poet, and Paula the friend
+of Saint Jerome. Beneath the Aventine, and a little south of the Circus
+Maximus, were the great Baths of Caracalla, the ruins of which, next to
+those of the Colosseum, made on my mind the strongest impression of all
+I saw that pertains to antiquity, though these were not so large as
+those of Diocletian. The view south took in the Caelian Hill, the
+ancient residence of Tullus Hostilius. This hill was the residence of
+many distinguished Romans, among whose palaces was that of Claudius
+Centumalus, which towered ten or twelve stories into the air. But
+grander than any of these palaces was that of Plautius Lateranus, on
+whose site now stands the basilica of St. John Lateran,--the gift of
+Constantine to the bishop of Rome,--one of the most ancient of the
+Christian churches, in which, for fifteen hundred years, daily services
+have been performed.
+
+Such were the objects of interest and grandeur that met the eye as it
+was turned toward the various quarters of the city, which contained
+between three and four millions of people. Lipsius estimates four
+millions as the population, including slaves, women, children, and
+strangers. Though this estimate is regarded as too large by Merivale and
+others, yet how enormous must have been the number of the people when
+there were nine thousand and twenty-five baths, and when those of
+Diocletian could accommodate thirty-two hundred bathers at a time! The
+wooden theatre of Scaurus contained eighty thousand seats; that of
+Marcellus twenty thousand; the Colosseum would seat eighty-seven
+thousand persons, and give standing space for twenty-two thousand more.
+The Circus Maximus would hold three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+spectators. If only one person out of four of the free population
+witnessed the games and spectacles at a time, we thus must have four
+millions of people altogether in the city. The Aurelian walls are now
+only thirteen miles in circumference, but Lipsius estimates the
+original circumference at forty-five miles, and Vopiscus at nearly
+fifty. The diameter of the city must have been eleven miles, since
+Strabo tells us that the actual limit of Rome was at a place between the
+fifth and sixth milestone from the column of Trajan in the Forum,--the
+central and most conspicuous object in the city except the capitol.
+
+Modern writers, taking London and Paris for their measure of material
+civilization, seem unwilling to admit that Rome could have reached such
+a pitch of glory and wealth and power. To him who stands within the
+narrow limits of the Forum, as it now appears, it seems incredible that
+it could have been the centre of a much larger city than Europe can now
+boast of. Grave historians are loath to compromise their dignity and
+character for truth by admitting statements which seem, to men of
+limited views, to be fabulous, and which transcend modern experience.
+But we should remember that most of the monuments of ancient Rome have
+entirely disappeared. Nothing remains of the Palace of the Caesars,
+which nearly covered the Palatine Hill; little of the fora which,
+connected together, covered a space twice as large as that inclosed by
+the palaces of the Louvre and Tuileries, with all their galleries and
+courts; almost nothing of the glories of the Capitoline Hill; and little
+comparatively of those Thermae which were a mile in circuit. But what
+does remain attests an unparalleled grandeur,--the broken pillars of the
+Forum; the lofty columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius; the Pantheon,
+lifting its spacious dome two hundred feet into the air; the mere
+vestibule of the Baths of Agrippa; the triumphal arches of Titus and
+Trajan and Constantine; the bridges which span the Tiber; the aqueducts
+which cross the Campagna; the Cloaca Maxima, which drained the marshes
+and lakes of the infant city; and, above all, the Colosseum. What glory
+and shame are associated with that single edifice! That alone, if
+nothing else remained of Pagan antiquity, would indicate a grandeur and
+a folly such as cannot now be seen on earth. It reveals a wonderful
+skill in masonry and great architectural strength; it shows the wealth
+and resources of rulers who must have had the treasures of the world at
+their command; it shows the restless passions of the people for
+excitement, and the necessity on the part of government of yielding to
+this taste. What leisure and indolence marked a city which could afford
+to give up so much time to the demoralizing sports! What facilities for
+transportation were afforded, when so many wild beasts could be brought
+to the capitol from the central parts of Africa without calling out
+unusual comment! How imperious a populace that compels the government to
+provide such expensive pleasures! The games of Titus, on the dedication
+of the Colosseum, lasted one hundred days, and five thousand wild beasts
+were slaughtered in the arena. The number of the gladiators who fought
+surpasses belief. At the triumph of Trajan over the Dacians, ten
+thousand gladiators were exhibited, and the Emperor himself presided
+under a gilded canopy, surrounded by thousands of his lords. Underneath
+the arena, strewed with yellow sand and sawdust, was a solid pavement,
+so closely cemented that it could be turned into an artificial lake, on
+which naval battles were fought. But it was the conflict of gladiators
+which most deeply stimulated the passions of the people. The benches
+were crowded with eager spectators, and the voices of one hundred
+thousand were raised in triumph or rage as the miserable victims sank
+exhausted in the bloody sport.
+
+Yet it was not the gladiatorial sports of the amphitheatre which most
+strikingly attested the greatness and splendor of the city; nor the
+palaces, in which as many as four hundred slaves were sometimes
+maintained as domestic servants for a single establishment,--twelve
+hundred in number according to the lowest estimate, but probably five
+times as numerous, since every senator, every knight, and every rich man
+was proud to possess a residence which would attract attention; nor the
+temples, which numbered four hundred and twenty-four, most of which
+were of marble, filled with statues, the contributions of ages, and
+surrounded with groves; nor the fora and basilicas, with their porticos,
+statues, and pictures, covering more space than any cluster of public
+buildings in Europe, a mile and a half in circuit; nor the baths, nearly
+as large, still more completely filled with works of art; nor the Circus
+Maximus, where more people witnessed the chariot races at a time than
+are nightly assembled in all the places of public amusement in Paris,
+London, and New York combined,--more than could be seated in all the
+cathedrals of England and France. It is not these which most
+impressively make us feel the amazing grandeur of the old capital of the
+world. The triumphal processions of the conquering generals were still
+more exciting to behold, for these appealed more directly to the
+imagination, and excited those passions which urged the Romans to a
+career of conquest from generation to generation. No military review of
+modern times equalled those gorgeous triumphs, even as no scenic
+performance compares with the gladiatorial shows; the sun has never
+shone upon any human assemblage so magnificent and so grand, so imposing
+and yet so guilty. Not only were displayed the spoils of conquered
+kingdoms, and the triumphal cars of generals, but the whole military
+strength of the capital; an army of one hundred thousand men, flushed
+with victory, followed the gorgeous procession of nobles and princes.
+The triumph of Aurelian, on his return from the East, gives us some idea
+of the grandeur of that ovation to conquerors. "The pomp was opened by
+twenty elephants, four royal tigers, and two hundred of the most curious
+animals from every climate, north, south, east, and west. These were
+followed by sixteen hundred gladiators, devoted to the cruel amusement
+of the amphitheatre. Then were displayed the arms and ensigns of
+conquered nations, the plate and wardrobe of the Syrian queen. Then
+ambassadors from all parts of the earth, all remarkable in their rich
+dresses, with their crowns and offerings. Then the captives taken in the
+various wars,--Goths, Vandals, Samaritans, Alemanni, Franks, Gauls,
+Syrians, and Egyptians, each marked by their national costume. Then the
+Queen of the East, the beautiful Zenobia, confined by fetters of gold,
+and fainting under the weight of jewels, preceding the beautiful chariot
+in which she had hoped to enter the gates of Rome. Then the chariot of
+the Persian king. Then the triumphal car of Aurelian himself, drawn by
+elephants. Finally the most illustrious of the Senate and the army
+closed the solemn procession, amid the acclamations of the people, and
+the sound of musical instruments. It took from dawn of day until the
+ninth hour for the procession to pass to the capitol; and the festival
+was protracted by theatrical representations, the games of the circus,
+the hunting of wild beasts, combats of gladiators, and naval
+engagements."
+
+Such were the material wonders of the ancient civilizations, culminating
+in their latest and greatest representative, and displayed in its proud
+capital,--nearly all of which became later the spoil of barbarians, who
+ruthlessly marched over the classic world, having no regard for its
+choicest treasures. Those old glories are now indeed succeeded by a
+prouder civilization,--the work of nobler races after sixteen hundred
+years of new experiments. But why such an eclipse of the glory of man?
+The reason is apparent if we survey the internal state of the ancient
+empires, especially of society as it existed under the Roman emperors.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Titus Livius,
+Pausanias, on the geography and resources of the ancient nations. See an
+able chapter on Mediterranean prosperity in Louis Napoleon's History of
+Caesar. Smith's Dictionary of Ancient Geography is exhaustive. Wilkinson
+has revealed the civilization of ancient Egypt. Professor Becker's
+Handbook of Rome, as well as his Gallus and Charicles shed much light on
+manners and customs. Dyer's History of the City of Rome is the fullest
+description of its wonders that I have read. Niebuhr, Bunsen, and
+Platner, among the Germans, have written learnedly, but also have
+created much doubt about things supposed to be established. Mommsen,
+Curtius, and Merivale are also great authorities. Nor are the
+magnificent chapters of Gibbon to be disregarded by the student of Roman
+history, notwithstanding his elaborate and inflated style.
+
+
+
+
+THE MILITARY ART.
+
+
+WEAPONS, ENGINES, DISCIPLINE.
+
+1300-100 A.D.
+
+
+In surveying the nations of antiquity nothing impresses us more forcibly
+than the perpetual wars in which they were engaged, and the fact that
+military art and science seem to have been among the earliest things
+that occupied the thoughts of men. Personal strife and tribal warfare
+are coeval with the earliest movements of humanity.
+
+The first recorded act in the Hebraic history of the world after the
+expulsion of Adam from Paradise is a murder. In patriarchal times we
+read of contentions between the servants of Abraham and of Lot, and
+between the petty kings and chieftains of the countries where they
+journeyed. Long before Abraham was born, violence was the greatest evil
+with which the world was afflicted. Before his day mighty conquerors
+arose and founded kingdoms. Babylon and Egypt were powerful military
+States in pre-historic times. Wars more or less fierce were waged before
+nations were civilized. The earliest known art, therefore, was the art
+of destruction, growing out of the wicked and brutal passions of
+men,--envy and hatred, ambition and revenge; in a word, selfishness.
+Race fought with race, kingdom with kingdom, and city with city, in the
+very infancy of society. In secular history the greatest names are those
+of conquerors and heroes in every land under the sun; and it was by
+conquerors that those grand monuments were erected the ruins of which
+astonish every traveller, especially in Egypt and Assyria.
+
+But wars in the earliest ages were not carried on scientifically, or
+even as an art. There was little to mark them except brute force. Armies
+were scarcely more than great collections of armed men, led by kings,
+either to protect their States from hostile invaders, or to acquire new
+territory, or to exact tribute from weaker nations. We do not read of
+military discipline, or of skill in strategy and tactics. A battle was
+lost or won by individual prowess; it was generally a hand-to-hand
+encounter, in which the strongest and bravest gained the victory.
+
+One of the earliest descriptions of war is to be found in the Iliad of
+Homer, where individual heroes fought with one another, armed with the
+sword, the lance, and the javelin, protected by shields, helmets, and
+coats of mail. They fought on foot, or from chariots, which were in use
+before cavalry. The war-horse was driven before he was ridden in Egypt
+or Palestine; but the Aryan barbarians in their invasion rode their
+horses, and fought on horseback, like the modern Cossacks.
+
+Until the Greeks became familiar with war as an art, armies were usually
+very large, as if a great part of the population of a country followed
+the sovereign who commanded them. Rameses the Great, the Sesostris of
+the Greeks, according to Herodotus led nearly a million of men in his
+expeditions. He was the most noted of ancient warriors until Cyrus the
+Persian arose, and was nearly contemporaneous with Moses. The Trojan war
+is supposed to have taken place during the period when the Israelites
+were subject to the Ammonites; and about the time that the Philistines
+were defeated by David, the Greeks were forced by war to found colonies
+in Asia Minor.
+
+After authentic history begins, war is the main subject with which it
+has to deal; and for three thousand years history is simply the record
+of the feats of warriors and generals, of their conquests and defeats,
+of the rise and fall of kingdoms and cities, of the growth or decline of
+military virtues. No arts of civilization have preserved nations from
+the sword of the conqueror, and war has been both the amusement and the
+business of kings. From the earliest ages, the most valued laurels have
+been bestowed for success in war, and military fame has eclipsed all
+other glories. The cry of the mourner has been unheeded in the blaze of
+conquest; even the aspirations of the poet and the labors of the artist
+have been as nought, except to celebrate the achievements of heroes.
+
+It is interesting then to inquire how far the ancients advanced in the
+arts of war, which include military weapons, movements, the structure of
+camps, the discipline of armies, the construction of ships and of
+military engines, and the concentration and management of forces under a
+single man. What was that mighty machinery by which nations were
+subdued, or rose to greatness on the ruin of States and Empires? The
+conquests of Rameses, of David, of Nebuchadnezzar, of Cyrus, of
+Alexander, of Hannibal, of Caesar, and other heroes are still the
+subjects of contemplation among statesmen and schoolboys. The exploits
+of heroes are the pith of history.
+
+The art of war must have made great progress in the infancy of
+civilization, when bodily energies were most highly valued, when men
+were fierce, hardy, strong, and uncorrupted by luxury; when mere
+physical forces gave law alike to the rich and the poor, to the learned
+and the ignorant; and when the avenue to power led across the field
+of battle.
+
+We must go to Egypt for the earliest development of art and science in
+all departments; and so far as the art of war consists in the
+organization of physical forces for conquest or defence, under the
+direction of a single man, it was in Egypt that this was first
+accomplished, about seventeen hundred years before Christ, as
+chronologists think, by Rameses the Great.
+
+This monarch, according to Wilkinson, the greatest and most ambitious of
+the Egyptian kings, to whom the Greeks gave the name of Sesostris,
+showed great ability in collecting together large bodies of his
+subjects, and controlling them by a rigid military discipline. He
+accustomed them to heat and cold, hunger and thirst, fatigue, and
+exposure to danger. With bodies thus rendered vigorous by labor and
+discipline, they were fitted for distant expeditions. Rameses first
+subdued the Arabians and Libyans, and annexed them to the Egyptian
+monarchy. While he inured his subjects to fatigue and danger, he was
+careful to win their affections by acts of munificence and clemency. He
+then made his preparations for the conquest of the known world, and
+collected an army, according to Diodorus Siculus, of six hundred
+thousand infantry, twenty-four thousand cavalry, and twenty-seven
+thousand war-chariots. It is difficult to understand how a small country
+like Egypt could furnish such an immense force. If the account of the
+historian be not exaggerated, Rameses must have enrolled the conquered
+Libyans and Arabians and other nations among his soldiers. He subjected
+his army to a stern discipline and an uncomplaining obedience to
+orders,--the first principle in the science of war, which no successful
+general in the world's history has ever disregarded, from Alexander to
+Napoleon. With this powerful army his march was irresistible. Ethiopia
+was first subdued, and an exaction made from the conquered of a tribute
+of gold, ivory, and ebony. In those ancient times a conquering army did
+not resettle or colonize the territories it had subdued, but was
+contented with overrunning the country and exacting tribute from the
+people. Such was the nature of the Babylonian and Persian conquests.
+After overrunning Ethiopia and some other countries near the Straits of
+Babelmandeb, the conqueror proceeded to India, which he overran beyond
+the Ganges, and ascended the high table-land of Central Asia; then
+proceeding westward, he entered Europe, nor halted in his devastating
+career until he reached Thrace. From thence he marched to Asia Minor,
+conquering as he went, and invaded Assyria, seating himself on the
+throne of Ninus and Semiramis. Then, laden with booty from the Eastern
+world, he returned to Egypt after an absence of thirty years and
+consolidated his empire, building those vast structures at Thebes, which
+for magnitude have never been surpassed. Thus was Egypt enriched with
+the spoil of nations, and made formidable for a thousand years. Rameses
+was the last of the Pharaohs who pursued the phantom of military renown,
+or sought glory in distant expeditions.
+
+We are in ignorance as to the details of the conquests and the generals
+who served under Rameses. There is doubtless some exaggeration in the
+statements of the Greek historian, but there is no doubt that this
+monarch was among the first of the great conquerors to establish a
+regular army, and to provide a fleet to co-operate with his land forces.
+
+The strength of the Egyptian army consisted mainly in archers. They
+fought either on foot or in chariots; cavalry was not much relied upon,
+although mention is frequently made of horsemen as well as of chariots.
+The Egyptian infantry was divided into regiments, and Wilkinson tells us
+that they were named according to the arms they bore,--as "bowmen,
+spearmen, swordsmen, clubmen, slingers." These regiments were divided
+into battalions and companies, commanded by their captains. The
+infantry, heavily armed with spears and shields, formed a phalanx almost
+impenetrable of twelve men deep, who marched with great regularity. Each
+company had its standard-bearer, who was an officer of approved valor;
+the royal standards were carried by the royal princes or by persons of
+the royal household. The troops were summoned by the sound of trumpet,
+and also by the drum, both used from the earliest period. The offensive
+weapons were the bow, the spear, the javelin, the sword, the club, or
+mace, and the battle-axe. The chief defensive weapon was the shield,
+about three feet in length, covered with bull's hide, having the hair
+outward and studded with nails. The shape of the bow was not essentially
+different from that used in Europe in the Middle Ages, being about five
+feet and a half long, round, and tapering at the ends; the bowstring was
+of hide or catgut. The arrows of the archers averaged about thirty
+inches in length, and were made of wood or reeds, tipped with a metal
+point, or flint, and winged with feathers. Each bowman was furnished
+with a plentiful supply of arrows. When arrows were exhausted, the
+bowman fought with swords and battle-axes; his defensive armor was
+confined chiefly to the helmet and a sort of quilted coat. The spear was
+of wood, with a metal head, was about five or six feet in length, and
+used for thrusting. The javelin was lighter, for throwing. The sling was
+a thong of plaited leather, broad in the middle, with a loop at the end.
+The sword was straight and short, between two and three feet in length,
+with a double edge, tapering to a sharp point, and used for either cut
+or thrust; the handle was frequently inlaid with precious stones. The
+metal used in the manufacture of swords and spear-heads was bronze,
+hardened by a process unknown to us. The battle-axe had a handle about
+two-and a-half feet in length, and was less ornamented than other
+weapons. The cuirass, or coat of armor, was made of horizontal rows of
+metal plate, about an inch in breadth, well secured together by bronze
+pieces. The Egyptian chariot held two persons,--the charioteer, and the
+warrior armed with his bow-and-arrow and wearing a cuirass, or coat of
+mail. The warrior carried also other weapons for close encounter, when
+he should descend from his chariot to fight on foot. The chariot was of
+wood, the body of which was light, strengthened with metal; the pole was
+inserted in the axle; the two wheels usually had six spokes, but
+sometimes only four; the wheel revolved on the axle, and was secured by
+a lynch-pin. The leathern harness and housings were simple, and the
+bridles, or reins, were nearly the same as are now in use.
+
+"The Egyptian chariot corps, like the infantry," says Wilkinson, "were
+divided into light and heavy troops, both armed with bows,--the former
+chiefly employed in harassing the enemy with missiles; the latter called
+upon to break through opposing masses of infantry." The infantry, when
+employed in the assault of fortified towns, were provided with shields,
+under cover of which they made their approaches to the place to be
+attacked. In their attack they advanced under cover of the arrows of the
+bowmen, and instantly applied the scaling-ladder to the ramparts. The
+testudo, a wooden shelter, was also used, large enough to contain
+several men. The battering-ram and movable towers resembled those of the
+Romans a thousand years later.
+
+It would thus appear that the ancient Egyptians, in the discipline of
+armies, in military weapons offensive and defensive, in chariots and
+horses, and in military engines for the reduction of fortified towns,
+were scarcely improved upon by the Greeks and Romans, or by the
+Europeans in the Middle Ages. Yet the Egyptians were an ingenious rather
+than a warlike people, fond of peace, and devoted to agricultural
+pursuits.
+
+More warlike than they were the Assyrians and the Persians, although we
+fail to discover any essential difference in the organization of armies,
+or in military weapons. The great difference between the Persian and the
+Egyptian armies was in the use of cavalry. From their earliest
+settlements the Persians were skilful horsemen, and these formed the
+guard of their kings. Under Cyrus, the Persians became the masters of
+the world, but they rapidly degenerated, not being able to withstand the
+luxurious life of the conquered Babylonians; and when they were
+marshalled against the Greeks, and especially against the disciplined
+forces of Alexander, they were disgracefully routed in spite of their
+enormous armies, which could not be handled, and became mere mobs of
+armed men.
+
+The art of war made a great advance under the Greeks, although we do
+not notice any striking superiority of arms over the Eastern armies led
+by Sesostris or Cyrus. The Greeks were among the most warlike of all the
+races of men; they had a genius for war. The Grecian States were engaged
+in perpetual strifes with one another, and constant contention developed
+military strength; and yet the Greeks, until the time of Philip, had no
+standing armies. They relied for offence and defence on the volunteer
+militia, which was animated by intense patriotic ideas. All armies in
+the nature of things are more or less machines, moved by one commanding
+will; but the Greek armies owed much of their success to the individual
+bravery of their troops, who were citizens of States under
+constitutional forms of government.
+
+The most remarkable improvement in the art of war was made by the
+Spartans, who, in addition to their strict military discipline,
+introduced the _phalanx_,--files of picked soldiers, eight deep, heavily
+armed with spear, sword, and shield, placed in ranks of eight, at
+intervals of about six feet apart. This phalanx of eight files and eight
+ranks,--sixty-four men,--closely locked when the soldiers received or
+advanced to attack, proved nearly impregnable and irresistible. It
+combined solidity and the power of resistance with mobility. The picked
+men were placed in the front and rear; for in skilful evolutions the
+front often became the rear, and the rear became the front. Armed with
+spears projecting beyond the front, and with their shields locked
+together, the phalanx advanced to meet the enemy with regular step, and
+to the cadence of music; if beaten, it retired in perfect order. After
+battle, each soldier was obliged to produce his shield as a proof that
+he had fought or retired as a soldier should. The Athenian phalanx was
+less solid than that of Sparta,--Miltiades having decreased the depth to
+four ranks, in order to lengthen his front,--but was more efficient in a
+charge against the enemy. The Spartan phalanx was stronger in defence,
+the Athenian more agile in attack. The attack was nearly irresistible,
+as the soldiers advanced with accelerated motion, corresponding to the
+double-quick time of modern warfare. This was first introduced by
+Miltiades at Marathon.
+
+Philip of Macedon adopted the Spartan phalanx, but made it sixteen deep,
+which gave it greater solidity, and rendered it still more effective. He
+introduced the large oval buckler and a larger and heavier spear. When
+the phalanx was closed for action, each man occupied but three square
+feet of ground: as the pikes were twenty-four feet in length, and
+projected eighteen feet beyond the front, the formation presented an
+array of points such as had never been seen before. The greatest
+improvement effected by Philip, however, was the adoption of standing
+armies instead of the militia heretofore in use throughout the Grecian
+States. He also attached great importance to his cavalry, which was
+composed of the flower of the nobility, about twelve hundred in number,
+all covered with defensive armor; these he formed into eight squadrons,
+and constituted them his body-guard. The usual formation of the regular
+cavalry was in the form of a wedge, so as to penetrate and break the
+enemy's line,--a manoeuvre probably learned from Epaminondas of Thebes,
+a great master in the art of war, who defeated the Spartan phalanx by
+forming his columns upon a front less than their depth, thus enabling
+him to direct his whole force against a given point. By these tactics he
+gained the great victory at Leuctra, as Napoleon likewise prevailed over
+the Austrians in his Italian campaign. In like manner Philip's son
+Alexander, following the example of Epaminondas, concentrated his forces
+upon the enemy's centre, and easily defeated the Persian hosts by
+creating a panic. There was no resisting a phalanx sixteen files deep,
+with their projecting pikes, aided by the heavily armed cavalry, all
+under the strictest military discipline and animated by patriotic ardor.
+This terrible Macedonian phalanx was a great advance over the early
+armies of the Greeks, who fought without discipline in a hand to hand
+encounter, with swords and spears, after exhausting their arrows. They
+had learned two things of great importance,--a rigid discipline, and a
+concentration of forces which made an army a machine. Under Alexander,
+the grand phalanx consisted of 16,384 men, made up of four divisions and
+smaller phalanxes.
+
+In Roman armies we see a still further advance in the military art, as
+it existed in the time of Augustus, which required centuries to perfect.
+The hardy physique and stern nature of the Romans, exercised and
+controlled by their organizing genius, evolved the Roman legion, which
+learned to resist the impetuous assaults of the elephants of the East,
+the phalanx of the Greeks, and the Teutonic barbarians. The indomitable
+courage of the Romans, trained under severest discipline and directed by
+means of an organization divided and subdivided and officered almost as
+perfectly as our modern corps and divisions and brigades and regiments
+and companies and squads, marched over and subdued the world.
+
+The Roman soldier was trained to march twenty miles a day, under a
+burden of eighty pounds; to swim rivers, to climb mountains, to
+penetrate forests, and to encounter every kind of danger. He was taught
+that his destiny was to die in battle: death was at once his duty and
+his glory. He enlisted in the army with little hope of revisiting his
+home; he crossed seas and deserts and forests with the idea of spending
+his life in the service of his country. His pay was only a denarius
+daily, equal to about sixteen cents of our money. Marriage for him was
+discouraged or forbidden. However insignificant the legionary was as a
+man, he gained importance from the great body with which he was
+identified: he was both the servant and the master of the State. He had
+an intense _esprit de corps_; he was bound up in the glory of his
+legion. Both religion and honor bound him to his standards; the golden
+eagle which glittered in his front was the object of his fondest
+devotion. Nor was it possible to escape the penalty of cowardice or
+treachery or disobedience; he could be chastised with blows by his
+centurion, and his general could doom him to death. Never was the
+severity of military discipline relaxed; military exercises were
+incessant, in winter as in summer. In the midst of peace the Roman
+troops were familiarized with the practice of war.
+
+It was the spirit which animated the Roman legions, and the discipline
+to which they were inured that gave them their irresistible strength.
+When we remember that they had not our firearms, we can but be surprised
+at their efficiency, especially in taking strongly fortified cities.
+Jerusalem was defended by a triple wall, the most elaborate
+fortifications, and twenty-four thousand soldiers, besides the aid
+received from the citizens; and yet it fell in little more than four
+months before an army of eighty thousand under Titus. How great must
+have been the military science that could reduce a place of such
+strength, in so short a time, without the aid of other artillery than
+the ancient catapult and battering-ram! Whether the military science of
+the Romans was superior or inferior to our own, no one can question that
+it was as perfect as it could be, lacking any knowledge of gunpowder; we
+surpass them only in the application of this great invention, especially
+in artillery. There can be no doubt that a Roman army was superior to a
+feudal army in the brightest days of chivalry. The world has produced no
+generals greater than Caesar, Pompey, Sulla, and Marius. No armies ever
+won greater victories over superior numbers than the Roman, and no
+armies of their size ever retained in submission so vast an empire, and
+for so long a time. At no period in the history of the Roman empire were
+the armies so large as those sustained by France in time of peace. Two
+hundred thousand legionaries, and as many more auxiliaries, controlled
+diverse nations and powerful monarchies. The single province of Syria
+once boasted of a military force equal in the number of soldiers to that
+wielded by the Emperor Tiberius. Twenty-five Roman legions made the
+conquest of the world, and retained that conquest for five hundred
+years. The self-sustained energy of Caesar in Gaul puts to the blush
+the efforts of all modern generals, unless we except Frederic II.,
+Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Grant, Sherman, and a few other great
+geniuses whom warlike crises have developed; nor is there a better
+text-book on the art of war than that furnished by Caesar himself in his
+Commentaries. The great victories of the Romans over barbarians, over
+Gauls, over Carthaginians, over Greeks, over Syrians, over Persians,
+were not the result of a short-lived enthusiasm, like those of Attila
+and Tamerlane, but extended over a thousand years.
+
+The Romans were essentially military in all their tastes and habits.
+Luxurious senators and nobles showed the greatest courage and skill in
+the most difficult campaigns. Antony, Caesar, Pompey, and Lucullus at
+home were enervated and self-indulgent, but at the head of their legions
+they were capable of any privation and fatigue.
+
+The Roman legion was a most perfect organization, a great mechanical
+force, and could sustain furious attacks after vigor, patriotism, and
+public spirit had fled. For three hundred years a vast empire was
+sustained by mechanism alone. The legion is coeval with the foundation
+of Rome, but the number of the troops of which it was composed varied at
+different periods. It rarely exceeded six thousand men; Gibbon estimates
+the number at six thousand eight hundred and twenty-six men. For many
+centuries it was composed exclusively of Roman citizens. Up to the year
+B.C. 107, no one was permitted to serve among the regular troops except
+those who were regarded as possessing a strong personal interest in the
+stability of the republic. Marius admitted all orders of citizens; and
+after the close of the Social War, B.C. 87, the whole free population of
+Italy was allowed to serve in the regular army. Claudius incorporated
+with the legion the vanquished Goths, and after him the barbarians
+filled up the ranks on account of the degeneracy of the times. But
+during the period when the Romans were conquering the world every
+citizen was trained to arms, like the Germans of the present day, and
+was liable to be called upon to serve in the armies. In the early age of
+the republic the legion was disbanded as soon as the special service was
+performed, and was in all essential respects a militia. For three
+centuries we have no record of a Roman army wintering in the field; but
+when Southern Italy became the seat of war, and especially when Rome was
+menaced by foreign enemies, and still more when a protracted foreign
+service became inevitable, the same soldiers remained in activity for
+several years. Gradually the distinction between the soldier and the
+civilian was entirely obliterated. The distant wars of the
+republic--such as the prolonged operations of Caesar in Gaul, and the
+civil contests--made a standing army a necessity. During the civil wars
+between Caesar and Pompey the legions were forty in number; under
+Augustus, but twenty-five. Alexander Severus increased them to
+thirty-two. This was the standing force of the empire,--from one hundred
+and fifty thousand to two hundred and forty thousand men, stationed in
+the various provinces.
+
+The main dependence of the legion was on the infantry, which wore heavy
+armor consisting of helmet, breastplate, greaves on the right leg, and
+on the left arm a buckler, four feet in length and two and a half in
+width. The helmet was originally made of leather or untanned skin,
+strengthened and adorned by bronze or gold, and surmounted by a crest
+which was often of horse-hair, and so made as to give an imposing look.
+The crests served not only for ornament, but to distinguish the
+different centurions. The breastplate, or cuirass, was generally made of
+metal, and sometimes was highly ornamented. Chain-mail was also used.
+The greaves were of bronze or brass, with a lining of leather or felt,
+and reached above the knees. The shield worn by the heavy-armed infantry
+was not round, like that of the early Greeks, but oval or oblong,
+adapted to the shape of the body, such as was adopted by Philip and
+Alexander, and was made of wood or wicker-work. The weapons were a light
+spear, a pilum, or javelin, over six feet long, terminated by a steel
+point, and a short cut-and-thrust sword with a double edge. Besides the
+armor and weapons of the legionary, he usually carried on the marches
+provisions for two weeks, three or four stakes used in forming the
+palisade of the camp, besides various tools,--altogether a burden of
+sixty or eighty pounds per man. The legion was drawn up eight deep, and
+three feet intervened between rank and file, which disposition gave
+great activity, and made it superior to the Macedonian phalanx, the
+strength of which depended on sixteen ranks of long pikes wedged
+together. The general period of service for the infantry was twenty
+years, after which the soldier received a discharge, together with a
+bounty in money or land.
+
+The cavalry attached to each legion consisted of three hundred men, who
+originally were selected from the leading men in the State. They were
+mounted at the expense of the State, and formed a distinct order. The
+cavalry was divided into ten squadrons. To each legion was attached also
+a train of ten military engines of the largest size, and fifty-five of
+the smaller,--all of which discharged stones and darts with great
+effect. This train corresponded with our artillery.
+
+The Roman legion--whether it was composed of four thousand men, as in
+the early ages of the republic, or six thousand, as in the time of
+Augustus--was divided into ten cohorts, and each cohort was composed of
+Hastati (raw troops), Principes (trained troops), Triarii (veterans),
+and Velites (light troops, or skirmishers). The soldiers of the first
+line, called Hastati, consisted of youths in the bloom of manhood, who
+were distributed into fifteen companies, or maniples. Each company
+contained sixty privates, two centurions, and a standard-bearer. Two
+thirds were heavily armed, and bore the long shield; the remainder
+carried only a spear and light javelins. The second line, the Principes,
+was composed of men in the full vigor of life, divided also into fifteen
+companies, all heavily armed, and distinguished by the splendor of their
+equipments. The third body, the Triarii, was composed of tried veterans,
+in fifteen companies, the least trustworthy of which were placed in the
+rear; these formed three lines. The Velites were light-armed troops,
+employed on out-post duty, and mingled with the horsemen. The Hastati
+were so called because they were armed with the _hasta_, or spear; the
+Principes for being placed so near to the front; the Triarii, from
+having been arrayed behind the first two lines as a body of reserve. The
+Triarii were armed with the pilum, thicker and stronger than the Grecian
+lance, four and a half feet long, of wood, with a barbed head of
+iron,--so that the whole length of the weapon was six feet nine inches.
+It was used either to throw or thrust with, and when it pierced the
+enemy's shield the iron head was bent, and the spear, owing to the twist
+in the iron, still held to the shield. Each soldier carried two of these
+weapons, and threw the heavy pilum over the heads of their comrades in
+front, in order to break the enemy's line. In the time of the empire,
+when the legion was modified, the infantry wore cuirasses and helmets,
+and carried a sword and dagger. The select infantry were armed with a
+long spear and a shield; the rest, with a pilum. Each man carried a saw,
+a basket, a mattock, a hatchet, a leather strap, a hook, a chain, and
+provisions for three days. The Equites (cavalry) wore helmets and
+cuirasses, like the infantry, having a broadsword at the right side, and
+in the hand a long pole. A buckler swung at the horse's flank. They were
+also furnished with a quiver containing three or four javelins.
+
+The artillery were used both for hurling missiles in battle, and for the
+attack on fortresses. The _tormentum_, which was an elastic instrument,
+discharged stones and darts, and was held in general use until the
+discovery of gunpowder. In besieging a city, the ram was employed for
+destroying the lower part of a wall, and the _balista,_ which discharged
+stones, was used to overthrow the battlements. The balista would project
+a stone weighing from fifty to three hundred pounds. The _aries_, or
+battering-ram, consisted of a large beam made of the trunk of a tree,
+frequently one hundred feet in length, to one end of which was fastened
+a mace of iron or bronze resembling in form the head of a ram; it was
+often suspended by ropes from a beam fixed transversely over it, so that
+the soldiers were relieved from supporting its weight, and were able to
+give it a rapid and forcible swinging motion backward and forward. When
+this machine was further perfected by rigging it upon wheels, and
+constructing over it a roof, so as to form a _testudo_, which protected
+the besieging party from the assaults of the besieged, there was no
+tower so strong, no wall so thick, as to resist a long-continued attack,
+the great length of the beam enabling the soldiers to work across the
+defensive ditch, and as many as one hundred men being often employed
+upon it. The Romans learned from the Greeks the art of building this
+formidable engine, which was used with great effect by Alexander, but
+with still greater by Titus in the siege of Jerusalem; it was first used
+by the Romans in the siege of Syracuse. The _vinea_ was a sort of roof
+under which the soldiers protected themselves when they undermined
+walls. The _helepolis_, also used in the attack on cities, was a square
+tower furnished with all the means of assault. This also was a Greek
+invention; and the one used by Demetrius at the siege of Rhodes, B. C.
+306, was one hundred and thirty-five feet high and sixty-eight wide,
+divided into nine stories. The _turris_, a tower of the same class, was
+used both by Greeks and Romans, and even by Asiatics. Mithridates used
+one at the siege of Cyzicus one hundred and fifty feet in height. These
+most formidable engines were generally made of beams of wood covered on
+three sides with iron and sometimes with rawhides. They were higher than
+the walls and all the other fortifications of a besieged place, and
+divided into stories pierced with windows; in and upon them were
+stationed archers and slingers, and in the lower story was a
+battering-ram. The soldiers in the turris were also provided with
+scaling-ladders, sometimes on wheels; so that when the top of the wall
+was cleared by means of the turris, it might be scaled by means of the
+ladders. It was impossible to resist these powerful engines except by
+burning them, or by undermining the ground upon which they stood, or by
+overturning them with stones or iron-shod beams hung from a mast on the
+wall, or by increasing the height of the wall, or by erecting temporary
+towers on the wall beside them.
+
+Thus there was no ancient fortification capable of withstanding a long
+siege when the besieged city was short of defenders or provisions. With
+forces equal between the combatants an attack was generally a failure,
+for the defenders had always a great advantage; but when the number of
+defenders was reduced, or when famine pressed, the skill and courage of
+the assailants would ultimately triumph. Some ancient cities made a most
+obstinate resistance, like Tarentum; like Carthage, which stood a siege
+of four years; like Numantia in Spain, and like Jerusalem. When cities
+were of immense size, population, and resources, like Rome when besieged
+by Alaric, it was easier to take them by cutting off all ingress and
+egress, so as to produce famine. Tyre was taken by Alexander only by
+cutting off the harbor. Cyrus could not have taken Babylon by assault,
+since the walls were of such enormous height, and the ditch was too wide
+for the use of battering-rams; he resorted to an expedient of which the
+blinded inhabitants of that doomed city never dreamed, which rendered
+their impregnable fortifications useless. Nor probably would the Romans
+have prevailed against Jerusalem had not famine decimated and weakened
+its defenders. Fortified cities, though scarcely ever impregnable, were
+yet more in use in ancient than modern times, and greatly delayed the
+operations of advancing armies; and it was probably the fortified camp
+of the Romans, which protected an army against surprises and other
+misfortunes, that gave such permanent efficacy to the legions.
+
+The chief officers of the legion were the Tribunes; and originally
+there was one in each legion from the three tribes,--the Ramnes,
+Luceres, and Tities. In the time of Polybius the number in each legion
+was six. Their authority extended equally over the whole legion; but to
+prevent confusion, it was the custom for them to divide into three
+sections of two, and each pair undertook the routine duties for two
+months out of six; they nominated the centurions, and assigned each to
+the company to which he belonged. These tribunes at first were chosen
+the commanders-in-chief, by the kings and consuls; but during the palmy
+days of the republic, when the patrician power was pre-eminent, they
+were elected by the people, that is, the citizens. Later they were
+named, half by the Senate and half by the consuls. No one was eligible
+to this great office who had not served ten years in the infantry or
+five in the cavalry. The tribunes were distinguished by their dress from
+the common soldier. Next in rank to the tribunes, who corresponded to
+the rank of brigadiers and colonels in our times, were the Centurions,
+of whom there were sixty in each legion,--men who were more remarkable
+for calmness and sagacity than for courage and daring valor; men who
+would keep their posts at all hazards. It was their duty to drill the
+soldiers, to inspect arms, clothing, and food, to visit the sentinels
+and regulate the conduct of the men. They had the power of inflicting
+corporal punishment. They were chosen for merit solely, until the later
+ages of the empire, when their posts were bought, as is the case to some
+extent to-day in the English army. The centurions were of unequal
+rank,--those of the Triarii before those of the Principes, and those of
+the Principes before those of the Hastati. The first centurion of the
+first maniple of the Triarii stood next in rank to the tribunes, and had
+a seat in the military councils. His office was very lucrative. To his
+charge was intrusted the eagle of the legion. As the centurion might
+rise from the ranks by regular gradation through the different maniples
+of the Hastati, Principes, and Triarii, there was great inducement held
+out to the soldiers. It would, however, appear that the centurion
+received only twice the pay of the ordinary legionary. There was not
+therefore so much difference in rank between a private and a captain as
+there is in our day. There were no aristocratic distinctions in the
+ancient world so marked as those existing in the modern. In the Roman
+legion there was nevertheless a regular gradation of rank, although
+there were but few distinct offices. The gradation was determined not by
+length of service, but for merit alone, of which the tribunes were the
+sole judges; hence the tribune in a Roman legion had more power than
+that of a modern colonel. As the tribunes named the centurions, so the
+centurions appointed their lieutenants, who were called sub-centurions.
+Still below these were two sub-officers, or sergeants, and the
+_decanus_, or corporal, to every ten men.
+
+There was a change in the constitution and disposition of the legion
+after the time of Marius, until the fall of the republic. The legions
+were thrown open to men of all grades; they were all armed and equipped
+alike; the lines were reduced to two, with a space between every two
+cohorts, of which there were five in each line; the young soldiers were
+placed in the rear; the distinction between Hastati, Principes, and
+Triarii ceased; the Velites disappeared, their work being done by the
+foreign mercenaries; the cavalry ceased to be part of the legion, and
+became a distinct body; and the military was completely severed from the
+rest of the State. Formerly no one could aspire to office who had not
+completed ten years of military service, but in the time of Cicero a man
+could pass through all the great dignities of the State with a very
+limited experience of military life. Cicero himself did military service
+in but one campaign.
+
+Under the emperors there were still other changes. The regular army
+consisted of legions and supplementa,--the latter being subdivided into
+the imperial guards and the auxiliary troops.
+
+The Auxiliaries (_Socii_) consisted of troops from the States in
+alliance with Rome, or those compelled to furnish subsidies. The
+infantry of the allies was generally more numerous than that of the
+Romans, while the cavalry was three times as numerous. All the
+auxiliaries were paid by the State; their infantry received the same pay
+as the Roman infantry, but their cavalry received only two thirds of
+what was paid to the Roman cavalry. The common foot-soldier received in
+the time of Polybius three and a half asses a day, equal to about three
+cents; the horseman three times as much. The praetorian cohorts received
+twice as much as the legionaries. Julius Caesar allowed about six asses
+a day as the pay of the legionary, and under Augustus the daily pay was
+raised to ten asses,--little more than eight cents per day. Domitian
+raised the stipend still higher. The soldier, however, was fed and
+clothed by the government.
+
+The Praetorian Cohort was a select body of troops instituted by Augustus
+to protect his person, and consisted of ten cohorts, each of one
+thousand men, chosen from Italy. This number was increased by Vitellius
+to sixteen thousand, and they were assembled by Tiberius in a permanent
+camp, which was strongly fortified. They had peculiar privileges, and
+when they had served sixteen years received twenty thousand sesterces,
+or more than one hundred pounds sterling. Each praetorian had the rank
+of a centurion in the regular army. Like the body-guard of Louis XIV.
+they were all gentlemen, and formed gradually a great power, like the
+Janissaries at Constantinople, and frequently disposed of the
+purple itself.
+
+Our notice of the Roman legion would be incomplete without some
+description of the camp in which the soldier virtually lived. A Roman
+army never halted for a single night without forming a regular
+intrenchment capable of holding all the fighting men, the beasts of
+burden, and the baggage. During the winter months, when the army could
+not retire into some city, it was compelled to live in the camp, which
+was arranged and fortified according to a uniform plan, so that every
+company and individual had a place assigned. We cannot tell when this
+practice of intrenchment began; it was matured gradually, like all other
+things pertaining to all arts. The system was probably brought to
+perfection during the wars with Hannibal. Skill in the choice of ground,
+giving facilities for attack and defence, and for procuring water and
+other necessities, was of great account with the generals. An area of
+about five thousand square feet was allowed for a company of infantry,
+and ten thousand feet for a troop of thirty dragoons. The form of a camp
+was an exact square, the length of each side being two thousand and
+seventeen feet; there was a space of two hundred feet between the
+ramparts and the tents to facilitate the marching in and out of
+soldiers, and to guard the cattle and booty; the principal street was
+one hundred feet wide, and was called Principia. The defences of the
+camp consisted of a ditch, the earth from which was thrown inward, and
+of strong palisades of wooden stakes driven into the top of the
+earthwork so formed; the ditch was sometimes fifteen feet deep, and the
+_vallum_, or rampart, ten feet in height. When the army encamped for the
+first time the tribunes administered an oath to each individual,
+including slaves, to the effect that they would steal nothing out of the
+camp. Every morning at daybreak the centurions and the equites presented
+themselves before the tents of the tribunes, and the tribunes in like
+manner presented themselves before the praetorian, to learn the orders
+of the consuls, which through the centurions were communicated to the
+soldiers. Four companies took charge of the principal street, to see
+that it was properly cleaned and watered; one company took charge of the
+tent of the tribune; a strong guard attended to the horses, and another
+of fifty men stood beside the tent of the general, that he might be
+protected from open danger and secret treachery. The _velites_ mounted
+guard the whole night and day along the whole extent of the vallum, and
+each gate was guarded by ten men; the _equites_ were intrusted with the
+duty of acting as sentinels during the night, and most ingenious
+measures were adopted to secure their watchfulness and fidelity. The
+watchword for the night was given by the commander-in-chief. "On the
+first signal being given by the trumpet, the tents were all struck and
+the baggage packed; at the second signal, the baggage was placed upon
+the beasts of burden; and at the third, the whole army began to move.
+Then the herald, standing at the right hand of the general, demands
+thrice if they are ready for war, to which they all respond with loud
+and repeated cheers that they are ready, and for the most part, being
+filled with martial ardor, anticipate the question, 'and raise their
+right hands on high with a shout.'" [3]
+
+[Footnote 3: Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, article "Castra."]
+
+From what has come down to us of Roman military life, it appears to have
+been full of excitement, toil, danger, and hardship. The pecuniary
+rewards of the soldier were small; he was paid in glory. No profession
+brought so much honor as the military; and it was from the undivided
+attention of a great people to this profession, that it was carried to
+all the perfection which could be attained before the great invention of
+gunpowder changed the art of war. It was not the number of men employed
+in the Roman armies which particularly arrests attention, but the genius
+of organization which controlled and the spirit which animated them.
+The Romans loved war, but so reduced it to a science that it required
+comparatively small armies to conquer the world. Sulla defeated
+Mithridates with only thirty thousand men, while his adversary
+marshalled against him over one hundred thousand. Caesar had only ten
+legions to effect the conquest of Gaul, and none of these were of
+Italian origin. At the great decisive battle of Pharsalia, when most of
+the available forces of the empire were employed on one side or the
+other, Pompey commanded a legionary army of forty-five thousand men, and
+his cavalry amounted to seven thousand more, but among them were
+included the flower of the Roman nobility; the auxiliary force has not
+been computed, although it was probably numerous. In the same battle
+Caesar had under him only twenty-two thousand legionaries and one
+thousand cavalry. But every man in both armies was prepared to conquer
+or die. The forces were posted on the open plain, and the battle was
+really a hand-to-hand encounter, in which the soldiers, after hurling
+their lances, fought with their swords chiefly; and when the cavalry of
+Pompey rushed upon the legionaries of Caesar, no blows were wasted on
+the mailed panoply of the mounted Romans, but were aimed at the face
+alone, as that only was unprotected. The battle was decided by the
+coolness, bravery, and discipline of Caesar's veterans, inspired by the
+genius of the greatest general of antiquity. Less than one hundred
+thousand men, in all probability, were engaged in one of the most
+memorable conflicts which the world has seen.
+
+Thus it was by blended art and heroism that the Roman legions prevailed
+over the armies of the ancient world. But this military power was not
+gained in a say; it took nearly two hundred years, after the expulsion
+of the kings, to regain supremacy over the neighboring people, and
+another century to conquer Italy. The Romans did not contend with
+regular armies until they were brought in conflict with the king of
+Epirus and the phalanx of the Greeks, "which improved their military
+tactics, and introduced between the combatants those mutual regards of
+civilized nations which teach men to honor their adversaries, to spare
+the vanquished, and to lay aside wrath when the struggle is ended."
+
+After the consolidation of Roman power in Italy, it took but one hundred
+and fifty years more to complete the conquest of the world,--of Northern
+Africa, Spain, Gaul, Illyria, Epirus, Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor,
+Pontus, Syria, Egypt, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pergamus, and the islands of
+the Mediterranean. The conquest of Carthage left Rome without a rival in
+the Mediterranean, and promoted intercourse with the Greeks. The
+Illyrian wars opened to the Romans the road to Greece and Asia, and
+destroyed the pirates of the Adriatic. The invasion of Cisalpine Gaul,
+now that part of Italy which is north of the Apennines, protected Italy
+from the invasion of barbarians. The Macedonian War against Philip put
+Greece under the protection of Rome, and that against Antiochus laid
+Syria at her mercy; when these kingdoms were reduced to provinces, the
+way was opened to further conquests in the East, and the Mediterranean
+became a Roman lake.
+
+But these conquests introduced luxury, wealth, pride, and avarice, which
+degrade while they elevate. Successful war created great generals, and
+founded great families; increased slavery, and promoted inequalities.
+Meanwhile the great generals struggled for supremacy; civil wars
+followed in the train of foreign conquests; Marius, Sulla, Pompey,
+Caesar, Antony, Augustus, sacrificed the State to their own ambitions.
+Good men lamented and protested, and hid themselves; Cato, Cicero,
+Brutus, spoke in vain. Degenerate morals kept pace with civil contests.
+Rome revelled in the spoils of all kingdoms and countries, was
+intoxicated with power, became cruel and tyrannical, and after
+sacrificing the lives of citizens to fortunate generals, yielded at last
+her liberties, and imperial despotism began its reign. War had added
+empire, but undermined prosperity; it had created a great military
+monarchy, but destroyed liberty; it had brought wealth, but introduced
+inequalities; it had filled the city with spoils, but sown the vices of
+self-interest. The machinery remained perfect, but life had fled. It
+henceforth became the labor of Emperors to keep together their vast
+possessions with this machinery, which at last wore out, since there was
+neither genius to repair it nor patriotism to work it. It lasted three
+hundred years, but was broken to pieces by the barbarians.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Wilkinson is the best authority pertaining to Egyptian armies. The
+highest authority in relation to the construction of an army is
+Polybius, contemporary with Scipio, when Roman discipline was most
+perfect. The eighth chapter of Livy is also very much prized. Salmasius
+and Lepsius wrote learned treatises. Tacitus, Sallust, Livy, Dion
+Cassius, Pliny, and Caesar reveal incidentally much that we wish to
+know, the last giving us the liveliest idea of the military habits and
+tactics of the Romans. Gibbon gives some important facts. The subject of
+ancient machines is treated by Folard's Commentary attached to his
+translation of Polybius. Josephus describes with great vividness the
+siege of Jerusalem. Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities is full of details
+in everything pertaining to the weapons, the armor, the military
+engines, the rewards and punishments of the soldiers. The articles
+"Exercitus," in Smith's Dictionary, and "Army," in the Encyclopedia
+Britannica, give a practical summary of the best writers.
+
+
+
+
+CICERO.
+
+
+106-43 B.C.
+
+ROMAN LITERATURE.
+
+
+Marcus Tullius Cicero is one of the great lights of history, because his
+genius and influence were directed to the conservation of what was most
+precious in civilization among the cultivated nations of antiquity.
+
+He was not a warrior, like so many of the Roman Senators, but his
+excellence was higher than that of a conqueror. "He was doomed, by his
+literary genius, to an immortality," and was confessedly the most
+prominent figure in the political history of his time, next to Caesar
+and Pompey. His influence was greater than his power, reaching down to
+our time; and if his character had faults, let us remember that he was
+stained by no crimes and vices, in an age of violence and wickedness.
+Until lately he has received almost unmixed praise. The Fathers of the
+Church revered him. To Erasmus, as well as to Jerome and Augustine, he
+was an oracle.
+
+In presenting this immortal benefactor, I have no novelties to show.
+Novelties are for those who seek to upturn the verdicts of past ages by
+offering something new, rather than what is true.
+
+Cicero was born B.C. 106, in the little suburban town of Arpinum, about
+fifty miles from Rome,--the town which produced Marius. The period of
+his birth was one of marked national prosperity. Great military roads
+were built, which were a marvel of engineering skill; canals were dug;
+sails whitened the sea; commerce was prosperous; the arts of Greece were
+introduced, and its literature also; elegant villas lined the shores of
+the Mediterranean; pictures and statues were indefinitely
+multiplied,--everything indicated an increase of wealth and culture.
+With these triumphs of art and science and literature, we are compelled
+to notice likewise a decline in morals. Money had become the god which
+everybody worshipped. Religious life faded away; there was a general
+eclipse of faith. An Epicurean life produced an Epicurean philosophy.
+Pleasure-seeking was universal, and even revolting in the sports of the
+Amphitheatre. Sensualism became the convertible word for utilities. The
+Romans were thus rapidly "advancing" to a materialistic millennium,--an
+outward progress of wealth and industries, but an inward decline in
+"those virtues on which the strength of man is based," accompanied with
+seditions among the people, luxury and pride among the nobles, and
+usurpations on the part of successful generals,--when Cicero began his
+memorable career.
+
+He was well-born, but not of noble ancestors. The great peculiarity of
+his youth was his precocity. He was an intellectual prodigy,--like Pitt,
+Macaulay, and Mill. Like them, he had a wonderful memory. He early
+mastered the Greek language; he wrote poetry, studied under eminent
+professors, frequented the Forum, listened to the speeches of different
+orators, watched the posture and gestures of actors, and plunged into
+the mazes of literature and philosophy. He was conscious of his
+marvellous gifts, and was, of course, ambitious of distinction.
+
+There were only three ways at Rome in which a man could rise to eminence
+and power. One was by making money, like army contractors and merchants,
+such as the Equites, to whose ranks he belonged; the second was by
+military service; and the third by the law,--an honorable profession.
+Like Caesar, a few years younger than he, Cicero selected the law. But
+he was a _new man_,--not a patrician, as Caesar was,--and had few
+powerful friends. Hence his progress was not rapid in the way of
+clients. He was twenty-five years of age before he had a case. He was
+twenty-seven when he defended Roscius, which seems to have brought him
+into notice,--even as the fortune of Erskine was made in the Greenwich
+Hospital case and that of Daniel Webster in the case of Dartmouth
+College. To have defended Roscius against all the influence of Sulla,
+then the most powerful man in Rome, was considered bold and audacious.
+His fame for great logical power rests on his defence of Milo,--the
+admiration of all lawyers.
+
+Cicero was not naturally robust. His figure was tall and spare, his neck
+long and slender, and his mouth anything but sensual. He looked more
+like an elegant scholar than a popular public speaker. Yet he was
+impetuous, ardent, and fiery, like Demosthenes, resorting to violent
+gesticulations. The health of such a young man could not stand the
+strain on his nervous system, and he was obliged to leave Rome for
+recreation; he therefore made the tour of Greece and Asia Minor, which
+every fashionable and cultivated man was supposed to do. Yet he did not
+abandon himself to the pleasures of cities more fascinating than Rome
+itself, but pursued his studies in rhetoric and philosophy under eminent
+masters, or "professors" as we should now call them. He remained abroad
+two years, returning when he was thirty years of age and settling down
+in his profession, taking at first but little part in politics. He
+married Terentia, with whom he lived happily for thirty years.
+
+But the Roman lawyer was essentially a politician, looking ultimately to
+political office, since only through the great public offices could he
+enter the Senate,--the object of ambition to all distinguished Romans,
+as a seat in Parliament is the goal of an Englishman. The Roman lawyer
+did not receive fees, like modern lawyers, but derived his support from
+presents and legacies. When he became a political leader, a man of
+influence with the great, his presents were enormous. Cicero
+acknowledged, late in life, to have received what would now be equal to
+more than a million of dollars from legacies alone. The great political
+leaders and orators were the stipendiaries of Eastern princes and nobles
+who wanted favors from the Senate, and who knew as well how to reward
+such services as do the railway kings in our times.
+
+Before Cicero, then, could be a Senator, he must pass through those
+great public offices which were in the gift of the people. The first
+step on the ladder of advancement was the office of quaestor, which
+entailed the duty of collecting revenues in one of the provinces. This
+office he was sufficiently influential to secure, being sent to Sicily,
+where he distinguished himself for his activity and integrity. At the
+end of a year he renewed his practice in the courts at Rome,--being
+hardly anything more than a mere lawyer for five years, when he was
+elected an Aedile, to whom the care of the public buildings was
+intrusted.
+
+It was while he was aedile-elect that Cicero appeared as the public
+prosecutor of Verres. This was one of the great cases of antiquity, and
+the one from which the orator's public career fairly dates. His
+residence in Sicily had prepared him for this duty; and he secured the
+conviction of this great criminal, whose peculations and corruptions
+would amaze our modern New Yorkers and all the "rings" of our great
+cities combined. But the Praetor of Sicily was a provincial
+governor,--more like Warren Hastings than Tweed. For this public service
+Cicero gained more _éclat_ than Burke did for his prosecution of
+Hastings; since Hastings, though a corrupt man, laid, after Clive, the
+foundation of the English empire in India, and was a man of immense
+talents,--greater than those of any who has since filled his place.
+Hence the nation screened Hastings. But Verres had no virtues and no
+great abilities; he was an outrageous public robber, and hoped, from his
+wealth and powerful connections, to purchase immunity for his crimes. In
+the hands of such an orator as Cicero he could not escape the penalty of
+the law, powerful as he was, even at Rome. This case placed Cicero above
+Hortensius, hitherto the leader of the Roman bar.
+
+It was at this period that the extant correspondence of Cicero began,
+which is the best picture we have of the manners and habits of the Roman
+aristocracy at the time. History could scarcely spare those famous
+letters, especially to Atticus, in which also the private life and
+character of Cicero shine to the most advantage, revealing no vices, no
+treacheries,--only egotism, vanity, and vacillation, and a way that some
+have of speaking about people in private very differently from what they
+say in public, which looks like insincerity. In these letters Cicero
+appears as a very frank man, genial, hospitable, domestic, witty, whose
+society and conversation must have been delightful. In no modern
+correspondence do we see a higher perfection in the polished courtesies
+and urbanities of social life, with the alloy of vanity, irony, and
+discontent. But in these letters he also evinces a friendship which is
+immortal; and what is nobler than the capacity of friendship? In these
+he not only shines as a cultivated scholar, but as a great statesman and
+patriot, living for the good of his country, though not unmindful of the
+luxuries of home and the charms of country retirement, and those
+enjoyments which are ever associated with refined and favored life. We
+read here of pictures, books, medals, statues, curiosities of every
+kind, all of which adorned his various villas, as well as his
+magnificent palace on Mount Palatine, which cost him what would be equal
+in our money to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. To keep up this
+town house, and some fifteen villas in different parts of Italy, and to
+feast the greatest nobles, like Pompey and Caesar, would imply that his
+income was enormous, much greater than that of any modern professional
+man. And yet he seems to have lived, like Bacon and our Webster, beyond
+his income, and was in debt the greater part of his life,--another flaw
+in his character; for I do not wish to paint him without faults, but
+only as a good as well as a great man, for his times. His private
+character was as lofty as that of Chatham or Canning,--if we could
+forget his vanity, which after all is not so offensive as the
+intellectual pride of Burke and Pitt, and of sundry other great lights
+who might be mentioned, conscious of their gifts and attainments. There
+is something very different in the egotism of a silly and self-seeking
+aristocrat from that of a great benefactor who has something to be proud
+of, and with whose private experiences the greatest national deeds are
+connected. I speak of this fault because it has been handled too
+severely by modern critics. What were the faults of Cicero, compared
+with those of Theodosius or Constantine, to say nothing of his
+contemporaries, like Caesar, before whom so much incense has
+been burned?
+
+At the age of forty Cicero became Praetor, or Supreme Judge. This
+office, when it expired, entitled him to a provincial government,--the
+great ultimate ambition of a senator; since the administration of a
+province, even for a single year, usually secured an enormous fortune.
+But this tempting offer he resigned, since he felt he could not be
+spared from Rome in such a crisis of public affairs, when the fortunate
+generals were grasping power and the demagogues were almost preparing
+the way for despotism. Some might say he was a far-sighted and ambitious
+statesman, who could not afford to weaken his chances of being made
+Consul by absence from the capital.
+
+This great office, the consulship, the highest in the gift of the
+people,--which gave supreme executive control,--was rarely conferred,
+although elective, upon any but senators of ancient family and enormous
+wealth. It was as difficult for a "new man" to reach this dignity, under
+an aristocratic Constitution, as for a commoner a hundred years ago to
+become prime minister of England. Transcendent talents and services
+scarcely sufficed. Only generals who had won great military fame, or the
+highest of the nobles, stood much chance. For a lawyer to aim at the
+highest office in the State, without a great family to back him, would
+have been deemed as audacious as for such a man as Burke to aspire to a
+seat in the cabinet during the reign of George III. A lawyer at Rome,
+like a lawyer in London, might become a lord chancellor or praetor, but
+not easily a prime minister: he would be defeated by aristocratic
+influence and jealousies. Although the people had the right of election,
+they voted at the dictation of those who had money and power. Yet Cicero
+obtained the consulship, probably with the aid of senators, which he
+justly regarded as a great triumph. It was a very unusual thing. It was
+more marvellous than for a Jew to reign in Great Britain, or, like
+Mordecai, in the court of a Persian king.
+
+The most distinguished service of Cicero as consul was to ferret out the
+conspiracy of Catiline. Now, this traitor belonged to the very highest
+rank in a Senate of nobles; he was like an ancient duke in the British
+House of Peers. It was no easy thing for a plebeian consul to bring to
+justice so great a culprit. He was more formidable than Essex in the
+reign of Elizabeth, or Bassompierre in the time of Richelieu. He was a
+man of profligate life, but of marked ability and boundless ambition. He
+had a band of numerous and faithful followers, armed and desperate. He
+was also one of those oily and aristocratic demagogues who bewitch the
+people,--not, as in our times, by sophistries, but by flatteries. He was
+as debauched as Mirabeau, but without his patriotism, though like him he
+aimed to overturn the Constitution by allying himself with the
+democracy. The people, whom he despised, he gained by his money and
+promises; and he had powerful confederates of his own rank, so that he
+was on the point of deluging Rome with blood, his aim being nothing less
+than the extermination of the Senate and the magistrates by
+assassination, and a general division of the public treasure, with
+personal assumption of public power.
+
+But all his schemes were foiled by Cicero, who added unwearied activity
+to extraordinary penetration. For this great and signal service Cicero
+received the highest tribute the State could render. He was called the
+savior of his country; and he succeeded in staving off for a time the
+fall of his country's liberties. It was a mournful sight to him to see
+the ascendency which demagogues had already gained, since it betokened
+the approaching destruction of the Constitution, which, good or bad, was
+dear to him, and which as an aristocrat he sought to conserve.
+
+Cicero's evil star was not Catiline, but Clodius,--another aristocratic
+demagogue whose crimes he exposed, although he failed to bring him to
+justice. Clodius was shielded by his powerful connections; and he was,
+besides, a popular favorite, as well as a petted scion of one of the
+greatest families. Clodius showed his hostility to Cicero, and sought
+revenge by artfully causing the people to pass or revive a law that
+whoever had inflicted capital punishment on a citizen without a trial
+should be banished. This seemed to the people to be a protection to
+their liberties. Now Cicero, when consul, had executed some of the
+conspirators associated with Catiline, for which he was called the
+savior of his country. But by the law which was now passed or revived by
+the influence of Clodius, Cicero was himself a culprit, and it would
+seem that all the influence of the Senate and his friends could not
+prevent his exile. He appealed to his friend Pompey, but Pompey turned a
+deaf ear; and also to Caesar, but Caesar was then outside the walls of
+the city in command of an army. In fact, both these generals wished him
+out of the way, although they equally admired and feared him; for each
+of them was bent on being the supreme ruler of Rome.
+
+So it was permitted for the most illustrious patriot which Rome then
+held to go into exile. What a comment on the demoralization of the
+times! Here was the best, the most gifted, and the most accomplished man
+of the Republic,--a man who had rendered invaluable and acknowledged
+services, that man of consular dignity and one of the leaders of the
+Senate,--sent into inglorious banishment, on a mere technicality and for
+an act which saved the State. And the "magnanimous" Caesar and the
+"illustrious" Pompey allowed him to go! Where was salvation to a
+Republic which banished its savior, and for having saved it? The heart
+sickens over such a fact, although it occurred two thousand years ago.
+When the citizens of Rome saw that great man depart mournfully from
+among them, and to all appearance forever, for having rescued them from
+violence and slaughter, and by their own act,--they ought to have known
+that the days of the Republic were numbered. But this only a few
+far-seeing patriots felt. And not only was Cicero banished, but his
+palace was burned and his villas confiscated. He was not only disgraced,
+but ruined; he was an exile and a pauper. What a fall! What an unmerited
+treatment!
+
+Very few people conceive what a dreadful punishment it was in Greece and
+Rome to be banished; or, as the formula went, "to be interdicted from
+fire and water,"--the sacred fire of the hearth, the lustral water which
+served for sacrifices. The exile was deprived of these by being forced
+to extinguish the hearth-fire,--the elemental, fundamental religion of a
+Greek and Roman. "He could not, deprived of this, hold property; having
+no longer a worship, he had no longer a family. He ceased to be a
+husband and father; his sons were no longer in his power, his wife was
+no longer his wife, and when he died he had not the right to be buried
+in the tombs of his ancestors." [4]
+
+[Footnote 4: Coulanges: Ancient City.]
+
+Is it to be wondered at that even so good and great a man as Cicero
+should bitterly feel his disgrace and misfortunes? Is it surprising
+that, philosopher as he was, he should have given way to grief and
+despondency. He would have been more than human not to have lost his
+spirits and his hopes. How natural were grief and despair, in such
+complicated miseries, especially to a religious man! Chrysostom could
+support _his_ exile with dignity; for Christianity had abolished the
+superstitions of Greece and Rome as to household gods. Cicero could not:
+he was not great enough for such a martyrdom. It is true we should have
+esteemed him higher, had he accepted his fate with resignation: no man
+should yield to despair. Had he been as old as Socrates, and had he
+accomplished his mission, possibly he would have shown more equanimity.
+But his work was not yet done. He was cut off in his prime and in the
+midst of usefulness from his home, his religion, his family, his honor,
+and his influence; he was utterly ruined. I think the critics make too
+much of the grief and misery of Cicero in his banishment. We may be
+disappointed that Cicero was not equal to his circumstances; but we need
+not be hard on him. My surprise is, not that he was overwhelmed with
+grief, but that he did not attempt to drown his grief in books and
+literature. His sole relief was in pathetic and unmanly letters.
+
+The great injustice of this punishment naturally produced a reaction.
+Nor could the Romans afford to lose the services of their greatest
+orator. They also craved the excitement of his speeches, more thrilling
+and delightful than the performance of any actor. So he was recalled.
+Cicero ought to have anticipated this; it seems, however, he had that
+unfortunate temperament which favors alternate depression and
+exhilaration of spirits, without measure or reason.
+
+His return was a triumph,--a grand ovation, an unbounded tribute to his
+vanity. His palace was rebuilt at the expense of the State, and his
+property was restored. His popularity was regained. In fact, his
+influence was never lost; and, because it was so great, his enemies
+wished him out of the way. He was one of the few who retain influence
+after they have lost power.
+
+The excess of his joy on his restoration to home and friends and
+property and fame and position, was as great as the excess of his grief
+in his short exile. But this is a defect in temperament, in his mental
+constitution, rather than a flaw in his character. We could have wished
+more placidity and equanimity; but to condemn him because he was not
+great in everything is unjust.
+
+On his return to Rome Cicero resumed his practice in the courts with
+greater devotion than ever. He was now past fifty years of age, in the
+prime of his strength and in the height of his forensic fame. But,
+notwithstanding his success and honors, his life was saddened by the
+growing dissensions between Caesar and Pompey, the decline of public
+spirit, and the approaching fall of the institutions in which he
+gloried. It was clear that one or the other of these fortunate generals
+would soon become the master of the Roman world, and that liberty was
+about to perish. His eloquence now became sad; he sings the death-song
+of departing glories; he wails his Jeremiads over the demoralization
+which was sweeping away not merely liberty, but religion, and
+extinguishing faith in the world. To console himself he retired to one
+of his beautiful villas and wrote that immortal essay, "De Oratore,"
+which has come down to us entire. His literary genius now blazed equally
+with his public speeches in the Forum and in the Senate. Literature was
+his solace and amusement, not a source of profit, or probably of
+contemporary fame. He wrote treatises on the same principles that he
+talked with friends, or that Fra Angelico painted pictures. He renewed
+his attempts in poetry, but failed. His poetry is in the transcendent
+rhythm of his prose compositions, like that of Madame de Staël, and
+Macaulay, and Rousseau.
+
+But he was dragged from his literary and forensic life to accept the
+office of a governor of a province. It was forced upon him,--an honor to
+him without a charm. Had he been venal and unscrupulous, he would have
+seized it with avidity. He was too conscientious to enrich himself by
+public corruption, as other Senators did, and unless he could accumulate
+a fortune the command of a distant province was an honorable exile. He
+was fifty-six years of age when he became Proconsul of Cilicia, an
+Eastern province; and all historians have united in praising his
+proconsulate for its justice, its integrity, and its ability. He
+committed no extortions, and returned home, when his term of office
+expired, as poor as when he went. One of the highest praises which can
+be given to a public man who has chances of enriching himself is, that
+he remains poor. When a member of Congress, known not to be worth ten
+thousand dollars, returns to his home worth one hundred thousand
+dollars, the public have an instinct that he has, somehow or other, been
+untrue to himself and his country. When a great man returns home from
+Washington poorer than when he went, his influence is apt to survive his
+power; and this perpetuated influence is the highest glory of a public
+man,--the glory of Jefferson, of Hamilton, of Washington, like the voice
+of Gladstone during his retirement. Now Cicero had pre-eminently this
+influence as long as he lived; and it was ever exerted for the good of
+his country. Had his country been free, he would have died in honor. But
+his country was enslaved, and his voice was drowned, and he had to pay
+the penalty of speaking the truth about those unscrupulous men who
+usurped authority.
+
+On his return to Rome the state of public affairs was most alarming.
+Caesar and Pompey were in antagonism. He must choose between them, and
+he distrusted both. Caesar was the more able, accomplished, and
+magnanimous, but he was the more unscrupulous and dangerous. He had
+ventured to cross the Rubicon,--the first general who ever dared thus
+openly to assail his country's liberties. Pompey was pompous, overrated,
+and proud, and had been fortunate in the East. But then he sided with
+the Constitutional authorities,--that is, with the Senate,--so far as
+his ambition allowed. So Cicero took his side feebly, reluctantly, as
+the least of the evils he had to choose, but not without vacillation,
+which is one of the popular charges against him. "His distraction almost
+took the form of insanity." "His inconsistency was an incoherence."
+Never did a more wretched man than Cicero resort to Pompey's camp, where
+he remained until his cause was lost. He returned, after the battle of
+Pharsalia, a suppliant at the feet of Caesar, the conqueror. This, to
+me, is one of his weakest acts. It would have been more lofty and heroic
+to have perished in the camp of Pompey's sons.
+
+In the midst of these public misfortunes which saddened his soul, his
+private miseries began. He was now prematurely an old man, under sixty
+years of age, almost broken down with grief. His beloved daughter
+Tullia, with whom his life was bound up, died; and he was divorced from
+his wife Terentia,--a proceeding the cause of which remains a mystery.
+Neither in his most confidential letters, nor in his conversations with
+most intimate friends, does it appear that he ever unbosomed himself,
+although he was the frankest and most social of men. In his impressive
+silence he has set one of the noblest examples of a man afflicted with
+domestic infelicities. He buries his conjugal troubles in eternal
+silence; although he is forced to give vent to sorrows, so plaintive and
+bitter that both friend and foe were constrained to pity. He expects no
+sympathy, even at Rome, for the sundering of conjugal relations, and he
+communicates no secrets. In his grief and sadness he does, however, a
+most foolish thing: he marries a young lady one-third his age. She
+accepted him for his name and rank; he sought her for her beauty, her
+youth, and her fortune. This union of May with December was of course a
+failure. Both parties were soon disenchanted and disappointed. Neither
+party found happiness, only discontent and chagrin. The everlasting
+incongruities of such a relation--he sixty and she nineteen--soon led to
+another divorce. _He_ expected his young wife to mourn with him the loss
+of his daughter Tullia. _She_ expected that her society and charms
+would be a compensation for all that he had lost; yea, more, enough to
+make him the most fortunate and happy of mortals. In truth, he was too
+old a man to have married a young woman whatever were the inducements.
+It was the great folly of his life; an illustration of the fact that, as
+a general thing, the older a man grows the greater fool he becomes, so
+far as women are concerned; a folly that disgraced and humiliated the
+two wisest and greatest men who ever sat on the Jewish throne.
+
+In his accumulated sorrows Cicero now plunged for relief into literary
+labors. It was thus that his private sorrows were the means which
+Providence employed to transmit his precious thoughts and experiences to
+future ages, as the most valued inheritance he could bestow on
+posterity. What a precious legacy to the mind of the world was the book
+of "Ecclesiastes," yet by what bitter experiences was its wisdom earned!
+
+It was in the short period when Caesar rejoiced in the mighty power
+which he transmitted to the Roman Emperors that Cicero wrote, in
+comparative retirement, his history of "Roman Eloquence," his inquiry as
+to the "Greatest Good and Evil," his "Cato," his "Orator," his "Nature
+of the Gods," and his treatises on "Glory," on "Fate," on "Friendship,"
+on "Old Age," and his grandest work of all, the "Offices."--the best
+manual in ethics which has come down to us from heathen antiquity. In
+his studious retirement he reminds us of Bacon after his fall, when on
+his estate, surrounded with friends, and in the enjoyment of elegant
+leisure, he penned the most valued of his immortal compositions. And in
+those degenerate days at Rome, when liberty was crushed under foot
+forever, it is beautiful to see the greatest of Roman statesmen and
+lawyers consoling himself and instructing posterity by his exhaustive
+treatises on the fundamental principles of law, of morality, and of
+philosophy.
+
+The assassination of Caesar by Roman senators, which Cicero seems to
+have foreseen, and in which he rejoiced, at this time shocked and
+disturbed the world. For nearly two thousand years the verdict of the
+civilized world respecting this great conqueror has been unanimous. But
+Mr. Froude has attempted to reverse this verdict, as he has in reference
+to Henry VIII., and as Carlyle--another idolater of force--has attempted
+in the cases of Oliver Cromwell and Frederick II. This remarkable
+word-painter, in his Life of Caesar,--which is, however, interesting
+from first to last, as everything he writes is interesting,--has
+presented him as an object of unbounded admiration, as I have already
+noticed in my lecture on Caesar. Whether in his eagerness to say
+something new, or from an ill-concealed hostility to aristocratic and
+religious institutions, or from an admiration of imperialism, or disdain
+of the people in their efforts at self-government, this able special
+pleader seems to hail the Roman conqueror as a benefactor to the cause
+of civilization. But imperialism crushed all alike,--the people, no
+longer able to send their best men to the Senate through the higher
+offices perchance to represent their interests, and the nobles, shorn of
+the administration of the Empire. Soldiers, not civilians, henceforth
+were to rule the world,--a dreary thought to a great lawyer like Cicero,
+or a landed proprietor like Brutus. Even if such a terrible revolution
+as occurred in Rome under Caesar may have been ordered wisely by a
+Superintending Power for those degenerate times, and as a preservation
+of the peace of the world, that Christianity might take root and spread
+in countries where all religions were dead,--still, the prostration of
+what was dearest to the hearts of all true citizens by the sword was a
+crime; and men are not to be commended for crime, even if those crimes
+may be palliated. "It must need be that offences come, but woe to those
+by whom they come."
+
+Cicero was now sixty-three, prematurely old, discouraged, and
+heart-broken. And yet he braced himself up for one more grand
+effort,--for a life and death struggle with Antony, one of the ablest
+of Caesar's generals; a demagogue, eloquent and popular, but
+outrageously cruel and unscrupulous, and with unbridled passions. Had it
+not been for his infatuated love of Cleopatra, he probably would have
+succeeded to the imperial sceptre, for it was by the sword that he too
+sought to suppress the liberties of the Senate and people. Against him,
+as the enemy of his country, Cicero did not scruple to launch forth the
+most terrible of his invectives. In thirteen immortal philippics--some
+of which, however, were merely written and never delivered, after the
+fashion of Demosthenes, with whom as an orator and a patriot he can
+alone be compared--he denounced the unprincipled demagogue and general
+with every offensive epithet the language afforded,--unveiling his
+designs, exposing his forgeries, and proving his crimes. Nobler
+eloquence was never uttered, and wasted, than that with which Cicero
+pursued, in passionate vengeance, the most powerful and the most
+unscrupulous man in the Roman Empire. And Cicero must have anticipated
+the fate which impended over him if Antony were not decreed a public
+enemy. But the protests of the orator were in vain. He lived to utter
+them, as a witness of truth; and nothing was left to him but to die.
+
+Of course Antony, when he became Triumvir,--when he made a bargain that
+he never meant to keep with Octavius and Lepidus for a division of the
+Empire between them,--would not spare such an enemy as Cicero. The
+broken-hearted patriot fled mechanically, with a vacillating mind, when
+his proscription became known to him,--now more ready to die than live,
+since all hope in his country's liberties was utterly crushed. Perhaps
+he might have escaped to some remote corner of the Empire. But he did
+not wish for life, any more than did Socrates when summoned before his
+judges. Desponding, uncertain, pursued, he met his fate with the heroism
+of an ancient philosopher. He surrendered his wearied and exhausted body
+to the hand of the executioner, and his lofty soul to the keeping of
+that personal and supreme God in whom he believed as firmly as any man,
+perhaps, of Pagan antiquity. And surely of him, more than of any other
+Roman, could it be said,--as Sir Walter Scott said of Pitt, and as
+Gladstone quoted, and applied to Sir Robert Peel,--
+
+     "Now is the stately column broke,
+     The _beacon light_ is quenched in smoke;
+     The trumpet's silver voice is still,
+     The warder silent on the hill."
+
+With the death--so sad--of the most illustrious of the Romans whose fame
+was not earned on the battlefield, I should perhaps close my lecture.
+Yet it would be incomplete without a short notice of those services
+which--as statesman, orator, and essayist--he rendered to his country
+and to future ages and nations.
+
+In regard to his services as a statesman, they were rendered chiefly to
+his day and generation, for he elaborated no system of political wisdom
+like Burke, which bears (except casually and indirectly) on modern
+governments and institutions. It was his aim, as a statesman, to
+continue the Roman Constitution and keep the people from civil war. Nor
+does he seem to have held, like Rousseau, the _vox populi_ as the voice
+of God. He could find no language sufficiently strong to express his
+abhorrence of those who led the people for their own individual
+advancement. He was equally severe on corrupt governors and venal
+judges. He upheld morality and justice as the only guides in public
+affairs. He loved popularity, but he loved his country better. He hated
+anarchy as much as did Burke. Like Bright, he looked upon civil war as
+the greatest of national calamities. He advocated the most enlightened
+views, based on the principles of immutable justice. He wished to
+preserve his country equally from unscrupulous generals and unprincipled
+politicians.
+
+As for his orations, they also were chiefly designed for his own
+contemporaries. They are not particularly valuable to us, except as
+models of rhetorical composition and transcendent beauty and grace of
+style. They are not so luminous with fundamental principles as they are
+vivid with invective, sarcasm, wit, and telling exaggeration,--sometimes
+persuasive and working on the sensibilities, and at other times full of
+withering scorn. They are more like the pleadings of an advocate than an
+appeal to universal reason. He lays down no laws of political
+philosophy, nor does he soar into the region of abstract truth, evolving
+great deductions in morals. But as an orator he was transcendently
+effective, like Demosthenes, though not equal to the Greek in force. His
+sentences are perhaps too involved for our taste; yet he always swayed
+an audience, whether the people from the rostrum, or the judges at the
+bar, or the senators in the Curia. He seldom lost a case; no one could
+contend with him successfully. He called out the admiration of critics,
+and even of actors. He had a wonderful electrical influence; his very
+tones and gestures carried everything before him; his action was superb;
+and his whole frame quivered from real (or affected) emotion, like
+Edward Everett in his happiest efforts. He was vehement in gesture, like
+Brougham and Mirabeau. He was intensely earnest and impressive, like
+Savonarola. He had exceeding tact, and was master of the passions of his
+audience. There was an irresistible music in his tones of voice, like
+that of St. Bernard when he fanned crusades. He was withering in his
+denunciations, like Wendell Phillips, whom in person he somewhat
+resembled. He was a fascination like Pericles, and the people could not
+long spare him from the excitement he produced. It was their desire to
+hear him speak which had no small share in producing his recall from
+banishment. They crowded around him as the people did around Chrysostom
+in Antioch. He amused like an actor, and instructed like a sage. His
+sentences are not short, terse, epigrammatic, and direct, but elaborate
+and artificial. Yet with all his arts of eloquence his soul, fired with
+great sentiments, rose in its inspired fervor above even the melody of
+voice, the rhythm of language, and the vehemence of action. A listener,
+who was not a critic, might fancy it was gesture, voice, and language
+combined; but, after all, it was the _man_ communicating his soul to
+those who hung upon his lips, and securing conviction by his sincerity
+and appeals to conscience. He must have had a natural gift for oratory,
+aside from his learning and accomplishments and rhetorical arts,--a
+talent very rare and approaching to creative genius. But to his natural
+gifts--like Luther, or Henry Clay, born an orator--he added marvellous
+attainments. He had a most retentive memory. He was versed in the whole
+history of the world. He was always ready with apt illustrations, which
+gave interest and finish to his discourses. He was the most industrious
+and studious man of his age. His attainments were prodigious. He was
+master of all the knowledge then known, like Gladstone of our day. He
+was not so learned a man as Varro; but Varro's works have perished, as
+the great monuments of German scholars are perhaps destined to perish,
+for lack of style. Cicero's style embalmed his thoughts and made them
+imperishable. No writer is immortal who is not an artist; Cicero was a
+consummate artist, and studied the arrangement of sentences, like the
+historian Tacitus and the Grecian Thucydides.
+
+But greater than as an artist was he in the loftiness of his mind. He
+appealed to what is noblest in the soul. Transcendent eloquence ever
+"raises mortals to the skies" and never "pulls angels down." Love of
+country, love of home, love of friends, love of nature, love of law,
+love of God, is brought out in all his discourses, exalting the noblest
+sentiments which move the human soul. He was the first to give to the
+Latin language beauty and artistic finish. He added to its richness,
+copiousness, and strength; he gave it music. For style alone he would be
+valued as one of the immortal classics. All men of culture have admired
+it, from Augustine to Bossuet, and acknowledged their obligations to
+him. We accord to the great poets the formation of languages,--Homer,
+Dante, Chaucer, Shakspeare; but I doubt if either Virgil or Horace
+contributed to the formation of the Latin language more than Cicero.
+Certainly they have not been more studied and admired. In every
+succeeding age the Orations of Cicero have been one of the first books
+which have been used as textbooks in colleges. Is it not something to
+have been one of the acknowledged masters of human composition? What a
+great service did Cicero render to the education of the Teutonic races!
+Whatever the Latin language has done for the modern world, Cicero comes
+in for a large share of the glory. More is preserved of his writings
+than of any other writer of antiquity.
+
+But not for style alone--seen equally in his essays and in his
+orations--is he admirable. His most enduring claim on the gratitude of
+the world is the noble tribute he rendered to those truths which save
+the world. His testimony, considering he was a pagan, is remarkable in
+reference to what is sound in philosophy and morals. His learning, too,
+is seen to most advantage in his ethical and philosophical writings. It
+is true he did not originate, like Socrates and Plato; but he condensed
+and sifted the writings of the Greeks, and is the best expounder of
+their philosophy. Who has added substantially to what the Greeks worked
+out of their creative brain? I know that no Roman ever added to the
+domain of speculative thought, yet what Roman ever showed such a
+comprehension and appreciation of Greek philosophy as did Cicero? He was
+profoundly versed in all the learning the Grecians ever taught. Like
+Socrates, he had a contempt for physical science, because science in his
+day was based on imperfect inductions. There were not facts enough known
+of the material world to construct sound theories. Physical science at
+that time was the most uncertain of all knowledge, although there were
+great pretenders then, as now, who maintained it was the only certainty.
+But the speculations of scientists disgusted him, for he saw nothing in
+them upon which to base incontrovertible truth. They were mere dreams
+and baseless theories on the origin of the universe. They were even
+puerile; and they were then, as now, atheistic in their tendency. They
+mocked the consciousness of mankind. They annihilated faith and
+Providence. At best, they made all things subject to necessity, to an
+immutable fate, not to an intelligent and ever-present Creator. But
+Cicero, like Socrates, believed in God and in providential
+interference,--in striking contrast with Caesar, who believed nothing.
+He taught moral obligation, on the basis of accountability to God. He
+repudiated expediency as the guide in life, and fell back on the
+principles of eternal right. As an ethical writer he was profounder and
+more enlightened than Paley. He did not seek to overturn the popular
+religion, like Grecian Sophists, only (like Socrates) to overturn
+ignorance, before a sound foundation could be laid for any system of
+truth. Nor did he ridicule religion, as Lucian did in after-times, but
+soared to comprehend it, like the esoteric priests of Egypt in the time
+of Moses or Pythagoras. He cherished as lofty views of God and his moral
+government as any moralist of antiquity. And all these lofty views he
+taught in matchless language,--principles of government, principles of
+law, of ethics, of theology, giving consolation not only to the men of
+his day, but to Christian sages in after-times. And there is nothing
+puerile or dreamy or demoralizing in his teachings; they all are
+luminous for learning as well as genius. He rivalled Bacon in the
+variety and profundity of his attainments. He gloried in the certitudes
+which consciousness reveals, as well as in the facts which experience
+and history demonstrate. With these he consoled himself in trouble; on
+these he reposed in the hour of danger. Like Pascal he meditated on the
+highest truths which task the intellect of man, but, unlike him, did not
+disdain those weapons which _reason_ forged, and which no one used more
+triumphantly than Pascal himself. And these great meditations he
+transmitted for all ages to ponder, as among the most precious of the
+legacies of antiquity.
+
+Thus did he live, a shining light in a corrupt and godless age, in spite
+of all the faults which modern critics have enlarged upon in their
+ambitious desire for novelties, or in their thoughtless or malignant
+desire? to show up human frailties. He was a patriot, taking the side of
+his country's highest interests; a statesman, seeking to conserve the
+wisdom of his ancestors; an orator, exposing vices and defending the
+innocent; a philosopher, unfolding the wisdom of the Greeks; a moralist,
+laying down the principles of immutable justice; a sage, pondering the
+mysteries of life; ever active, studious, dignified; the charm and
+fascination of cultivated circles; as courteous and polished as the
+ornaments of modern society; revered by friends, feared by enemies,
+adored by all good people; a kind father, an indulgent husband, a
+generous friend; hospitable, witty, magnificent,--a most accomplished
+gentleman, one of the best men of all antiquity. What if he was vain and
+egotistical and vacillating, and occasionally weak? Can you expect
+perfection in him who "is born of a woman"? We palliate the backslidings
+of Christians; we excuse the crimes of a Constantine, a Theodosius, a
+Cromwell: shall we have no toleration for the frailties of a Pagan, in
+one of the worst periods of history? I have no patience with those
+critics who would hurl him from the pedestal on which he has stood for
+two thousand years. Contrast him with other illustrious men. How few
+Romans or Greeks were better than he! How few have rendered such exalted
+services! And even if he has not perpetuated a faultless character, he
+has yet bequeathed a noble example; and, more, has transmitted a legacy
+in the richness of which we forget the faults of the testator,--a legacy
+of imperishable thought, clothed in the language of imperishable art,--a
+legacy so valuable that it is the treasured inheritance of all civilized
+nations, and one which no nation can afford to lose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Plutarch's Life of Cicero, Appian, Dion Cassius, Villeius Paterculus,
+are the original authorities,--next to the writings of Cicero himself,
+especially his Letters and Orations. Middleton's Life is full, but
+one-sided. Forsyth takes the opposite side in his Life. The last work in
+English is that of Anthony Trollope. In Smith's Biographical Dictionary
+is an able article. Dr. Vaughan has written an interesting lecture.
+Merivale has elaborately treated this great man in his valuable History
+of the Romans. Colley Cibber's Character and Conduct of Cicero,
+Drumann's Roman History, Rollin's Ancient History, Biographic
+Universelle. Mr. Froude alludes to Cicero in his Life of Caesar, taking
+nearly the same view as Forsyth.
+
+
+
+
+CLEOPATRA.
+
+
+69-30 B.C.
+
+THE WOMAN OF PAGANISM.
+
+
+It is my object in this lecture to present the condition of woman under
+the influences of Paganism, before Christianity enfranchised and
+elevated her. As a type of the Pagan woman I select Cleopatra, partly
+because she was famous, and partly because she possessed traits and
+accomplishments which made her interesting in spite of the vices which
+degraded her. She was a queen, the heir of a long line of kings, and
+ruled over an ancient and highly civilized country. She was
+intellectual, accomplished, beautiful, and fascinating. She lived in one
+of the most interesting capitals of the ancient world, and by birth she
+was more Greek than she was African or Oriental. She lived, too, in a
+great age, when Rome had nearly conquered the world; when Roman senators
+and generals had more power than kings; when Grecian arts and literature
+were copied by the imperial Romans; when the rich and fortunate were
+luxurious and ostentatious beyond all precedent; when life had reached
+the highest point of material splendor, and yet when luxury had not
+destroyed military virtues or undermined the strength of the empire. The
+"eternal city" then numbered millions of people, and was the grandest
+capital ever seen on this earth, since everything was there
+concentrated,--the spoils of the world, riches immeasurable, literature
+and art, palaces and temples, power unlimited,--the proudest centre of
+civilization which then existed, and a civilization which in its
+material aspects has not since been surpassed. The civilized world was
+then most emphatically Pagan, in both spirit and forms. Religion as a
+controlling influence was dead. Only a very few among speculative
+philosophers believed in any god, except in a degrading sense,--as a
+blind inexorable fate, or an impersonation of the powers of Nature. The
+future state was a most perplexing uncertainty. Epicurean
+self-indulgence and material prosperity were regarded as the greatest
+good; and as doubt of the darkest kind hung over the future, the body
+was necessarily regarded as of more value than the soul. In fact, it was
+only the body which Paganism recognized as a reality; the soul, God, and
+immortality were virtually everywhere ignored.
+
+It was in this godless, yet brilliant, age that Cleopatra appears upon
+the stage, having been born sixty-nine years before Christ,--about a
+century before the new revolutionary religion was proclaimed in Judea.
+Her father was a Ptolemy, and she succeeded him on the throne of Egypt
+when quite young,--the last of a famous dynasty that had reigned nearly
+three hundred years. The Ptolemies, descended from one of Alexander's
+generals, reigned in great magnificence at Alexandria, which was the
+commercial centre of the world, whose ships whitened the
+Mediterranean,--that great inland lake, as it were, in the centre of the
+Roman Empire, around whose shores were countless cities and villas and
+works of art. Alexandria was a city of schools, of libraries and
+museums, of temples and of palaces, as well as a mart of commerce. Its
+famous library was the largest in the world, and was the pride of the
+age and of the empire. Learned men from all countries came to this
+capital to study science, philosophy, and art. It was virtually a
+Grecian city, and the language of the leading people was Greek. It was
+rivalled in provincial magnificence only by Antioch, the seat of the old
+Syrian civilization, also a Greek capital, so far as the governing
+classes could make it one. Greece, politically ruined, still sent forth
+those influences which made her civilization potent in every land.
+
+Cleopatra, the last of the line of Grecian sovereigns in Egypt, was
+essentially Greek in her features, her language, and her manners. There
+was nothing African about her, as we understand the term African, except
+that her complexion may have been darkened by the intermarriage of the
+Ptolemies; and I have often wondered why so learned and classical a man
+as Story should have given to this queen, in his famous statue, such
+thick lips and African features, which no more marked her than Indian
+features mark the family of the Braganzas on the throne of Brazil. She
+was not even Coptic, like Athanasius and Saint Augustine. On the ancient
+coins and medals her features are severely classical.
+
+Nor is it probable that any of the peculiarities of the ancient Egyptian
+kings marked the dynasty of the Ptolemies. No purely Egyptian customs
+lingered in the palaces of Alexandria. The old deities of Isis and
+Osiris gave place to the worship of Jupiter, Minerva, and Venus. The
+wonders of pristine Egypt were confined to Memphis and Thebes and the
+dilapidated cities of the Nile. The mysteries of the antique Egyptian
+temples were no more known to the learned and mercantile citizen of
+Alexandria than they are to us. The pyramids were as much a wonder then
+as now. The priests and jugglers alike mingled in the crowd of Jews,
+Syrians, Romans, Greeks, Parthians, Arabs, who congregated in this
+learned and mercantile city.
+
+So we have a right to presume that Cleopatra, when she first appeared
+upon the stage of history as a girl of fourteen, was simply a very
+beautiful and accomplished Greek princess, who could speak several
+languages with fluency, as precocious as Elizabeth of England, skilled
+in music, conversant with history, and surrounded with eminent masters.
+She was only twenty-one when she was an object of attraction to Caesar,
+then in the midst of his triumphs. How remarkable must have been her
+fascinations if at that age she could have diverted, even for a time,
+the great captain from his conquests, and chained him to her side! That
+refined, intellectual old veteran of fifty, with the whole world at his
+feet, loaded down with the cares of government, as temperate as he was
+ambitious, and bent on new conquests, would not have been chained and
+enthralled by a girl of twenty-one, however beautiful, had she not been
+as remarkable for intellect and culture as she was for beauty. Nor is it
+likely that Cleopatra would have devoted herself to this weather-beaten
+old general, had she not hoped to gain something from him besides
+caresses,--namely, the confirmation of her authority as queen. She also
+may have had some patriotic motives touching the political independence
+of her country. Left by her father's will at the age of eighteen joint
+heir of the Egyptian throne with her brother Ptolemy, she soon found
+herself expelled from the capital by him and the leading generals of the
+army, because they did not relish her precocious activity in
+government. Her gathered adherents had made but little advance towards
+regaining her rights when, in August, 48, Caesar landed in pursuit of
+Pompey, whom he had defeated at Pharsalia. Pompey's assassination left
+Caesar free, and he proceeded to Alexandria to establish himself for the
+winter. Here the wily and beautiful young exile sought him, and won his
+interest and his affection. After some months of revelry and luxury,
+Caesar left Egypt in 47 to chastise an Eastern rebel, and was in 46
+followed to Rome by Cleopatra, who remained there in splendid state
+until the assassination of Caesar drove her back to Egypt. Her whole
+subsequent life showed her to be as cunning and politic as she was
+luxurious and pleasure-seeking. Possibly she may have loved so
+interesting and brilliant a man as the great Caesar, aside from the
+admiration of his position; but he never became her slave, although it
+was believed, a hundred years after his death, that she was actually
+living in his house when he was assassinated, and was the mother of his
+son Caesarion. But Froude doubts this; and the probabilities are that he
+is correct, for, like Macaulay, he is not apt to be wrong in facts, but
+only in the way he puts them.
+
+Cleopatra was twenty-eight years of age when she first met Antony,--"a
+period of life," says Plutarch, "when woman's beauty is most splendid,
+and her intellect is in full maturity." We have no account of the style
+of her beauty, except that it was transcendent,--absolutely
+irresistible, with such a variety of expression as to be called
+infinite. As already remarked, from the long residence of her family in
+Egypt and intermarriages with foreigners, her complexion may have been
+darker than that of either Persians or Greeks. It probably resembled
+that of Queen Esther more than that of Aspasia, in that dark richness
+and voluptuousness which to some have such attractions; but in grace and
+vivacity she was purely Grecian,--not like a "blooming Eastern bride,"
+languid and passive and effeminate, but bright, witty, and intellectual.
+Shakspeare paints her as full of lively sallies, with the power of
+adapting herself to circumstances with tact and good nature, like a
+Madame Récamier or a Maintenon, rather than like a Montespan or a
+Pompadour, although her nature was passionate, her manner enticing, and
+her habits luxurious. She did not weary or satiate, like a mere
+sensual beauty.
+
+     "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
+      Her infinite variety."
+
+She certainly had the power of retaining the conquests she had
+won,--which rarely happens except with those who are gifted with
+intellectual radiance and freshness. She held her hold on Antony for
+eleven years, when he was burdened with great public cares and duties,
+and when he was forty-two years of age. Such a superior man as he was
+intellectually, and, after Caesar, the leading man of the empire,--a
+statesman as well as soldier,--would not have been enslaved so long by
+Cleopatra had she not possessed remarkable gifts and attainments, like
+those famous women who reigned in the courts of the Bourbons in the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and who, by their wit and social
+fascinations, gathered around their thrones the most distinguished men
+of France, and made them friends as well as admirers. The Pompadours of
+the world have only a brief reign, and at last become repulsive. But
+Cleopatra, like Maintenon, was always attractive, although she, could
+not lay claim to the virtues of the latter. She was as politic as the
+French beauty, and as full of expedients to please her lord. She may
+have revelled in the banquets she prepared for Antony, as Esther did in
+those she prepared for Xerxes; but with the same intent, to please him
+rather than herself, and win, from his weakness, those political favors
+which in his calmer hours he might have shrunk from granting. Cleopatra
+was a politician as well as a luxurious beauty, and it may have been her
+supreme aim to secure the independence of Egypt. She wished to beguile
+Antony as she had sought to beguile Caesar, since they were the masters
+of the world, and had it in their power to crush her sovereignty and
+reduce her realm to a mere province of the empire. Nor is there
+evidence that in the magnificent banquets she gave to the Roman general
+she ever lost her self-control. She drank, and made him drink, but
+retained her wits, "laughing him out of patience and laughing him into
+patience," ascendant over him by raillery, irony, and wit.
+
+And Antony, again, although fond of banquets and ostentation, like other
+Roman nobles, and utterly unscrupulous and unprincipled, as Roman
+libertines were, was also general, statesman, and orator. He grew up
+amid the dangers and toils and privations of Caesar's camp. He was as
+greedy of honors as was his imperial master. He was a sunburnt and
+experienced commander, obliged to be on his guard, and ready for
+emergencies. No such man feels that he can afford to indulge his
+appetites, except on rare occasions. One of the leading peculiarities of
+all great generals has been their temperance. It marked Caesar,
+Charlemagne, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederic the Great, Cromwell, and
+Napoleon. When Alexander gave himself up to banquets, his conquests
+ended. Even such a self-indulgent, pleasure-seeking man as Louis XIV.
+always maintained the decencies of society amid his dissipated
+courtiers. We feel that a man who could discourse so eloquently as
+Antony did over the dead body of Caesar was something more than a
+sensualist or a demagogue. He was also the finest-looking man in Rome,
+reminding the people, it is said, of the busts of Hercules. He was
+lavish, like Caesar, but, like him, sought popularity, and cared but
+little what it cost. It is probable that Cicero painted him, in his
+famous philippics, in darker colors than he deserved, because he aimed
+to be Caesar's successor, as he probably would have been but for his
+infatuation for Cleopatra. Caesar sent him to Rome as master of the
+horse,--a position next in power to that of dictator. When Caesar was
+assassinated, Antony was the most powerful man of the empire. He was
+greater than any existing king; he was almost supreme. And after
+Caesar's death, when he divided his sovereignty of the world with
+Octavius and Lepidus, he had the fairest chance of becoming imperator.
+He had great military experience, the broad Orient as his domain, and
+half the legions of Rome under his control.
+
+It was when this great man was Triumvir, sharing with only two others
+the empire of the world, and likely to overpower them, when he was in
+Asia consolidating and arranging the affairs of his vast department,
+that he met the woman who was the cause of all his calamities. He was
+then in Cilicia, and, with all the arrogance of a Roman general, had
+sent for the Queen of Egypt to appear before him and answer to an
+accusation of having rendered assistance to Cassius before the fatal
+battle of Philippi. He had already known and admired Cleopatra in Rome,
+and it is not improbable that she divined the secret of his judicial
+summons. His envoy, struck with her beauty and intelligence, advised her
+to appear in her best attire. Such a woman scarcely needed such a hint.
+So, making every preparation for her journey,--money, ornaments,
+gifts,--a kind of Queen of Sheba, a Zenobia in her pride and glory, a
+Queen Esther when she had invited the king and his minister to a
+banquet,--she came to the Cydnus, and ascended the river in a
+magnificent barge, such as had never been seen before, and prepared to
+meet her judge, not as a criminal, but as a conqueror, armed with those
+weapons that few mortals can resist.
+
+     "The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
+     Burn'd on the water; the poop was beaten gold;
+     Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
+     The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver,
+     Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
+     The water, which they beat, to follow faster,
+     As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
+     It beggar'd all description: she did lie
+     In her pavilion (cloth-of-gold of tissue)
+     O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see
+     The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
+     Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
+     With diverse-color'd fans....
+     Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
+     So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes.
+     ... At the helm
+     A seeming mermaid steers....
+     ... From the barge
+     A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
+     Of the adjacent wharves. The city cast
+     Her people out upon her; and Antony,
+     Enthroned i' the market-place, did sit alone,
+     Whistling to th' air; which, but for vacancy,
+     Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
+     And made a gap in nature."
+
+On the arrival of this siren queen, Antony had invited her to
+supper,--the dinner of the Romans,--but she, with woman's instinct, had
+declined, till he should come to her; and he, with the urbanity of a
+polished noble,--for such he probably was,--complied, and found a
+banquet which astonished even him, accustomed as he was to senatorial
+magnificence, and which, with all the treasures of the East, he could
+not rival. From that fatal hour he was enslaved. She conquered him, not
+merely by her display and her dazzling beauty, but by her wit. Her very
+tones were music. So accomplished was she in languages, that without
+interpreters she conversed not only with Greeks and Latins, but with
+Ethiopians, Jews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes, and Parthians. So dazzled
+and bewitched was Antony, that, instead of continuing the duties of his
+great position, he returned with Cleopatra to Alexandria, there to keep
+holiday and squander riches, and, still worse, his precious time, to the
+shame and scandal of Rome, inglorious and without excuse,--a Samson at
+the feet of Delilah, or a Hercules throwing away his club to seize the
+distaff of Omphale, confessing to the potency of that mysterious charm
+which the sage at the court of an Eastern prince pronounced the
+strongest power on earth. Never was a strong man more enthralled than
+was Antony by this bewitching woman, who exhausted every art to please
+him. She played at dice with him, drank with him, hunted with him,
+rambled with him, jested with him, angled with him, flattering and
+reproving him by turn, always having some new device of pleasure to
+gratify his senses or stimulate his curiosity. Thus passed the winter of
+41-40, and in the spring he was recalled to Borne by political
+dissensions there.
+
+At this stage, however, it would seem that ambition was paramount with
+him, not love; for his wife Fulvia having died, he did not marry
+Cleopatra, but Octavia, sister of Octavius, his fellow-triumvir and
+general rival. It was evidently from political considerations that he
+married Octavia, who was a stately and noble woman, but tedious in her
+dignity, and unattractive in her person. And what a commentary on Roman
+rank! The sister of a Roman grandee seemed to the ambitious general a
+greater match than the Queen of Egypt. How this must have piqued the
+proud daughter of the Ptolemies,--that she, a queen, with all her
+charms, was not the equal in the eyes of Antony to the sister of
+Caesar's heir! But she knew her power, and stifled her resentment, and
+waited for her time. She, too, had a political end to gain, and was too
+politic to give way to anger and reproaches. She was anything but the
+impulsive woman that some suppose,--but a great actress and artist, as
+some women are when they would conquer, even in their loves, which, if
+they do not feign, at least they know how to make appear greater than
+they are. For about three years Antony cut loose from Cleopatra, and
+pursued his military career in the East, as the rival of Octavius might,
+having in view the sovereignty that Caesar had bequeathed to the
+strongest man.
+
+But his passion for Cleopatra could not long be suppressed, neither from
+reasons of state nor from the respect he must have felt for the
+admirable conduct of Octavia, who was devoted to him, and who was one of
+the most magnanimous and reproachless women of antiquity. And surely he
+must have had some great qualities to call out the love of the noblest
+and proudest woman of the age, in spite of his many vices and his
+abandonment to a mad passion, forgetful alike both of fame and duty. He
+had not been two years in Athens, the headquarters of his Eastern
+Department, before he was called upon to chastise the Parthians, who had
+thrown off the Roman yoke and invaded other Roman provinces. But hardly
+had he left Octavia, and set foot again in Asia, before he sent for his
+Egyptian mistress, and loaded her with presents; not gold, and silver,
+and precious stones, and silks, and curious works of art merely, but
+whole provinces even,--Phoenicia, Syria, Cilicia, and a part of Judea
+and Arabia,--provinces which belonged not to him, but to the Roman
+Empire. How indignant must have been the Roman people when they heard of
+such lavish presents, and presents which he had no right to give! And
+when the artful Cleopatra feigned illness on the approach of Octavia,
+pretending to be dying of love, and wasting her body by fasting and
+weeping by turns, and perhaps tearing her hair in a seeming paroxysm of
+grief,--for an actress can do even this,--Antony was totally disarmed,
+and gave up his Parthian expedition altogether, which was treason to the
+State, and returned to Alexandria more submissive than ever. This
+abandonment of duty and official trust disgusted and incensed the
+Romans, so that his cause was weakened. Octavius became stronger every
+day, and now resolved on reigning alone. This meant another civil war.
+How strong the party of Antony must have been to keep together and
+sustain him amid such scandals, treasons, and disgrace!
+
+Antony, perceiving a desperate contest before him, ending in his
+supremacy or ruin, put forth all his energies, assisted by the
+contributions of Cleopatra, who furnished two hundred ships and twenty
+thousand talents,--about twenty million dollars. He had five hundred
+war-vessels, beside galleys, one hundred thousand foot and twelve
+thousand horse,--one of the largest armies that any Roman general had
+ever commanded,--and he was attended by vassal kings from the East. The
+forces of Octavius were not so large, though better disciplined; nor was
+he a match for Antony in military experience. Antony with his superior
+forces wished to fight upon the land, but against his better judgment
+was overruled by Cleopatra, who, having reinforced him with sixty
+galleys, urged him to contend upon the sea. The rivals met at Actium,
+where was fought one of the great decisive battles of the world. For a
+while the fortunes of the day were doubtful, when Cleopatra, from some
+unexplained motive, or from panic, or possibly from a calculating
+policy, was seen sailing away with her ships for Egypt. And what was
+still more extraordinary, Antony abandoned his fleet and followed her.
+Had he been defeated on the sea, he still had superior forces on the
+land, and was a match for Octavius. His infatuation ended in a weakness
+difficult to comprehend in a successful Roman general. And never was
+infatuation followed by more tragic consequences. Was this madness sent
+upon him by that awful Power who controls the fate of war and the
+destinies of nations? Who sent madness upon Nebuchadnezzar? Who blinded
+Napoleon at the very summit of his greatness? May not that memorable
+defeat have been ordered by Providence to give consolidation and peace
+and prosperity to the Roman Empire, so long groaning under the
+complicated miseries of anarchy and civil war? If an imperial government
+was necessary for the existing political and social condition of the
+Roman world,--and this is maintained by most historians,--how fortunate
+it was that the empire fell into the hands of a man whose subsequent
+policy was peace, the development of resources of nations, and a
+vigorous administration of government!
+
+It is generally conceded that the reign of Octavius--or, as he is more
+generally known, Augustus Caesar--was able, enlightened, and efficient.
+He laid down the policy which succeeding emperors pursued, and which
+resulted in the peace and prosperity of the Roman world until vices
+prepared the way for violence. Augustus was a great organizer, and the
+machinery of government which he and his ministers perfected kept the
+empire together until it was overrun by the New Germanic races. Had
+Antony conquered at Actium, the destinies of the empire might have been
+far different. But for two hundred years the world never saw a more
+efficient central power than that exercised by the Roman emperors or by
+their ministers. Imperialism at last proved fatal to genius and the
+higher interests of mankind; but imperialism was the creation of Julius
+Caesar, as a real or supposed necessity; it was efficiently and
+beneficently continued by his grand-nephew Augustus; and its
+consolidated strength became an established institution which the
+civilized world quietly accepted.
+
+The battle of Actium virtually settled the civil war and the fortunes of
+Antony, although he afterwards fought bravely and energetically; but all
+to no purpose. And then, at last, his eyes were opened, and Shakspeare
+makes him bitterly exclaim,--
+
+         "All is lost!
+     This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me.
+         ... Betray'd I am:
+     O this false soul of Egypt!"
+
+And with his ruin the ruin of his paramour was also settled; yet her
+resources were not utterly exhausted. She retired into a castle or
+mausoleum she had prepared for herself in case of necessity, with her
+most valuable treasures, and sent messengers to Antony, who reported to
+him that she was dead,--that she had killed herself in despair. He
+believed it all. His wrath now vanished in his grief. He could not live,
+or did not wish to live, without her; and he fell upon his own sword.
+The wound was mortal, but death did not immediately follow. He lived to
+learn that Cleopatra had again deceived him,--that she was still alive.
+Even amid the agonies of the shadow of death, and in view of this last
+fatal lie of hers, he did not upbraid her, but ordered his servants to
+bear him to her retreat. Covered with blood, the dying general was
+drawn up by ropes and through a window--the only entrance to the queen's
+retreat that was left unbarred--into her presence, and soon expired.
+Shakspeare has Antony greet Cleopatra with the words, "I am dying,
+Egypt, dying!" This suggestive theme has been enlarged in a modern song
+of pathetic eloquence:--
+
+     I am dying, Egypt, dying,
+       Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast,
+     And the dark Plutonian shadows
+       Gather on the evening blast;
+     Let thine arms, O Queen, enfold me,
+       Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear,
+     Listen to the great heart-secrets
+       _Thou_, and thou _alone_, must hear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Should the base plebeian rabble
+       Dare assail my name at Rome,
+     Where my noble spouse Octavia
+       Weeps within her widow'd home,
+     Seek her; say the gods bear witness--
+       Altars, augurs, circling wings--
+     That her blood, with mine commingled,
+       Yet shall mount the throne of kings.
+
+     As for thee, star-ey'd Egyptian!
+       Glorious sorceress of the Nile!
+     Light the path to Stygian horrors
+       With the splendors of thy smile
+     I can scorn the Senate's triumphs,
+       Triumphing in love like thine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Ah! no more amid the battle
+       Shall my heart exulting swell:
+     Isis and Osiris guard thee!
+       Cleopatra--Rome--farewell!
+
+Thus perished the great Triumvir, dying like a Roman, whose blinded but
+persistent love, whatever were its elements, ever shall make his name
+memorable. All the ages will point to him as a man who gave the world
+away for the caresses of a woman, and a woman who deceived and
+ruined him.
+
+As for her,--this selfish, heartless sorceress, gifted and beautiful as
+she was,--what does she do when she sees her lover dead,--dying for her?
+Does she share his fate? Not she. What selfish woman ever killed
+herself for love?
+
+     "Some natural tears she shed, but wiped them soon."
+
+She may have torn her clothes, and beaten her breast, and disfigured her
+face, and given vent to mourning and lamentations. But she does not seek
+death, nor surrender herself to grief, nor court despair. She renews her
+strength. She reserves her arts for another victim. She hopes to win
+Octavius as she had won Julius and Antony; for she was only thirty-nine,
+and still a queen. And for what? That she might retain her own
+sovereignty, or the independence of Egypt,--still the most fertile of
+countries, rich, splendid, and with grand traditions which went back
+thousands of years; the oldest, and once the most powerful of
+monarchies. _Her_ love was ever subservient to her interests. Antony
+gave up ambition for love,--whatever that love was. It took possession
+of his whole being, not pure and tender, but powerful, strange;
+doubtless a mad infatuation, and perhaps something more, since it never
+passed away,--admiration allied with desire, the worship of dazzling
+gifts, though not of moral virtues. Would such a love have been
+permanent? Probably not, since the object of it did not shine in the
+beauty of the soul, but rather in the graces and adornments of the body,
+intensified indeed by the lustre of bewitching social qualities and the
+brightness of a cultivated intellect. It is hard to analyze a passionate
+love between highly gifted people who have an intense development of
+both the higher and the lower natures, and still more difficult when the
+idol is a Venus Polyhymnia rather than a Venus Urania. But the love of
+Antony, whether unwise, or mysterious, or unfortunate, was not feigned
+or forced: it was real, and it was irresistible; he could not help it.
+He was enslaved, bound hand and foot. His reason may have rallied to his
+support, but his will was fettered. He may have had at times dark and
+gloomy suspicions,--that he was played with, that he was cheated, that
+he would be deserted, that Cleopatra was false and treacherous. And yet
+she reigned over him; he could not live without her. She was all in all
+to him, so long as the infatuation lasted; and it had lasted fourteen
+years, with increasing force, in spite of duty and pressing labors, the
+calls of ambition and the lust of power. In this consuming and abandoned
+passion, for fourteen years,--so strange and inglorious, and for a woman
+so unworthy, even if he were no better than she,--we see one of the
+great mysteries of our complex nature, not uncommon, but insoluble.
+
+I have no respect for Antony, and but little admiration. I speak of such
+mad infatuation as a humiliating exhibition of human weakness. Any one
+under its fearful spell is an object of pity. But I have more sympathy
+for him than for Cleopatra, although she was doubtless a very gifted
+woman. He was her victim; she was not his. If extravagant and reckless
+and sensual, he was frank, generous, eloquent, brave, and true to her.
+She was artful, designing, and selfish, and used him for her own ends,
+although we do not know that she was perfidious and false to him. But
+for her he would have ruled the world. He showed himself capable of an
+enormous sacrifice. She made no sacrifices for him. She could even have
+transferred her affections, since she afterwards sought to play her
+blandishments upon his rival. Conceive of Antony, if you can, as loving
+any one else than her who led him on to ruin. In the very degradation
+of love we see its sacredness. In his fidelity we find some palliation.
+Nor does it seem that Octavia, the slighted wife of Antony, gave way to
+vengeance. Her sense of injury was overshadowed by her pity. This lofty
+and dignified matron even took his six surviving children, three of whom
+were Cleopatra's, and brought them up in her own house as her own. Can
+Paganism show a greater magnanimity?
+
+The fate of Cleopatra was tragic also. She too destroyed herself, not
+probably by the bite of asps, as is the popular opinion, but by some
+potent and subtile poison that she ever carried with her, and which had
+the effect of benumbing the body and making her insensible to pain. Yet
+she does not kill herself because she cannot survive the death of
+Antony, but because she is too proud to be carried to Rome to grace the
+triumph of the new Caesar. She will not be led a captive princess up the
+Capitoline Hill. She has an overbearing pride. "Know, sir," says she to
+Proculeius, "that I
+
+     "Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court,
+     Nor once be chastis'd with the sober eye
+     Of dull Octavia....
+      ... Rather a ditch in Egypt
+     Be gentle grave to me!"
+
+But whether pride or whether shame was the more powerful motive in
+committing suicide, I do not read that she was a victim of remorse. She
+had no moral sense. Nor did she give way to sentimental grief on the
+death of Antony. Her grief was blended with disappointment and rage. Nor
+did she hide her head, but wore a face of brass. She used all her arts
+to win Octavius. Her resources did not fail her; but she expended them
+on one of the coldest, most politic, and most astute men that ever
+lived. And the disappointment that followed her defeat--that she could
+not enslave another conqueror--was greater than the grief for Antony.
+Nor during her whole career do we see any signs of that sorrow and
+humility which, it would seem, should mark a woman who has made so great
+and fatal a mistake,--cut off hopelessly from the respect of the world
+and the peace of her own soul. We see grief, rage, despair, in her
+miserable end, as we see pride and shamefacedness in her gilded life,
+but not remorse or shame. And when she dies by her own hand, it is not
+in madness, but to escape humiliation. Suicide was one of the worst
+features of Pagan antiquity. It was a base and cowardly reluctance to
+meet the evils of life, as much as indifference to the future and a
+blunted moral sense.
+
+So much for the woman herself, her selfish spirit, her vile career; but
+as Cleopatra is one of the best known and most striking examples of a
+Pagan woman, with qualities and in circumstances peculiarly
+characteristic of Paganism, I must make a few remarks on these points.
+
+One of the most noticeable of these is that immorality seems to have
+been no bar to social position. Some of those who were most attractive
+and sought after were notoriously immoral. Aspasia, whom Socrates and
+Pericles equally admired, and whose house was the resort of poets,
+philosophers, statesmen, and artists, and who is said to have been one
+of the most cultivated women of antiquity, bore a sullied name. Sappho,
+who was ever exalted by Grecian poets for the sweetness of her verses,
+attempted to reconcile a life of pleasure with a life of letters, and
+threw herself into the sea because of a disappointed passion. Lais, a
+professional courtesan, was the associate of kings and sages as well as
+the idol of poets and priests. Agrippina, whose very name is infamy, was
+the admiration of courtiers and statesmen. Lucilla, who armed her
+assassins against her own brother, seems to have ruled the court of
+Marcus Aurelius.
+
+And all these women, and more who could be mentioned, were--like
+Cleopatra--cultivated, intellectual, and brilliant. They seem to have
+reigned for their social fascinations as much as by their physical
+beauty. Hence, that class of women who with us are shunned and excluded
+from society were not only flattered and honored, but the class itself
+seems to have been recruited by those who were the most attractive for
+their intellectual gifts as well as for physical beauty. No woman, if
+bright, witty, and beautiful, was avoided because she was immoral. It
+was the immoral women who often aspired to the highest culture. They
+sought to reign by making their homes attractive to distinguished men.
+Their houses seem to have been what the _salons_ of noble and
+fascinating duchesses were in France in the last two centuries. The
+homes of virtuous and domestic women were dull and wearisome. In fact,
+the modest wives and daughters of most men were confined to monotonous
+domestic duties; they were household slaves; they saw but little of what
+we now call society. I do not say that virtue was not held in honor. I
+know of no age, however corrupt, when it was not prized by husbands and
+fathers. I know of no age when virtuous women did not shine at home, and
+exert a healthful influence upon men, and secure the proud regard of
+their husbands. But these were not the women whose society was most
+sought. The drudgeries and slaveries of domestic life among the ancients
+made women unattractive to the world. The women who were most attractive
+were those who gave or attended sumptuous banquets, and indulged in
+pleasures that were demoralizing. Not domestic women, but bright women,
+carried away those prizes which turned the brain. Those who shone were
+those that attached themselves to men through their senses, and
+possibly through their intellects, and who were themselves strong in
+proportion as men were weak. For a woman to appear in public assemblies
+with braided and decorated hair and ostentatious dress, and especially
+if she displayed any gifts of eloquence or culture, was to proclaim
+herself one of the immoral, leisurely, educated, dissolute class. This
+gives point to Saint Paul's strict injunctions to the women of Corinth
+to dress soberly, to keep silence in the assemblies, etc. The modest
+woman was to "be in subjection." Those Pagan converts to the "New Way"
+were to avoid even the appearance of evil.
+
+Thus under Paganism the general influence of women was to pull men down
+rather than to elevate them, especially those who were attractive in
+society. Virtuous and domestic women were not sufficiently educated to
+have much influence except in a narrow circle. Even they, in a social
+point of view, were slaves. They could be given in marriage without
+their consent; they were restricted in their intercourse with men; they
+were confined to their homes; they had but few privileges; they had no
+books; they led a life of terror from the caprices of their lords and
+masters, and hence inspired no veneration. The wives and daughters of
+the rich tyrannized over their servants, decked themselves with costly
+ornaments, and were merely gilded toys, whose society was vapid and
+uninteresting. The wives and daughters of the poor were drudges and
+menials, without attraction or influence; noisy, quarrelsome, garrulous
+women, who said the least when they talked the most.
+
+Hence under Paganism home had none of those attractions which, in
+Christian countries, invest it with such charms. The home of the poor
+was squalid and repulsive; the home of the rich was gaudy and tinselled
+enough, but was dull and uninspiring. What is home when women are
+ignorant, stupid, and slavish? What glitter or artistic splendor can
+make home attractive when women are mere butterflies or slaves with
+gilded fetters? Deprive women of education, and especially of that
+respect which Christian chivalry inspires, and they cannot rise to be
+the equal companions of men. They are simply their victims or their
+slaves. What is a home where women are treated as inferiors? Paganism
+never recognized their equality with men; and if they ever ruled men, it
+was by appealing to their lower qualities, or resorting to arts and
+devices which are subversive of all dignity of character. When their
+personal beauty fled, their power also departed. A faded or homely
+woman, without intelligence or wit, was a forlorn object in a Pagan
+home,--to be avoided, derided, despised,--a melancholy object of pity or
+neglect, so far as companionship goes. She may have been valued as a
+cook or drudge, but she was only a menial. Of all those sins of omission
+of which Paganism is accused, the worst was that it gave to women no
+mental resources to assist them in poverty, or neglect, or isolation,
+when beauty or fortune deserted them. No home can be attractive where
+women have no resources; and women can have no resources outside of
+domestic duties, unless educated to some art or something calculated to
+draw out their energies and higher faculties by which they win the
+respect and admiration, not of men only, but of their own sex.
+
+It was this lack of education which Paganism withheld from women which
+not only destroyed the radiance of home, but which really made women
+inferior to men. All writers, poets, and satirists alike speak of the
+inferiority of women to men,--not physically only, but even
+intellectually; and some authors made them more vicious than men in
+natural inclination. And when the mind was both neglected and
+undervalued, how could respect and admiration be kindled, or continue
+after sensual charms had passed away? Paganism taught the inequality of
+the sexes, and produced it; and when this inequality is taught, or
+believed in, or insisted upon, then farewell to the glory of homes, to
+all unbought charms, to the graces of domestic life, to everything that
+gilds our brief existence with the radiance of imperishable joy.
+
+Nor did Paganism offer any consolations to the down-trodden, injured,
+neglected, uninteresting woman of antiquity. She could not rise above
+the condition in which she was born. No sympathetic priest directed her
+thoughts to another and higher and endless life. Nobody wiped away her
+tears; nobody gave encouragement to those visions of beauty and serenity
+for which the burdened spirit will, under any oppressions, sometimes
+aspire to enjoy. No one told her of immortality and a God of
+forgiveness, who binds up the bleeding heart and promises a future peace
+and bliss. Paganism was merciful only in this,--that it did not open
+wounds it could not heal; that it did not hold out hopes and promises it
+could not fulfil; that it did not remind the afflicted of miseries from
+which they could not rise; that it did not let in a vision of glories
+which could never be enjoyed; that it did not provoke the soul to
+indulge in a bitterness in view of evils for which there was no remedy;
+that it did not educate the mind for enjoyments which could never be
+reached; that it did not kindle a discontent with a condition from which
+there is no escape. If one cannot rise above debasement or misery, there
+is no use in pointing it out. If the Pagan woman was not seemingly aware
+of the degradation which kept her down, and from which it was impossible
+to rise, Paganism did not add stings to her misery by presenting it as
+an accident which it was easy to surmount. There would be no
+contentment or submission among animals if they were endowed with the
+reason of men. Give to a healthy, but ignorant, coarse, uncultivated
+country girl, surrounded only with pigs and chickens, almost without
+neighbors, a glimpse of the glories of cities, the wonders of art, the
+charms of social life, the triumphs of mind, the capacities of the soul,
+and would she be any happier, if obliged to remain for life in her
+rustic obscurity and labor, and with no possible chance of improving her
+condition? Such was woman under Paganism. She could rise only so far as
+men lifted her up; and they lifted her up only further to consummate her
+degradation.
+
+But there was another thing which kept women in degradation. Paganism
+did not recognize the immaterial and immortal soul: it only had regard
+to the wants of the body. Of course there were exceptions. There were
+sages and philosophers among the men who speculated on the grandest
+subjects which can elevate the mind to the regions of immortal
+truth,--like Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius,--even as there
+were women who rose above all the vile temptations which surrounded
+them, and were poets, heroines, and benefactors,--like Telessa, who
+saved Argos by her courage; and Volumnia, who screened Rome from the
+vengeance of her angry son; and Lucretia, who destroyed herself rather
+than survive the dishonor of her house. There are some people who rise
+and triumph over every kind of oppression and injury. Under Paganism
+there was the possibility of the emancipation of the soul, but not the
+probability. Its genius was directed to the welfare of the body,--to
+utilitarian ends of life, to ornaments and riches, to luxury and
+voluptuousness, to the pleasures which are brief, to the charms of
+physical beauty and grace. It could stimulate ambition and inculcate
+patriotism and sing of love, if it coupled the praises of Venus with the
+praises of wine. But everything it praised or honored had reference to
+this life and to the mortal body. It may have recognized the mind, but
+not the soul, which is greater than the mind. It had no aspirations for
+future happiness; it had no fears of future misery. Hence the frequency
+of suicide under disappointment, or ennui, or satiated desire, or fear
+of poverty, or disgrace, or pain.
+
+And thus, as Paganism did not take cognizance of the soul in its future
+existence, it disregarded man's highest aspirations. It did not
+cultivate his graces; it set but a slight value on moral beauty; it
+thought little of affections; it spurned gentleness and passive virtues;
+it saw no lustre in the tender eye; it heard no music in the tones of
+sympathy; it was hard and cold. That which constitutes the richest
+beatitudes of love it could not see, and did not care for. Ethereal
+blessedness it despised. That which raises woman highest, it was
+indifferent to. The cold atmosphere of Paganism froze her soul, and made
+her callous to wrongs and sufferings. It destroyed enthusiasm and poetic
+ardor and the graces which shine in misfortune. Woman was not kindled by
+lofty sentiments, since no one believed in them. The harmonies of home
+had no poetry and no inspiration, and they disappeared. The face of
+woman was not lighted by supernatural smiles. Her caresses had no
+spiritual fervor, and her benedictions were unmeaning platitudes. Take
+away the soul of woman, and what is she? Rob her of her divine
+enthusiasm, and how vapid and commonplace she becomes! Destroy her
+yearnings to be a spiritual solace, and how limited is her sphere! Take
+away the holy dignity of the soul, and how impossible is a lofty
+friendship! Without the amenities of the soul there can be no real
+society. Crush the soul of a woman, and you extinguish her life, and
+shed darkness on all who surround her. She cannot rally from pain, or
+labor, or misfortune, if her higher nature is ignored. Paganism ignored
+what is grandest and truest in a woman, and she withered like a stricken
+tree. She succumbed before the cold blasts that froze her noblest
+impulses, and sunk sullenly into obscurity. Oh, what a fool a man is to
+make woman a slave! He forgets that though he may succeed in keeping her
+down, chained and fettered by drudgeries, she will be revenged; that
+though powerless, she will instinctively learn to hate him; and if she
+cannot defy him she will scorn him,--for not even a brute animal will
+patiently submit to cruelty, still less a human soul become reconciled
+to injustice. And what is the possession of a human body without the
+sympathy of a living soul?
+
+And hence women, under Paganism,--having no hopes of future joy, no
+recognition of their diviner attributes, no true scope for energies, no
+field of usefulness but in a dreary home, no ennobling friendships, no
+high encouragements, no education, no lofty companionship; utterly
+unappreciated in what most distinguishes them, and valued only as
+household slaves or victims of guilty pleasure; adorned and bedecked
+with trinkets, all to show off the graces of the body alone, and with
+nothing to show their proud equality with men in influence, if not in
+power, in mind as well as heart,--took no interest in what truly
+elevates society. What schools did they teach or even visit? What
+hospitals did they enrich? What miseries did they relieve? What
+charities did they contribute to? What churches did they attend? What
+social gatherings did they enliven? What missions of benevolence did
+they embark in? What were these to women who did not know what was the
+most precious thing they had, or when this precious thing was allowed to
+run to waste? What was there for a woman to do with an unrecognized
+soul but gird herself with ornaments, and curiously braid her hair, and
+ransack shops for new cosmetics, and hunt for new perfumes, and recline
+on luxurious couches, and issue orders to attendant slaves, and join in
+seductive dances, and indulge in frivolous gossip, and entice by the
+display of sensual charms? Her highest aspiration was to adorn a
+perishable body, and vanity became the spring of life.
+
+And the men,--without the true sanctities and beatitudes of married
+life, without the tender companionship which cultivated women give,
+without the hallowed friendships which the soul alone can keep alive,
+despising women who were either toys or slaves,--fled from their dull,
+monotonous, and dreary homes to the circus and the theatre and the
+banqueting hall for excitement or self-forgetfulness. They did not seek
+society, for there can be no high society where women do not preside and
+inspire and guide. Society is a Christian institution. It was born among
+our German ancestors, amid the inspiring glories of chivalry. It was
+made for women as well as men of social cravings and aspirations, which
+have their seat in what Paganism ignored. Society, under Paganism, was
+confined to men, at banquets or symposia, where women seldom entered,
+unless for the amusement of men,--never for their improvement, and still
+less for their restraint.
+
+It was not until Christianity permeated the old Pagan civilization and
+destroyed its idols, that the noble Paulas and Marcellas and Fabiolas
+arose to dignify human friendships, and give fascination to reunions of
+cultivated women and gifted men; that the seeds of society were sown. It
+was not until the natural veneration which the Gothic nations seem to
+have had for women, even in their native forests, had ripened into
+devotion and gallantry under the teachings of Christian priests, that
+the true position of women was understood. And after their equality was
+recognized in the feudal castles of the Middle Ages, the _salons_ of the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries established their claims as the
+inspiring geniuses of what we call society. Then, and not till then, did
+physical beauty pale before the brilliancy of the mind and the radiance
+of the soul,--at last recognized as the highest charm of woman. The
+leaders of society became, not the ornamented and painted _heterae_
+which had attracted Grecian generals and statesmen and men of letters,
+but the witty and the genial and the dignified matrons who were capable
+of instructing and inspiring men superior to themselves, with eyes
+beaming with intellectual radiance, and features changing with perpetual
+variety. Modern society, created by Christianity,--since only
+Christianity recognizes what is most truly attractive and ennobling
+among women--is a great advance over the banquets of imperial Romans
+and the symposia of gifted Greeks.
+
+But even this does not satisfy woman in her loftiest aspirations. The
+soul which animates and inspires her is boundless. Its wants cannot be
+fully met even in an assemblage of wits and beauties. The soul of Madame
+de Staël pined amid all her social triumphs. The soul craves
+friendships, intellectual banquetings, and religious aspirations. And
+unless the emancipated soul of woman can have these wants gratified, she
+droops even amid the glories of society. She is killed, not as a hero
+perishes on a battle-field; but she dies, as Madame de Maintenon said
+that she died, amid the imposing splendors of Versailles. It is only the
+teachings and influences of that divine religion which made Bethany the
+centre of true social banquetings to the wandering and isolated Man of
+Sorrows, which can keep the soul alive amid the cares, the burdens, and
+the duties which bend down every son and daughter of Adam, however
+gilded may be the outward life. How grateful, then, should women be to
+that influence which has snatched them from the pollutions and heartless
+slaveries of Paganism, and given dignity to their higher nature! It is
+to them that it has brought the greatest boon, and made them triumphant
+over the evils of life. And how thoughtless, how misguided, how
+ungrateful is that woman who would exchange the priceless blessings
+which Christianity has brought to her for those ornaments, those
+excitements, and those pleasures which ancient Paganism gave as the only
+solace fox the loss and degradation of her immortal soul!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Plutarch's Lives; Froude's Caesar; Shakspeare's Antony and Cleopatra;
+Plato's Dialogues; Horace, Martial, and Juvenal, especially among the
+poets; Lord's Old Roman World; Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars; Dion
+Cassius; Rollin's Ancient History; Merivale's History of the Romans;
+Biographic Universelle; Rees's Encyclopedia has a good article.
+
+
+
+
+PAGAN SOCIETY.
+
+
+GLORY AND SHAME.
+
+50 B.C.
+
+
+We have now surveyed what was most glorious in the States of antiquity.
+We have seen a civilization which in many respects rivals all that
+modern nations have to show. In art, in literature, in philosophy, in
+laws, in the mechanism of government, in the cultivated face of Nature,
+in military strength, in aesthetic culture, the Greeks and Romans were
+our equals. And this high civilization was reached by the native and
+unaided strength of man; by the power of will, by courage, by
+perseverance, by genius, by fortunate circumstances. We are filled with
+admiration by all these trophies of genius, and cannot but feel that
+only superior races could have accomplished such mighty triumphs.
+
+Yet all this splendid exterior was deceptive; for the deeper we
+penetrate the social condition of the people, the more we feel disgust
+and pity supplanting all feelings of admiration and wonder. The Roman
+empire especially, which had gathered into its strong embrace the whole
+world, and was the natural inheritor of all the achievements of all the
+nations, in its shame and degradation suggests melancholy feelings in
+reference to the destiny of man, so far as his happiness and welfare
+depend upon his own unaided efforts.
+
+It is a sad picture of oppression, injustice, crime, and wretchedness
+which I have now to present. Glory is succeeded by shame, strength by
+weakness, and virtue by vice. The condition of the mass is deplorable,
+and even the great and fortunate shine in a false and fictitious light.
+We see laws, theoretically good, practically perverted, and selfishness
+and egotism the mainsprings of life; we see energies misdirected, and
+art corrupted. All noble aspirations have fled, and the good and the
+wise retire from active life in despair and misanthropy. Poets flatter
+the tyrants who trample on human rights, while sensuality and luxurious
+pleasure absorb the depraved thoughts of a perverse generation.
+
+The first thing which arrests our attention as we survey the civilized
+countries of the old world, is the imperial despotism of Rome. The
+empire indeed enjoyed quietude, and society was no longer rent by
+factions and parties. Demagogues no longer disturbed the public peace,
+nor were the provinces ransacked and devastated to provide for the
+means of carrying on war. So long as men did not oppose the government
+they were safe from molestation, and were left to pursue their business
+and pleasure in their own way. Imperial cruelty was not often visited on
+the humble classes. It was the policy of the emperors to amuse and
+flatter the people, while depriving them of political rights. Hence
+social life was free. All were at liberty to seek their pleasures and
+gains; all were proud of their metropolis, with its gilded glories and
+its fascinating pleasures. Outrages, extortions, and disturbances were
+punished. Order reigned, and all classes felt secure; they could sleep
+without fear of robbery or assassination. In short, all the arguments
+which can be adduced in favor of despotism in contrast with civil war
+and violence, show that it was beneficial in its immediate effects.
+
+Nevertheless, it was a most lamentable change from that condition of
+things which existed before the civil wars. Roman liberties were
+prostrated forever; noble sentiments and aspirations were rebuked. Under
+the Emperors we read of no more great orators like Cicero, battling for
+human rights and defending the public weal. Eloquence was suppressed.
+Nor was there liberty of speech even in the Senate. It was treason to
+find fault with any public acts. From the Pillars of Hercules to the
+Caspian Sea one stern will ruled all classes and orders. No one could
+fly from the agents and ministers of the Emperor; he controlled the
+army, the Senate, the judiciary, the internal administration of the
+empire, and the religious worship of the people; all offices, honors,
+and emoluments emanated from him. All influences conspired to elevate
+the man whom no one could hope successfully to rival. Revolt was
+madness, and treason absurdity. Nor did the Emperors attempt to check
+the gigantic social evils of the empire. They did not seek to prevent
+irreligion, luxury, slavery, and usury, the encroachments of the rich
+upon the poor, the tyranny of foolish fashions, demoralizing sports and
+pleasures, money-making, and all the follies which lax principles of
+morality allowed; they fed the rabble with corn, oil, and wine, and thus
+encouraged idleness and dissipation. The world never saw a more rapid
+retrogression in human rights, or a greater prostration of liberties.
+Taxes were imposed according to the pleasure or necessities of the
+government. Provincial governors became still more rapacious and cruel;
+judges hesitated to decide against the government. Patriotism, in its
+most enlarged sense, became an impossibility; all lofty spirits were
+crushed. Corruption in all forms of administration fearfully increased,
+for there was no safeguard against it.
+
+Theoretically, absolutism may be the best government, if rulers are
+wise and just; but practically, as men are, despotisms are generally
+cruel and revengeful. Despotism implies slavery, and slavery is the
+worst condition of mankind.
+
+It cannot be questioned that many virtuous princes reigned at Rome, who
+would have ornamented any age or country. Titus, Hadrian, Marcus
+Aurelius, Antoninus Pius, Alexander Severus, Tacitus, Probus, Carus,
+Constantine, Theodosius, were all men of remarkable virtues as well as
+talents. They did what they could to promote public prosperity. Marcus
+Aurelius was one of the purest and noblest characters of antiquity.
+Theodosius for genius and virtue ranks with the most illustrious
+sovereigns that ever wore a crown,--with Charlemagne, with Alfred, with
+William III., with Gustavus Adolphus.
+
+But it matters not whether the Emperors were good or bad, if the régime
+to which they consecrated their energies was exerted to crush the
+liberties of mankind. The imperial despotism, whether brilliant or
+disgraceful, was a mournful retrograde step in civilization; it implied
+the extinction of patriotism and the general degradation of the people,
+and would have been impossible in the days of Cato, Scipio, or Metellus.
+
+If we turn from the Emperors to the class which before the dictatorship
+of Julius Caesar had the ascendency in the State, and for several
+centuries the supreme power, we shall find but little that is
+flattering to a nation or to humanity. Under the Emperors the
+aristocracy had degenerated in morals as well as influence. They still
+retained their enormous fortunes, originally acquired as governors of
+provinces, and continually increased by fortunate marriages and
+speculations. Indeed, nothing was more marked and melancholy at Rome
+than the vast disproportion in fortunes. In the better days of the
+republic, property was more equally divided; the citizens were not
+ambitious for more land than they could conveniently cultivate. But the
+lands, obtained by conquest, gradually fell into the possession of
+powerful families. The classes of society widened as great fortunes were
+accumulated; pride of wealth kept pace with pride of ancestry; and when
+plebeian families had obtained great estates, they were amalgamated with
+the old aristocracy. The equestrian order, founded substantially on
+wealth, grew daily in importance. Knights ultimately rivalled senatorial
+families. Even freedmen in an age of commercial speculation became
+powerful for their riches. The pursuit of money became a passion, and
+the rich assumed all the importance and consideration which had once
+been bestowed upon those who had rendered great public services.
+
+As the wealth of the world flowed naturally to the capital, Rome became
+a city of princes, whose fortunes were almost incredible. It took
+eighty thousand dollars a year to support the ordinary senatorial
+dignity. Some senators owned whole provinces. Trimalchio, a rich
+freedman whom Petronius ridiculed, could afford to lose thirty millions
+of sesterces in a single voyage without sensibly diminishing his
+fortune. Pallas, a freedman of the Emperor Claudius, possessed a fortune
+of three hundred millions of sesterces. Seneca, the philosopher, amassed
+an enormous fortune.
+
+As the Romans were a sensual, ostentatious, and luxurious people, they
+accordingly wasted their fortunes by an extravagance in their living
+which has had no parallel. The pleasures of the table and the cares of
+the kitchen were the most serious avocation of the aristocracy in the
+days of the greatest corruption. They had around them regular courts of
+parasites and flatterers, and they employed even persons of high rank as
+their chamberlains and stewards. Carving was taught in celebrated
+schools, and the masters of this sublime art were held in higher
+estimation than philosophers or poets. Says Juvenal,--
+
+     "To such perfection now is carving brought,
+      That different gestures by our curious men
+      Are used for different dishes, hare or hen."
+
+Their entertainments were accompanied with everything which could
+flatter vanity or excite the passions; musicians, male and female
+dancers, players of farce and pantomime, jesters, buffoons, and
+gladiators exhibited, while the guests reclined at table after the
+fashion of the Orientals. The tables were made of Thuja-root, with claws
+of ivory or Delian bronze. Even Cicero, in an economical age, paid six
+hundred and fifty pounds for his banqueting-table. Gluttony was carried
+to such a point that the sea and earth scarcely sufficed to set off
+their tables; they ate as delicacies water-rats and white worms. Fish
+were the chief object of the Roman epicures, of which the _mullus_, the
+_rhombus_, and the _asellus_ were the most valued; it is recorded that a
+mullus (sea barbel), weighing but eight pounds, sold for eight thousand
+sesterces. Oysters from the Lucrine Lake were in great demand; snails
+were fattened in ponds for cooking, while the villas of the rich had
+their piscinae filled with fresh or salt-water fish. Peacocks and
+pheasants were the most highly esteemed among poultry, although the
+absurdity prevailed of eating singing-birds. Of quadrupeds, the greatest
+favorite was the wild boar,--the chief dish of a grand _coena_,--coming
+whole upon the table; and the practised gourmand pretended to
+distinguish by the taste from what part of Italy it came. Dishes, the
+very names of which excite disgust, were used at fashionable banquets,
+and held in high esteem. Martial devotes two entire books of his
+"Epigrams" to the various dishes and ornaments of a Roman banquet.
+
+The extravagance of that period almost surpasses belief. Cicero and
+Pompey one day surprised Lucullus at one of his ordinary banquets, when
+he expected no guests, and even that cost fifty thousand
+drachmas,--about four thousand dollars; his table-couches were of
+purple, and his vessels glittered with jewels. The halls of Heliogabalus
+were hung with cloth of gold, enriched with jewels; his table and plate
+were of pure gold; his couches were of massive silver, and his
+mattresses, covered with carpets of cloth of gold, were stuffed with
+down found only under the wings of partridges. His suppers never cost
+less than one hundred thousand sesterces. Crassus paid one hundred
+thousand sesterces for a golden cup. Banqueting-rooms were strewed with
+lilies and roses. Apicius, in the time of Trajan, spent one hundred
+millions of sesterces in debauchery and gluttony; having only ten
+millions left, he ended his life with poison, thinking he might die of
+hunger. Things were valued for their cost and rarity rather than their
+real value. Enormous prices were paid for carp, the favorite dish of the
+Romans as of the Chinese. Drusillus, a freedman of Claudius, caused a
+dish to be made of five hundred pounds weight of silver. Vitellius had
+one made of such prodigious size that he was obliged to build a furnace
+on purpose for it; and at a feast which he gave in honor of this dish,
+it was filled with the livers of the scarrus (fish), the brains of
+peacocks, the tongues of parrots, and the roes of lampreys caught in the
+Carpathian Sea.
+
+The nobles squandered money equally on their banquets, their stables,
+and their dress; and it was to their crimes, says Juvenal, that they
+were indebted for their gardens, their palaces, their tables, and their
+fine old plate.
+
+Unbounded pride, insolence, inhumanity, selfishness, and scorn marked
+this noble class. Of course there were exceptions, but the historians
+and satirists give the saddest pictures of their cold-hearted depravity.
+The sole result of friendship with a great man was a meal, at which
+flattery and sycophancy were expected; but the best wine was drunk by
+the host, instead of by the guest. Provinces were ransacked for fish and
+fowl and game for the tables of the great, and sensualism was thought to
+be no reproach. They violated the laws of chastity and decorum; they
+scourged to death their slaves; they degraded their wives and sisters;
+they patronized the most demoralizing sports; they enriched themselves
+by usury and monopolies; they practised no generosity, except at their
+banquets, when ostentation balanced their avarice; they measured
+everything by the money-standard; they had no taste for literature, but
+they rewarded sculptors and painters who prostituted art to their vanity
+or passions; they had no reverence for religion, and ridiculed the gods.
+Their distinguishing vices were meanness and servility, the pursuit of
+money by every artifice, the absence of honor, and unblushing
+sensuality.
+
+Gibbon has eloquently abridged the remarks of Ammianus Marcellinus
+respecting these people:--
+
+"They contend with each other in the empty vanity of titles and
+surnames. They affect to multiply their likenesses in statues of bronze
+or marble; nor are they satisfied unless these statues are covered with
+plates of gold. They boast of the rent-rolls of their estates; they
+measure their rank and consequence by the loftiness of their chariots
+and the weighty magnificence of their dress; their long robes of silk
+and purple float in the wind, and as they are agitated by art or
+accident they discover the under garments, the rich tunics embroidered
+with the figures of various animals. Followed by a train of fifty
+servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move along the streets as if
+they travelled with post-horses; and the example of the senators is
+boldly imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose covered carriages are
+continually driving round the immense space of the city and suburbs.
+Whenever they condescend to enter the public baths, they assume, on
+their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and maintain a
+haughty demeanor, which perhaps might have been excused in the great
+Marcellus after the conquest of Syracuse. Sometimes these heroes
+undertake more arduous achievements: they visit their estates in Italy,
+and procure themselves, by servile hands, the amusements of the chase.
+And if at any time, especially on a hot day, they have the courage to
+sail in their gilded galleys from the Lucrine Lake to their elegant
+villas on the sea-coast of Puteoli and Cargeta, they compare these
+expeditions to the marches of Caesar and Alexander; yet should a fly
+presume to settle on the silken folds of their gilded umbrellas, should
+a sunbeam penetrate through some unguarded chink, they deplore their
+intolerable hardships, and lament, in affected language, that they were
+not born in the regions of eternal darkness. In the exercise of domestic
+jurisdiction they express an exquisite sensibility for any personal
+injury, and a contemptuous indifference for the rest of mankind. When
+they have called for warm water, should a slave be tardy in his
+obedience, he is chastised with a hundred lashes; should he commit a
+wilful murder, his master will mildly observe that he is a worthless
+fellow, and shall be punished if he repeat the offence. If a foreigner
+of no contemptible rank be introduced to these senators, he is welcomed
+with such warm professions that he retires charmed with their
+affability; but when he repeats his visit, he is surprised and mortified
+to find that his name, his person, and his country are forgotten. The
+modest, the sober, and the learned are rarely invited to their sumptuous
+banquets, only the most worthless of mankind,--parasites who applaud
+every look and gesture, who gaze with rapture on marble columns and
+variegated pavements, and strenuously praise the pomp and elegance
+which he is taught to consider as a part of his personal merit. At the
+Roman table the birds, the squirrels, the fish, which appear of uncommon
+size, are contemplated with curious attention, and notaries are summoned
+to attest, by authentic record, their real weight. Another method of
+introduction into the houses of the great is skill in games, which is a
+sure road to wealth and reputation. A master of this sublime art, if
+placed at a supper below a magistrate, displays in his countenance a
+surprise and indignation which Cato might be supposed to feel when
+refused the praetorship. The acquisition of knowledge seldom engages the
+attention of the nobles, who abhor the fatigue and disdain the
+advantages of study; and the only books they peruse are the 'Satires of
+Juvenal,' or the fabulous histories of Marius Maximus. The libraries
+they have inherited from their fathers are secluded, like dreary
+sepulchres, from the light of day; but the costly instruments of the
+theatre--flutes and hydraulic organs--are constructed for their use. In
+their palaces sound is preferred to sense, and the care of the body to
+that of the mind. The suspicion of a malady is of sufficient weight to
+excuse the visits of the most intimate friends. The prospect of gain
+will urge a rich and gouty senator as far as Spoleta; every sentiment of
+arrogance and dignity is suppressed in the hope of an inheritance or
+legacy, and a wealthy, childless citizen is the most powerful of the
+Romans. The distress which follows and chastises extravagant luxury
+often reduces the great to use the most humiliating expedients. When
+they wish to borrow, they employ the base and supplicating style of the
+slaves in the comedy; but when they are called upon to pay, they assume
+the royal and tragic declamations of the grandsons of Hercules. If the
+demand is repeated, they readily procure some trusty sycophant to
+maintain a charge of poison or magic against the insolent creditor, who
+is seldom released from prison until he has signed a discharge of the
+whole debt. And these vices are mixed with a puerile superstition which
+disgraces their understanding. They listen with confidence to the
+productions of haruspices, who pretend to read in the entrails of
+victims the signs of future greatness and prosperity; and this
+superstition is observed among those very sceptics who impiously deny or
+doubt the existence of a celestial power."
+
+Such, in the latter days of the empire, was the leading class at Rome,
+and probably also in the cities which aped the fashions of the capital.
+Frivolity and luxury loosened all the ties of society. They were bound
+up in themselves, and had no care for the people except as they might
+extract more money from them.
+
+As for the miserable class whom the patricians oppressed, their
+condition became worse every day from the accession of the Emperors. The
+plebeians had ever disdained those arts which now occupied the middle
+classes; these were intrusted to slaves. Originally, they employed
+themselves upon the lands which had been obtained by conquest; but these
+lands were gradually absorbed or usurped by the large proprietors. The
+small farmers, oppressed with debt and usury, parted with their lands to
+their wealthy creditors. Even in the time of Cicero, it was computed
+that there were only about two thousand citizens possessed of
+independent property. These two thousand persons owned the world; the
+rest were dependent and powerless, and would have perished but for
+largesses. Monthly distributions of corn were converted into daily
+allowance for bread. The people were amused with games and festivals,
+fed like slaves, and of course lost at last even the semblance of
+manliness and independence. They loitered in the public streets, and
+dissipated in gaming their miserable pittance; they spent the hours of
+the night in the lowest resorts of crime and misery; they expired in
+wretched apartments without attracting the attention of government;
+pestilence, famine, and squalid misery thinned their ranks, and they
+would have been annihilated but for constant accession to their numbers
+from the provinces.
+
+In the busy streets of Rome might be seen adventurers from all parts of
+the world, disgraced by all the various vices of their respective
+countries. They had no education, and but small religious advantages;
+they were held in terror by both priests and nobles,--the priest
+terrifying them with Egyptian sorceries, the nobles crushing them by
+iron weight; like lazzaroni, they lived in the streets, or were crowded
+into filthy tenements; a gladiatorial show delighted them, but the
+circus was their peculiar joy,--here they sought to drown the
+consciousness of their squalid degradation; they were sold into slavery
+for trifling debts; they had no homes. The poor man had no ambition or
+hope; his wife was a slave; his children were precocious demons, whose
+prattle was the cry for bread, whose laughter was the howl of
+pandemonium, whose sports were the tricks of premature iniquity, whose
+beauty was the squalor of disease and filth; he fled from a wife in whom
+he had no trust, from children in whom he had no hope, from brothers for
+whom he felt no sympathy, from parents for whom he felt no reverence;
+the circus was his home, the fights of wild beasts were his consolation;
+the future was a blank, death was the release from suffering. There were
+no hospitals for the sick and the old, except one on an island in the
+Tiber; the old and helpless were left to die, unpitied and unconsoled.
+Suicide was so common that it attracted no attention.
+
+Superstition culminated at Rome, for there were seen the priests and
+devotees of all the countries that it governed,--"the dark-skinned
+daughters of Isis, with drum and timbrel and wanton mien; devotees of
+the Persian Mithras; emasculated Asiatics; priests of Cybele, with their
+wild dances and discordant cries; worshippers of the great goddess
+Diana; barbarian captives with the rites of Teuton priests; Syrians,
+Jews, Chaldaean astrologers, and Thessalian sorcerers.... The crowds
+which flocked to Rome from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean
+brought with them practices extremely demoralizing. The awful rites of
+initiation, the tricks of magicians, the pretended virtues of amulets
+and charms, the riddles of emblematical idolatry with which the
+superstition of the East abounded, amused the languid voluptuaries who
+had neither the energy for a moral belief nor the boldness requisite for
+logical scepticism."
+
+We cannot pass by, in this enumeration of the different classes of Roman
+society, the number and condition of slaves. A large part of the
+population belonged to this servile class. Originally brought in by
+foreign conquest, it was increased by those who could not pay their
+debts. The single campaign of Regulus introduced as many captives as
+made up a fifth part of the whole population. Four hundred were
+maintained in a single palace, at a comparatively early period; a
+freedman in the time of Augustus left behind him forty-one hundred and
+sixteen; Horace regarded two hundred as the suitable establishment for a
+gentleman; some senators owned twenty thousand. Gibbon estimates the
+number of slaves at about sixty millions,--one-half of the whole
+population. One hundred thousand captives were taken in the Jewish war,
+who were sold as slaves, and sold as cheap as horses. William Blair
+supposes that there were three slaves to one freeman, from the conquest
+of Greece to the reign of Alexander Severus. Slaves often cost two
+hundred thousand sesterces, yet everybody was eager to possess a slave.
+At one time the slave's life was at the absolute control of his master;
+he could be treated at all times with brutal severity. Fettered and
+branded, he toiled to cultivate the lands of an imperious master, and at
+night was shut up in a subterranean cell. The laws hardly recognized his
+claim to be considered a moral agent,--he was _secundum hominum genus_;
+he could acquire no rights, social or political,--he was incapable of
+inheriting property, or making a will, or contracting a legal marriage;
+his value was estimated like that of a brute; he was a thing and not a
+person, "a piece of furniture possessed of life;" he was his master's
+property, to be scourged, or tortured, or crucified. If a wealthy
+proprietor died under circumstances which excited suspicion of foul
+play, his whole household was put to torture. It is recorded that on the
+murder of a man of consular dignity by a slave, every slave in his
+possession was condemned to death. Slaves swelled the useless rabbles of
+the cities, and devoured the revenues of the State. All manual labor
+was done by slaves, in towns as well as the country; they were used in
+the navy to propel the galleys. Even the mechanical arts were cultivated
+by the slaves. Nay more, slaves were schoolmasters, secretaries, actors,
+musicians, and physicians, for in intelligence they were often on an
+equality with their masters. Slaves were procured from Greece and Asia
+Minor and Syria, as well as from Gaul and the African deserts; they were
+white as well as black. All captives in war were made slaves, also
+unfortunate debtors; sometimes they could regain their freedom, but
+generally their condition became more and more deplorable. What a state
+of society when a refined and cultivated Greek could be made to obey the
+most offensive orders of a capricious and sensual Roman, without
+remuneration, without thanks, without favor, without redress! What was
+to be expected of a class who had no object to live for? They became the
+most degraded of mortals, ready for pillage, and justly to be feared in
+the hour of danger.
+
+Slavery undoubtedly proved the most destructive canker of the Roman
+State. It was this social evil, more than political misrule, which
+undermined the empire. Slavery proved at Rome a monstrous curse,
+destroying all manliness of character, creating contempt of honest
+labor, making men timorous yet cruel, idle, frivolous, weak, dependent,
+powerless. The empire might have lasted centuries longer but for this
+incubus, the standing disgrace of the Pagan world. Paganism never
+recognized what is most noble and glorious in man; never recognized his
+equality, his common brotherhood, his natural rights. It had no
+compunction, no remorse in depriving human beings of their highest
+privileges; its whole tendency was to degrade the soul, and to cause
+forgetfulness of immortality. Slavery thrives best when the generous
+instincts are suppressed, when egotism, sensuality, and pride are the
+dominant springs of human action.
+
+The same influences which tended to rob man of the rights which God has
+given him, and produce cruelty and heartlessness in the general
+intercourse of life, also tended to degrade the female sex. In the
+earlier age of the republic, when the people were poor, and life was
+simple and primitive, and heroism and patriotism were characteristic,
+woman was comparatively virtuous and respected; she asserted her natural
+equality, and led a life of domestic tranquillity, employed upon the
+training of her children, and inspiring her husband to noble deeds. But
+under the Emperors these virtues had fled. Woman was miserably educated,
+being taught by a slave, or some Greek chambermaid, accustomed to ribald
+conversation, and fed with idle tales and silly superstitions; she was
+regarded as more vicious in natural inclination than man, and was
+chiefly valued for household labors; she was reduced to dependence; she
+saw but little of her brothers or relatives; she was confined to her
+home as if it were a prison; she was guarded by eunuchs and female
+slaves; she was given in marriage without her consent; she could be
+easily divorced; she was valued only as a domestic servant, or as an
+animal to prevent the extinction of families; she was regarded as the
+inferior of her husband, to whom she was a victim, a toy, or a slave.
+Love after marriage was not frequent, since woman did not shine in the
+virtues by which love is kept alive. She became timorous or frivolous,
+without dignity or public esteem; her happiness was in extravagant
+attire, in elaborate hair-dressings, in rings and bracelets, in a
+retinue of servants, in gilded apartments, in luxurious couches, in
+voluptuous dances, in exciting banquets, in demoralizing spectacles, in
+frivolous gossip, in inglorious idleness. If virtuous, it was not so
+much from principle as from fear. Hence she resorted to all sorts of
+arts to deceive her husband; her genius was sharpened by perpetual
+devices, and cunning was her great resource. She cultivated no lofty
+friendships; she engaged in no philanthropic mission; she cherished no
+ennobling sentiments; she kindled no chivalrous admiration. Her
+amusements were frivolous, her taste vitiated, her education neglected,
+her rights violated, her sympathy despised, her aspirations scorned.
+And here I do not allude to great and infamous examples that history has
+handed down in the sober pages of Suetonius and Tacitus, or that
+unblushing depravity which stands out in the bitter satires of those
+times; I speak not of the adultery, the poisoning, the infanticide, the
+debauchery, the cruelty of which history accuses the Messalinas and
+Agrippinas of imperial Rome; I allude not to the orgies of the Palatine
+Hill, or the abominations which are inferred from the paintings of
+Pompeii,--I mean the general frivolity and extravagance and
+demoralization of the women of the Roman empire. Marriage was considered
+inexpedient unless large dowries were brought to the husband. Numerous
+were the efforts of Emperors to promote honorable marriages, but the
+relation was shunned. Courtesans usurped the privileges of wives, and
+with unblushing effrontery. A man was derided who contemplated
+matrimony, for there was but little confidence in female virtue or
+capacity, and woman lost all her fascination when age had destroyed her
+beauty; even her very virtues were distasteful to her self-indulgent
+husband. When, as sometimes happened, the wife gained the ascendency by
+her charms, she was tyrannical; her relatives incited her to despoil her
+husband; she lived amid incessant broils; she had no care for the
+future, and exceeded man in prodigality. "The government of her house is
+no more merciful," says Juvenal, "than the court of a Sicilian tyrant."
+In order to render herself attractive, she exhausted all the arts of
+cosmetics and elaborate hair-dressing; she delighted in magical
+incantations and love-potions. In the bitter satire of Juvenal we get an
+impression most melancholy and loathsome:--
+
+     "'T were long to tell what philters they provide,
+     What drugs to set a son-in-law aside,--
+     Women, in judgment weak, in feeling strong,
+     By every gust of passion borne along.
+     To a fond spouse a wife no mercy shows;
+     Though warmed with equal fires, she mocks his woes,
+     And triumphs in his spoils; her wayward will
+     Defeats his bliss and turns his good to ill.
+     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 class, 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
+mass 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 institution. 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. Titus 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 Titus, 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 passion. All
+classes alike pursued them with restless eagerness. Amusements 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 Titus, 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 passion for gambling in every
+shape, we can form some idea of the effect of these amusements 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 classes 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 classes 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 appetite; 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 Titus, Caracalla, and
+Diocletian in Rome show that they were decorated with prodigal
+magnificence, and with everything that could excite the
+passions,--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 factitious 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 godless 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
+accumulation 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
+pass 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
+certitudes 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 appetite and the _ennui_ of
+realized expectation,--all of the earth, earthy; making a wreck of the
+divine image which was made for God 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
+passion 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 passion
+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 passed away. The
+barbarians were advancing to conquer and desolate; there was no power to
+resist them but enervated and timid legions, with the accumulated 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 accumulation 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 nobler
+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 chastisement
+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 gods 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. Ammianus 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.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10484 ***
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Beacon Lights of History, Volume III, by John
+Lord
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Beacon Lights of History, Volume III
+
+Author: John Lord
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2003  [eBook #10484]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME
+III***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+LORD'S LECTURES
+
+BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME III
+
+ANCIENT ACHIEVEMENTS.
+
+BY JOHN LORD, LL.D.,
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE OLD ROMAN WORLD," "MODERN EUROPE,"
+ETC., ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+GOVERNMENTS AND LAWS.
+
+GREEK AND ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.
+
+Governments and laws
+Oriental laws
+Priestly jurisprudence
+The laws of Lycurgus
+The laws of Solon
+Cleisthenes
+The Ecclesia at Athens
+Struggle between patricians and plebeians at Rome
+Tribunes of the people
+Roman citizens
+The Roman senate
+The Roman constitution
+Imperial power
+The Twelve Tables
+Roman lawyers
+Jurisprudence under emperors
+Labeo
+Capito
+Gaius
+Paulus
+Ulpian
+Justinian
+Tribonian
+Code, Pandects, and Institutes
+Roman citizenship
+Laws pertaining to marriage
+Extent of paternal power
+Transfer of property
+Contracts
+The courts
+Crimes
+Fines
+Penal statutes
+Personal rights
+Slavery
+Security of property
+Authorities
+
+
+THE FINE ARTS.
+
+ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, PAINTING.
+
+Early architecture
+Egyptian monuments
+The Temple of Karnak
+The pyramids
+Babylonian architecture
+Indian architecture
+Greek architecture
+The Doric order
+The Parthenon
+The Ionic order
+The Corinthian order
+Roman architecture
+The arch
+Vitruvius
+Greek sculpture
+Phidias
+Statue of Zeus
+Praxiteles
+Scopas
+Lysippus
+Roman sculpture
+Greek painters
+Polygnotus
+Apollodorus
+Zeuxis
+Parrhasius
+Apelles
+The decline of art
+Authorities
+
+
+ANCIENT SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.
+
+ASTRONOMY, GEOGRAPHY, ETC.
+
+Ancient astronomy
+Chaldaean astronomers
+Egyptian astronomy
+The Greek astronomers
+Thales
+Anaximenes
+Aristarchus
+Archimedes
+Hipparchus
+Ptolemy
+The Roman astronomers
+Geometry
+Euclid
+Empirical science
+Hippocrates
+Galen
+Physical science
+Geography
+Pliny
+Eratosthenes
+Authorities
+
+
+MATERIAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS.
+
+MECHANICAL AND USEFUL ARTS.
+
+Mechanical arts
+Material life in Egypt
+Domestic utensils
+Houses and furniture
+Entertainments
+Glass manufacture
+Linen fabrics
+Paper manufacture
+Leather and tanners
+Carpenters and boat-builders
+Agriculture
+Field sports
+Ornaments of dress
+Greek arts
+Roman luxuries
+Material wonders
+Great cities
+Commerce
+Roman roads
+Ancient Rome
+Architectural wonders
+Roman monuments
+Roman spectacles
+Gladiatorial shows
+Roman triumphs
+Authorities
+
+
+THE MILITARY ART.
+
+WEAPONS, ENGINES, DISCIPLINE.
+
+The tendency to violence and war
+Early wars
+Progress in the art of war
+Sesostris
+Egyptian armies
+Military weapons
+Chariots of war
+Persian armies, Cyrus
+Greek warfare
+Spartan phalanx
+Alexander the Great
+Roman armies
+Hardships of Roman soldiers
+Military discipline
+The Roman legion
+Importance of the infantry
+The cavalry
+Military engines
+Ancient fortifications
+Military officers
+The praetorian cohort
+Roman camps
+Consolidation of Roman power
+Authorities
+
+
+CICERO.
+
+ROMAN LITERATURE.
+
+Condition of Roman society when Cicero was born
+His education and precocity
+He adopts the profession of the law
+His popularity as an orator
+Elected Quaestor; his Aedileship
+Prosecution of Verres
+His letters to Atticus; his vanity
+His Praetorship; declines a province
+His Consulship; conspiracy of Catiline
+Banishment of Cicero: his weakness; his recall
+His law practice; his eloquence
+His provincial government
+His return to Rome
+His fears in view of the rivalry between Caesar and Pompey
+Sides with Pompey
+Death of Tullia and divorce of Terentia
+Second marriage of Cicero
+Literary labors: his philosophical writings
+His detestation of Imperialism
+His philippics against Antony
+His proscription, flight, and death
+His great services
+Character of his eloquence
+His artistic excellence of style
+His learning and attainments; his character
+His immortal legacy
+Authorities
+
+
+CLEOPATRA.
+
+THE WOMAN OF PAGANISM.
+
+Why Cleopatra represents the woman of Paganism
+Glory of Ancient Rome
+Paganism recognizes the body rather than the soul
+Ancestors of Cleopatra
+The wonders of Alexandria
+Cleopatra of Greek origin
+The mysteries of Ancient Egypt
+Early beauty and accomplishments of Cleopatra
+Her attractions to Caesar
+Her residence in Rome
+Her first acquaintance with Antony
+The style of her beauty
+Her character
+Character of Antony
+Antony and Cleopatra in Cilicia
+Magnificence of Cleopatra
+Infatuation of Antony
+Motives of Cleopatra
+Antony's gifts to Cleopatra
+Indignation of the Romans
+Antony gives up his Parthian expedition
+Returns to Alexandria
+Contest with Octavius
+Battle of Actium
+Wisdom of Octavius
+Death of Antony
+Subsequent conduct of Cleopatra
+Nature of her love for Antony
+Immense sacrifices of Antony
+Tragic fate of Cleopatra
+Frequency of suicide at Rome
+Immorality no bar to social position in Greece and Rome
+Dulness of home in Pagan antiquity
+Drudgeries of women
+Influence of women on men
+Paganism never recognized the equality of women with men
+It denied to them education
+Consequent degradation of women
+Paganism without religious consolation
+Did not recognize the value of the soul
+And thus took no cognizance of the higher aspirations of man
+The revenge of woman under degradation
+Women, under Paganism, took no interest in what elevates society
+Men, therefore, fled to public amusements
+No true society under Paganism
+Society only created by Christianity
+
+
+PAGAN SOCIETY.
+
+GLORY AND SHAME.
+
+Glories of the ancient civilization
+A splendid external deception
+Moral evils
+Imperial despotism
+Prostration of liberties
+Some good emperors
+Disproportionate fortunes
+Luxurious living
+General extravagance
+Pride and insolence of the aristocracy
+Gibbon's description of the nobles
+The plebeian class
+Hopelessness and disgrace of poverty
+Popular superstitions
+The slaves
+The curse of slavery
+Degradation of the female sex
+Bitter satires of Juvenal
+Games and festivals
+Gladiatorial shows
+General abandonment to pleasure
+The baths
+General craze for money-making
+Universal corruption
+Saint Paul's estimate of Roman vices
+Decline and ruin a logical necessity
+The Sibylline prophecy
+Authorities
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+VOLUME III.
+
+Cleopatra Tests the Poison which She Intends for Her
+Own Destruction on Her Slaves.... _Frontispiece_
+_After the painting by Alexander Cabanel_.
+
+Justinian Orders the Compilation of the Pandects
+_After the painting by Benjamin Constant_.
+
+The Temple of Karnak
+_After a photograph_.
+
+The Laocoön
+_After the photograph from the statue in the Vatican, Rome_.
+
+The Death of Archimedes
+_After the painting by E. Vimont_.
+
+Race of Roman Chariots
+_After the painting by V. Checa_.
+
+Sale of Slaves in a Roman Camp
+_After the painting by R. Coghe_.
+
+Marcus Tullius Cicero
+_From the bust in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence_.
+
+Cleopatra Obtains an Interview with Caesar
+_After the painting by J.L. Gerome_.
+
+Death of Cleopatra
+_After the painting by John Collier_.
+
+A Roman Bacchanal
+_After the painting by W. Kotarbinski_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+GOVERNMENTS AND LAWS.
+
+
+GREEK AND ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.
+
+624 B.C.-550 A.D.
+
+
+There is not much in ancient governments and laws to interest us, except
+such as were in harmony with natural justice, and were designed for the
+welfare of all classes in the State. A jurisprudence founded on the
+edicts of absolute kings, or on the regulations of a priestly caste, is
+necessarily partial, and may be unenlightened. But those laws which are
+gradually enacted for the interests of the whole body of the
+people,--for the rich and poor, the powerful and feeble alike,--have
+generally been the result of great and diverse experiences, running
+through centuries, the work of wise men under constitutional forms of
+government. The jurisprudence of nations based on equity is a growth or
+development according to public wants and necessities, especially in
+countries having popular liberty and rights, as in England and the
+United States.
+
+We do not find in the history of ancient nations such a jurisprudence,
+except in the free States of Greece and among the Romans, who had a
+natural genius or aptitude for government, and where the people had a
+powerful influence in legislation, until even the name of liberty was
+not invoked.
+
+Among the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians the only laws were the
+edicts of kings or the regulations of priests, mostly made with a view
+of cementing their own power, except those that were dictated by
+benevolence or the pressing needs of the people, who were ground down
+and oppressed, and protected only as slaves were once protected in the
+Southern States of America. Wise and good monarchs doubtless issued
+decrees for the benefit of all classes, such as conscience or knowledge
+dictated, whenever they felt their great responsibilities, as in some of
+the absolute monarchies of Europe; but they never issued their decrees
+at the suggestions or demands of those classes for whom the laws were
+made. The voice of the people was ignored, except so far as it moved the
+pity or appealed to the hearts and consciences of their rulers; the
+people had, and claimed, no _rights_. The only men to whom rulers
+listened, or by whom they were controlled, were those whom they chose as
+counsellors and ministers, who were supposed to advise with a view to
+the sovereign's benefit, and that of the empire generally.
+
+The same may be said in general of other Oriental monarchies,
+especially when embarked in aggressive wars, where the will of the
+monarch was supreme and unresisted, as in Persia. In India and China the
+government was not so absolute, since it was checked by feudatory
+princes, almost independent like the feudal barons and dukes of
+mediaeval Europe.
+
+Nor was there probably among Oriental nations any elaborate codification
+of the decrees and laws as in Greece and Rome, except by the priests for
+their ritual service, like that which marked the jurisprudence of the
+Israelites. There were laws against murder, theft, adultery, and other
+offences, since society cannot exist anywhere without such laws; but
+there was no complicated jurisprudence produced by the friction of
+competing classes striving for justice and right, or even for the
+interests of contending parties. We do not look to Egypt or to China for
+wise punishment of ordinary crimes; but we do look to Greece and Rome,
+and to Rome especially, for a legislation which shall balance the
+complicated relations of society on principles of enlightened reason.
+Moreover, those great popular rights which we now most zealously defend
+have generally been extorted in the strife of classes and parties,
+sometimes from kings, and sometimes from princes and nobles. Where there
+has been no opposition to absolutism these rights have not been secured;
+but whenever and wherever the people have been a power they have
+imperiously made their wants known, and so far as they have been
+reasonable they have been finally secured,--perhaps after angry
+expostulations and, disputations.
+
+Now, it is this kind of legislation which is remarkable in the history
+of Greece and Rome, secured by a combination of the people against the
+ruling classes in the interests of justice and the common welfare, and
+finally endorsed and upheld even by monarchs themselves. It is from this
+legislation that modern nations have learned wisdom; for a permanent law
+in a free country may be the result of a hundred years of discussion or
+contention,--a compromise of parties, a lesson in human experience. As
+the laws of Greece and Rome alone among the ancients are rich in moral
+wisdom and adapted more or less to all nations and ages in the struggle
+for equal rights and wise social regulations, I shall confine myself to
+them. Besides, I aim not to give useless and curious details, but to
+show how far in general the enlightened nations of antiquity made
+attainments in those things which we call civilization, and particularly
+in that great department which concerns so nearly all human
+interests,--that of the regulation of mutual social relations; and this
+by modes and with results which have had their direct influence upon our
+modern times.
+
+When we consider the native genius of the Greeks, and their marvellous
+achievements in philosophy, literature, and art, we are surprised that
+they were so inferior to the Romans in jurisprudence,--although in the
+early days of the Roman republic a deputation of citizens was sent to
+Athens to study the laws of Solon. But neither nations nor individuals
+are great in everything. Before Solon lived, Lycurgus had given laws to
+the Spartans. This lawgiver, one of the descendants of Hercules, was
+born, according to Grote, about eight hundred and eighty years before
+Christ, and was the uncle of the reigning king. There is, however, no
+certainty as to the time when he lived; it was probably about the period
+when Carthage was founded by the Phoenicians. He instituted the Spartan
+senate, and gave an aristocratic form to the constitution. But the
+senate, composed of about thirty old men who acted in conjunction with
+the two kings, did not differ materially from the council of chiefs, or
+old men, found in other ancient Grecian States; the Spartan chiefs
+simply modified or curtailed the power of the kings. In the course of
+time the senate, with the kings included in it, became the governing
+body of the State, and this oligarchical form of government lasted
+several hundred years. We know but little of the especial laws given by
+Lycurgus. We know the distinctions of society,--citizens and helots,
+and their mutual relations,--the distribution of lands to check luxury,
+the public men, the public training of youth, the severe discipline to
+which all were subjected, the cruelty exercised towards slaves, the
+attention given to gymnastic exercises and athletic sports,--in short,
+the habits and customs of the people rather than any regular system of
+jurisprudence. Lycurgus was the trainer of a military brotherhood rather
+than a law-giver. Under his régime the citizen belonged to the State
+rather than to his family, and all the ends of the State were warlike
+rather than peaceful,--not looking to the settlement of quarrels on
+principles of equity, or a development of industrial interests, which
+are the great aims of modern legislation.
+
+The influence of the Athenian Solon on the laws which affected
+individuals is more apparent than that of the Spartan Lycurgus, the
+earliest of the Grecian legislators. But Solon had a predecessor in
+Athens itself,--Draco, who in 624 was appointed to reduce to writing the
+arbitrary decisions of the archons, thus giving a form of permanent law
+and a basis for a court of appeal. Draco's laws were extraordinarily
+severe, punishing small thefts and even laziness with death. The
+formulation of any system of justice would have, as Draco's did, a
+beneficial influence on the growth of the State; but the severity of
+these bloody laws caused them to be hated and in practice neglected,
+until Solon arose. Solon was born in Athens about 638 B.C., and
+belonged to the noblest family of the State. He was contemporary with
+Pisistratus and Thales. His father having lost his property, Solon
+applied himself to merchandise,--always a respectable calling in a
+mercantile city. He first became known as a writer of love poems; then
+came into prominence as a successful military commander of volunteer
+forces in a disastrous war; and at last he gained the confidence of his
+countrymen so completely that in a period of anarchy, distress, and
+mutiny,--the poor being so grievously oppressed by the rich that a sixth
+part of the produce of land went to the landlord,--he was chosen archon,
+with authority to revise the laws, and might have made himself king. He
+abolished the custom of selling the body of a debtor for debt, and even
+annulled debts in a state of general distress,--which did not please the
+rich, nor even the poor, since they desired a redivision of lands such
+as Lycurgus had made in Sparta. He repealed the severe laws of Draco,
+which inflicted capital punishment for so many small offences, retaining
+the extreme penalty only for murder and treason. In order further to
+promote the interests of the people, he empowered any man whatever to
+enter an action for one that was injured. He left the great offices of
+state, however, in the hands of the rich, giving the people a share in
+those which were not so important. He re-established the council of the
+Areopagus, composed of those who had been archons, and nine were
+appointed annually for the general guardianship of the laws; but he
+instituted another court or senate of four hundred citizens, for the
+cognizance of all matters before they were submitted to the higher
+court. Although the poorest and most numerous class were not eligible
+for office, they had the right of suffrage, and could vote for the
+principal officers. It would at first seem that the legislation of Solon
+gave especial privileges to the rich, but it is generally understood
+that he was the founder of the democracy of Athens. He gave the
+Athenians, not the best possible code, but the best they were capable of
+receiving. He intended to give to the people as much power as was
+strictly needed, and no more; but in a free State the people continually
+encroach on the privileges of the rich, and thus gradually the chief
+power falls into their hands.
+
+Whatever the power which Solon gave to the people, and however great
+their subsequent encroachments, it cannot be doubted that he was the
+first to lay the foundations of constitutional government,--that is, one
+in which the people took part in legislation and in the election of
+rulers. The greatest benefit which he conferred on the State was in the
+laws which gave relief to poor debtors, those which enabled people to
+protect themselves by constitutional means, and those which prohibited
+fathers from selling their daughters and sisters for slaves,--an
+abomination which had long disgraced the Athenian republic.
+
+Some of Solon's laws were of questionable utility. He prohibited the
+exportation of the fruits of the soil in Attica, with the exception of
+olive-oil alone,--a regulation difficult to be enforced in a mercantile
+State. Neither would he grant citizenship to immigrants; and he released
+sons from supporting their parents in old age if the parents had
+neglected to give them a trade. He encouraged all developments of
+national industries, knowing that the wealth of the State depended on
+them. Solon was the first Athenian legislator who granted the power of
+testamentary bequests when a man had no legitimate children. Sons
+succeeded to the property of their parents, with the obligation of
+giving a marriage dowry to their sisters. If there were no sons, the
+daughters inherited the property of their parents; but a person who had
+no children could bequeath his property to whom he pleased. Solon
+prohibited costly sacrifices at funerals; he forbade evil-speaking of
+the dead, and indeed of all persons before judges and archons; he
+pronounced a man infamous who took part in a sedition.
+
+When this enlightened and disinterested man had finished his work of
+legislation, 494 B.C., he visited Egypt and Cyprus, and devoted his
+leisure to the composition of poems. He also, it is said, when a
+prisoner in the hands of the Persians, visited Croesus, the rich king of
+Lydia, and gave to him an admonitory lesson on the vicissitudes of life.
+After a prolonged absence, Solon returned to Athens about the time of
+the usurpation of his kinsman Peisistratus (560 B.C.), who, however,
+suffered the aged legislator and patriot to go unharmed, and even
+allowed most of his laws to remain in force.
+
+The constitution and laws of Athens continued substantially for about a
+hundred years after the archonship of Solon, when the democratic party
+under Cleisthenes gained complete ascendency. Some modification of the
+laws was then made. The political franchise was extended to all free
+native Athenians. The command of the military forces was given to ten
+generals, one from each tribe, instead of being intrusted to one of the
+archons. The Ecclesia, a formal assembly of the citizens, met more
+frequently. The people were called into direct action as _dikasts_, or
+jurors; all citizens were eligible to the magistracy, even to the
+archonship; ostracism,--which virtually was exile without
+disgrace,--became a political necessity to check the ascendency of
+demagogues.
+
+Such were the main features of the constitution and jurisprudence of
+Athens when the struggle between the patricians and plebeians of Rome
+began, to which we now give our attention. It was the real beginning of
+constitutional liberty in Rome. Before this time the government was in
+the hands either of kings or aristocrats. The patricians were
+descendants of the original Latin, Sabine, and Etruscan families; the
+plebeians were the throng of common folk brought in by conquest or later
+immigration,--mostly of Latin origin. The senate was the ruling power
+after the expulsion of the kings, and senators were selected from the
+great patrician families, who controlled by their wealth and influence
+the popular elections, the army and navy, and all foreign relations.
+Consuls, the highest magistrates, who commanded the armies, were
+annually elected by the people; but for several centuries the consuls
+belonged to great families. The constitution was essentially
+aristocratic, and the aristocracy was based on wealth. Power was in the
+hands of nobles, whether their ancestors were patricians or plebeians,
+although in the early ages of the Republic they were mostly patricians
+by birth. But with the growth of Rome new families that were not
+descended from the ancient tribes became prominent,--like the Claudii,
+the Julii, and the Servilii,--and were incorporated with the nobility.
+There are very few names in Roman history before the time of Marius
+which did not belong to this noble class. The _plebs_, or common people,
+had at first no political privileges whatever, not even the right of
+suffrage, and were not allowed to marry into patrician rank. Indeed,
+they were politically and socially oppressed.
+
+The first great event which gave the plebs protection and political
+importance was the appointment of representatives called "tribunes of
+the people,"--a privilege extorted from the patricians. The tribunes had
+the right to be present at the deliberations of the senate; their
+persons were inviolable, and they had the power of veto over obnoxious
+laws. Their power continually increased, until they were finally elected
+from the senatorial body. In 421 B.C. the plebs had gained sufficient
+influence to establish the _connubium_, by which they were allowed to
+intermarry with patricians. In the same year they were admitted to the
+quaestorship, which office entitled the possessor to a seat in the
+senate. The quaestors had charge of the public money. In 336 B.C. the
+plebeians obtained the praetorship, a judicial office.
+
+In the year 286 B.C. the distinctions vanished between plebeians and
+patricians, and the term _populus_ instead of _plebs_, was applied to
+all Roman people alike. Originally the _populus_ comprised strictly
+Roman citizens, those who belonged to the original tribes, and who had
+the right of suffrage. When the plebeians obtained access to the great
+offices of the state, the senate represented the whole people as it
+formerly represented the _populus_, and the term _populus_ was enlarged
+to embrace the entire community.
+
+The senate was an august body, and was very powerful. It was both
+judicial and legislative, and for several centuries was composed of
+patricians alone. Its members always belonged to the aristocracy,
+whether of patrician or plebeian descent, and were supposed to be rich.
+Under Augustus it required one million two hundred thousand sesterces
+annually to support the senatorial dignity. The senate, the members of
+which were chosen for life, had the superintendence of matters of
+religion and foreign relations; it commanded the levies of troops; it
+regulated duties and taxes; it gave audience to ambassadors; it
+determined upon the way that war should be conducted; it decreed to what
+provinces governors should be sent; it declared martial law in the
+appointment of dictators; and it decreed triumphs to fortunate generals.
+The senators, as a badge of distinction, wore upon their tunics a broad
+purple stripe, and they had the privilege of the best seats in the
+theatres. Their decisions were laws _(leges)._ A large part of them had
+held curule offices, which entitled them to a seat in the senate for
+life. The curule officers were the consuls, the praetors, the aediles,
+the quaestors, the tribunes; so that an able senator was sure of a great
+office in the course of his life. A man could scarcely be a senator
+unless he had held a great office, nor could he often have held a great
+office unless he were a senator. Thus it would seem that the Roman
+constitution for three hundred years after the expulsion of the kings
+was essentially aristocratic. The _plebs_ had but small consideration
+till the time of the Gracchi.
+
+But after the institution of tribunes a change in the constitution
+gradually took place, so that it was neither aristocratic nor popular
+exclusively, but was composed of both elements, and was a system of
+balance of power between the various classes. The more complete the
+balance of power, the closer is the resemblance to a constitutional
+government. When one class acted as a check against another class, as
+gradually came to pass, until the subversion of liberties by successful
+generals, the senate, the magistrates, and the people in their
+assemblies shared between them the political power, but the senate had a
+preponderating influence. The judicial, the legislative, and the
+executive authority was as well defined in Roman legislation as it is in
+English or American. No person was above the authority of the laws; no
+one class could subvert the liberties and prerogatives of another
+class,--even the senate could not override the constitution. The
+consuls, elected by the centuries, presided over the senate and over the
+assemblies of the people. There was no absolute power exercised at Rome
+until the subversion of the constitution, except by dictators chosen by
+the senate in times of imminent danger. Nor could senators elect members
+of their own body; the censors alone had the right of electing from the
+ex-magistrates, and of excluding such as were unworthy. The consuls
+could remain in office but a year, and could be called to account when
+their terms of office had expired. The tribunes of the people ultimately
+could prevent a consul from convening the senate, could seize a consul
+and imprison him, and could veto an ordinance of the senate itself. The
+nobles had no exclusive privilege like the feudal aristocracy of
+mediaeval Europe, although it was their aim to secure the high
+magistracies to the members of their own body. The term _nobilitas_
+implied that some one of a man's ancestors had filled a curule
+magistracy. A patrician, long before the reforms of the Gracchi, had
+become a man of secondary importance, but the nobles were aristocrats to
+the close of the republic, and continued to secure the highest offices;
+they prevented their own extinction by admitting into their ranks those
+who distinguished themselves,--that is, exercising their influence in
+the popular elections to secure the magistracies from among themselves.
+
+The Roman constitution then, as gradually developed by the necessities
+and crises that arose, which I have not space to mention, was a
+wonderful monument of human wisdom. The nobility were very powerful from
+their wealth and influence, but the people were not ground down. There
+were no oppressive laws to reduce them to practical slavery; what rights
+they gained they retained. They constantly extorted new privileges,
+until they were sufficiently powerful to be courted by demagogues. It
+was the demagogues, generally aristocratic ones, like Catiline and
+Caesar, who subverted the liberties of the people by buying votes. But
+for nearly five hundred years not a man arose whom the Roman people
+feared, and the proud symbol "SPQR," on the standards of the armies of
+the republic, bore the name of the Roman Senate and People to the ends
+of the earth.
+
+When, however, the senate came to be made up of men whom the great
+generals selected; when the tribunes played into the hands of the very
+men they were created to oppose; when the high-priest of a people,
+originally religious, was chosen politically and without regard to moral
+or religious consideration; when aristocratic nobles left their own
+ranks to steal the few offices which the people controlled,--then the
+constitution, under which the Romans had advanced to the conquest of the
+world, became subverted, and the empire was a consolidated despotism.
+
+Under the emperors there was no constitution, since they combined in
+their own persons all the great offices of state, and controlled the
+senate, the army, the tribunals of the law, the distant provinces, the
+city itself, and regulated taxes and imposed burdens as they pleased.
+The senate lost its independence, the courts their justice, the army its
+spirit, and the people their hopes. And yet the old forms remained; the
+senate met as in the days of the Gracchi, and there were consuls and
+praetors as before.
+
+However much we may deplore the subversion of the Roman constitution and
+the absolute reign of the emperors, in which most historians see a
+political necessity, there was yet under these emperors, whether good or
+bad, the reign of law, the bequest of five hundred years' experience.
+The emperors reigned despotically, but under the forms of legislation.
+Nor did they attempt to subvert laws which did not interfere with their
+own political power. What is called jurisprudence they even improved, as
+that later imperial despot Napoleon gave a code to the nation he ruled.
+It is this science of jurisprudence, for which the Romans had a genius,
+that gives them their highest claim to be ranked among the benefactors
+of mankind. They created legal science. Its aim was justice,--equity in
+the relations between man and man. This was the pride of the Roman
+world, even under the rule of tyrants and madmen, and this has survived
+all the calamities of fifteen hundred years. The Roman laws--founded by
+the Republic, but symmetrically completed by the Empire--have more
+powerfully affected the interests of civilization than have the
+philosophy and arts of Greece. Roman jurisprudence was not perfectly
+developed until five hundred years after the Christian era, when
+Justinian consolidated it into the Code, the Pandects, and the
+Institutes. The classical jurists, like Gaius, Ulpian, and Paulus, may
+have laid the foundation, but the superstructure was raised under the
+auspices of the imperial despots.
+
+The earliest code of Roman laws was called the Twelve Tables, framed
+from the report of the commissioners sent to Athens and other Greek
+States, to collect what was most useful in their legal systems. The laws
+of the Twelve Tables were the basis of all the Roman laws, civil and
+religious. But the edicts of the praetors, who were the great equity
+judges as well as the common-law magistrates, proclaimed certain changes
+which custom and the practice of the courts had introduced; and these,
+added to the _leges populi_, or laws proposed by the consul and passed
+by the centuries, the _plebiscita_, or laws proposed by the tribunes
+and passed by the tribes, and the _senatus consulta,_ or decrees of the
+senate, gradually swelled the laws to a great number. Three thousand
+engraved plates of brass containing these various laws were deposited in
+the capitol.
+
+Subtleties and fictions were in the course of litigations introduced by
+the lawyers to defeat the written statutes, and jurisprudence became
+complicated as early as the time of Cicero. Even the opinions of eminent
+lawyers were adopted by the legal profession as authoritative, and were
+recognized by the courts. The evils of a complicated jurisprudence were
+so evident in the seventh century of the city, that Q. Mucius Scaevola,
+a great lawyer, when consul, published a scientific elaboration of the
+civil law. Cicero studied law under him, and his contemporaries, Varus
+and Aelius Gallus, wrote learned treatises, from which extracts appear
+in the Digest made under the Emperor Justinian, 528 A.D. Julius Caesar
+contemplated a complete revision of the laws, but did not live long
+enough to carry out his intentions. His legislation, so far as he
+directed his mind to it, was very just. Among other laws established by
+him was one which ordained that creditors should accept lands as payment
+for their outstanding debts, according to the value determined by
+commissioners. In his time the relative value of money had changed, and
+was greatly diminished. The most important law of Augustus, deserving of
+all praise, was that which related to the manumission of slaves; but he
+did not interfere with the social relations of the people after he had
+deprived them of political liberty. He once attempted, by his _Lex
+Julia_, to counteract the custom which then prevailed, of abstaining
+from legal marriage and substituting concubinage instead, by which the
+free population declined; but this attempt to improve the morals of the
+people met with such opposition from the tribes and centuries that the
+next emperor abolished popular assemblies altogether, which Augustus had
+feared to do. The senate in the time of the emperors, composed chiefly
+of lawyers and magistrates, and entirely dependent upon them, became the
+great fountain of law. By the original constitution the people were the
+source of power, and the senate merely gave or refused its approbation
+to the laws proposed; but under the emperors the _comitia_, or popular
+assemblies, disappeared, and the senate passed decrees which had the
+force of laws, subject to the veto of the Emperor. It was not until the
+time of Septimus Severus and Caracalla (second century A.D.) that the
+legislative action of the senate ceased, and the edicts and rescripts of
+emperors took the place of all legislation.
+
+The golden age of Roman jurisprudence was from the birth of Cicero to
+the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus, 222 A.D.; before this period
+it was an occult science, confined to praetors, pontiffs, and patrician
+lawyers. But in the latter days of the republic law became the
+fashionable study of Roman youth, and eminent masters arose. The first
+great lawyer who left behind him important works was Q. Mucius Scaevola,
+who wrote a treatise in eighteen books on the civil law. "He was," says
+Cicero, "the most eloquent of jurists and the most learned of orators."
+This work, George Long thinks, had a great influence on contemporaries
+and on subsequent jurists, who followed it as a model. It is the oldest
+work from which there are any excerpts in the Digest.
+
+Servius Sulpicius, the friend of Cicero and his fellow-student in
+oratory, surpassed his teachers Balbus and Gallus, and was the equal in
+reputation of the great Mucius Scaevola, the Pontifex Maximus, who said
+it was disgraceful for a patrician and a noble to be ignorant of the law
+with which he had to do. Cicero ascribes the great superiority of
+Servius as a lawyer to the study of philosophy, which disciplined and
+developed his mind, and enabled him to deduce his conclusions from his
+premises with logical precision. He left behind him one hundred and
+eighty treatises, and had numerous pupils, among whom A. Ofilius and
+Alfenus Varus, Cato, Julius Caesar, Antony, and Cicero were great
+lawyers. Labeo, in the time of Augustus, wrote four hundred books on
+jurisprudence, spending six months in the year in giving instruction to
+his pupils and in answering legal questions, and the other six months in
+the country in writing books. Like all the great Roman jurists, he was
+versed in literature and philosophy, and so devoted to his profession
+that he refused political office. His rival Capito was equally learned
+in all departments of the law, and left behind him as many treatises as
+Labeo. These two jurists were the founders of celebrated schools, like
+the ancient philosophers, and each had distinguished followers. Gaius,
+who flourished in the time of the Antonines, was a great legal
+authority; and the recent discovery of his Institutes has revealed the
+least mutilated fragment of Roman jurisprudence which exists, and one of
+the most valuable, which sheds great light on ancient Roman law; it was
+found in the library of Verona. No Roman jurist had a higher reputation
+than Papinian, who was praefectus praetorio under Septimius Severus (193
+A.D.),--an office which made him second only to the Emperor, a sort of
+grand vizier, whose power extended over all departments of the State; he
+was beheaded by Caracalla. The great commentator Cujacius declares that
+he was the first of all lawyers who have been, or who are to be; that no
+one ever surpassed him in legal knowledge, and no one will ever equal
+him. Paulus was his contemporary, and held the same office as Papinian.
+He was the most fertile of Roman law-writers, and there is more taken
+from him in Justinian's Digest than from any other jurist, except
+Ulpian. There are two thousand and eighty-three excerpts from this
+writer,--one sixth of the whole Digest. No legal writer, ancient or
+modern, has handled so many subjects. In perspicuity he is said to be
+inferior to Ulpian, one of the most famous of jurists, who was his
+contemporary. Ulpian has also exercised a great influence on modern
+jurisprudence from the copious extracts of his writings in the Digest.
+He was the chief adviser of Alexander Severus, and like Paulus was
+praefectus praetorio. The number of excerpts in the Digest from him is
+said to be two thousand four hundred and sixty-two, and they form a
+third part of it. Some fragments of his writings remain. The last of the
+great civilians associated with Gaius, Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian, as
+oracles of jurisprudence, was Modestinus, who was a pupil of Ulpian. He
+wrote both in Greek and Latin. There are three hundred and forty-five
+excerpts in the Digest from his writings, the titles of which show the
+extent and variety of his labors.
+
+These eminent lawyers shed great glory on the Roman civilization. In the
+earliest times men sought distinction on the fields of battle, but in
+the latter days of the republic honor was conferred for forensic
+ability. The first pleaders of Rome were not jurisconsults, but
+aristocratic "patrons," who looked after their "clients,"--men of lower
+social grade, who in return for protection and assistance rendered
+service, sometimes political by voting, sometimes pecuniary, sometimes
+military. But when law became complicated, a class of men arose to
+interpret it. These men were held in great honor, and reached by their
+services the highest offices,--like Cicero and Hortensius. No
+remuneration was given originally for forensic pleading beyond the
+services which the client gave to a patron, but gradually the practice
+of the law became lucrative. Hortensius, as well as Cicero, gained an
+immense fortune; he had several villas, a gallery of paintings, a large
+stock of wines, parks, fish-ponds, and aviaries. Cicero had villas in
+all parts of Italy, a house on the Palatine with columns of Numidian
+marble, and a fortune of twenty millions of sesterces, equal to eight
+hundred thousand dollars. Most of the great statesmen of Rome in the
+time of Cicero were either lawyers or generals. Crassus, Pompey, P.
+Sextus, M. Marcellus, P. Clodius, Asinius Pollio, C. Cicero, M.
+Antonius, Julius Caesar, Caelius, Brutus, Catullus, were all celebrated
+for their forensic efforts. Candidates for the bar studied four years
+under a distinguished jurist, and were required to pass a rigorous
+examination. The judges were chosen from members of the bar, as well as
+in later times the senators. The great lawyers were not only learned in
+the law, but possessed great accomplishments. Varro was a lawyer, and
+was the most learned man that Rome ever produced. But under the emperors
+the lawyers were chiefly distinguished for their legal attainments, like
+Paulus and Ulpian.
+
+During this golden age of Roman jurisprudence many commentaries were
+written on the Twelve Tables, the Perpetual Edict, the Laws of the
+People, and the Decrees of the senate, as well as a vast mass of
+treatises on every department of the law, most of which have perished.
+The Institutes of Gaius, already mentioned, are the most valuable that
+remain, and have thrown great light on some important branches
+previously involved in obscurity. Their use in explaining the Institutes
+of Justinian is spoken of very highly by Mackenzie, since the latter are
+mainly founded on the long-lost work of Gaius. The great lawyers who
+flourished from Trajan to Alexander Severus, like Gaius, Ulpian, Paulus,
+Papinian, and Modestinus, had no successors who can be compared with
+them, and their works became standard authorities in the courts of law.
+
+After the death of Alexander Severus, 235 A.D., no great accession was
+made to Roman law until Theodosius II., 438 A.D., caused the
+constitutions, from Constantine to his own time, to be collected and
+arranged in sixteen books. This was called the Theodosian Code, which
+in the West was held in high esteem. It was very influential among the
+Germanic nations, serving as the chief basis of their early legislation;
+it also paved the way for the more complete codification that followed
+in the Justinian Code, which superseded it.
+
+To Justinian belongs the immortal glory of reforming the jurisprudence
+of the Romans. "In the space of ten centuries," says Gibbon, "the
+infinite variety of laws and legal opinions had filled many thousand
+volumes, which no fortune could purchase, and no capacity could digest.
+Books could not easily be found, and the judges, poor in the midst of
+riches, were reduced to the exercise of their illiterate discretion."
+The emperors had very early begun to issue ordinances, under the
+authority of the various offices gathered into their hands; and these,
+together with the answers to appeals from the lower courts made to the
+emperors directly, or to the sort of supreme court which they
+established, were called _imperial constitutions_ and _rescripts_.
+Justinian determined to unite in one body all the rules of law, whatever
+may have been their origin; and in the year 528 appointed ten
+jurisconsults, among whom was the celebrated Tribonian, to select and
+arrange the imperial constitutions and rescripts, leaving out what was
+obsolete or useless or contradictory, and to make such alterations as
+the circumstances required. This was called the _Code_, divided into
+twelve books, and comprising the constitutions from Hadrian to
+Justinian. It was published in fourteen months after it was undertaken.
+
+Justinian thereupon authorized Tribonian, then quaestor, _vir magnificus
+magisteria dignitate inter agentes decoratus,_--"for great titles were
+now given to the officers of the crown,"--to prepare, with the
+assistance of sixteen associates, a collection of extracts from the
+writings of the most eminent jurists, so as to form a body of law for
+the government of the empire, with power to select and omit and alter;
+and this immense work was done in three years, and published under the
+title of Digest, or Pandects. Says Lord Mackenzie:
+
+"All the judicial learning of former times was laid under contribution
+by Tribonian and his colleagues. Selections from the works of
+thirty-nine of the ablest lawyers, scattered over two thousand separate
+treatises, were collected in one volume; and care was taken to inform
+posterity that three millions of lines were abridged and reduced in
+these extracts to the modest number of one hundred and fifty thousand.
+Among the selected jurists only three names belonged to the age of the
+republic,--the civilians who flourished under the first emperors are
+seldom appealed to; so that most of the writers whose works have
+contributed to the Pandects lived within a period of one hundred years.
+More than a third of the whole Pandects is from Ulpian, and next to him
+the principal writers are Paulus, Papinian, Salvius Julianus, Pomponius,
+Q. Cervidius Scaevola, and Gaius. Though the variety of subjects is
+immense, the Digest has no claims to scientific arrangement. It is a
+vast cyclopedia of heterogeneous law badly arranged; everything is
+there, but everything is not in its proper place."
+
+Neither the Digest nor the Code was adapted to elementary instruction;
+it was therefore necessary to prepare a treatise on the principles of
+Roman law. This was intrusted to Tribonian and two professors,
+Theophilus and Dorotheus. It is probable that Tribonian merely
+superintended the work, which was founded chiefly on the Institutes of
+Gaius, divided into four books. It has been universally admired for its
+method and elegant precision. It was intended merely as an introduction
+to the Pandects and the Code, and was entitled the Institutes.
+
+The _Novels_, or _New Constitutions, of Justinian_ were subsequently
+published, being the new ordinances of the Emperor and the changes he
+thought proper to make, and were therefore of high authority. The Code,
+Pandects, Institutes, and Novels of Justinian comprise the Roman law as
+received in Europe, in the form given by the school of Bologna, and is
+called the "Corpus Juris Civilis." Savigny says:--
+
+"It was in that form that the Roman law became the common law of Europe;
+and when, four centuries later, other sources came to be added to it,
+the _Corpus Juris_ of the school of Bologna had been so universally
+received, and so long established as a basis of practice, that the new
+discoveries remained in the domain of science, and served only for the
+theory of the law. For the same reason, the Ante-Justinian law is
+excluded from practice."
+
+After Justinian the old texts were left to moulder as useless though
+venerable, and they have nearly all disappeared. The Code, the Pandects,
+and the Institutes were declared to be the only legitimate authority,
+and alone were admitted to the tribunals or taught in the schools. The
+rescripts of the early emperors recognized too many popular rights to
+suit the despotic character of Justinian; and the older jurists, like
+the Scaevolas, Sulpicius, and Labeo, were distasteful from their
+sympathy with free institutions. Different opinions have been expressed
+by the jurisconsults as to the merits of the Justinian collection. By
+some it is regarded as a vast mass of legal lumber; by others, as a
+beautiful monument of human labor. After the lapse of so many centuries
+it is certain that a large portion of it is of no practical utility,
+since it is not applicable to modern wants. But again, no one doubts
+that it has exercised a great and good influence on moral and political
+science, and introduced many enlightened views concerning the
+administration of justice as well as the nature of civil government, and
+thus has modified the codes of the Teutonic nations that sprang up on
+the ruins of the old Roman world. It was used in the Greek empire until
+the fall of Constantinople. It never entirely lost authority in Italy,
+although it remained buried for centuries, till the discovery of the
+Florentine copy of the Pandects at the siege of Amalfi in 1135. Peter
+Valence, in the eleventh century, made use of it in a law-book which he
+published.
+
+With the rise of the Italian cities, the study of Roman law revived, and
+Bologna became the seat from which it spread over Europe. In the
+sixteenth century the science of theoretical law passed from Italy to
+France, under the auspices of Francis I., when Cujas, or Cujacius,
+became the great ornament of the school of Bourges and the greatest
+commentator on Roman law until Dumoulin appeared. Grotius, in Holland,
+excited the same interest in civil law that Dumoulin did in France,
+followed by eminent professors in Leyden and the German universities. It
+was reserved for Pothier, in the middle of the eighteenth century, to
+reduce the Roman law to systematic order,--one of the most gigantic
+tasks that ever taxed the industry of man. The recent discoveries,
+especially that made by Niebuhr of the long-lost work of Gaius, have
+given a great impulse to the study of Roman law in Germany; and to this
+impulse no one has contributed so greatly as Savigny of Berlin.
+
+The great importance of the subject demands a more minute notice of the
+principles of the Roman law than the limits of this work properly allow.
+I shall therefore endeavor to abridge what has been written by eminent
+authorities, taking as a basis the late work of Lord Mackenzie and the
+learned and interesting essay of Professor Maine.
+
+The Institutes of Justinian began with the law of persons, recognizing
+the distinction of ranks. All persons are capable of enjoying civil
+rights, but not all in the same degree. Greater privileges are allowed
+to men than to women, to freemen than to slaves, to fathers than
+to children.
+
+In the eye of the law all Roman citizens were equal wherever they lived,
+whether in the capital or the provinces. Citizenship embraced both
+political and civil rights. Political rights had reference to the right
+of voting in the comitia; but this was not considered the essence of
+citizenship, which was the enjoyment of the _connubium_, and
+_commercium_. By the former the citizen could contract a valid marriage
+and acquire the rights resulting from it, particularly the paternal
+power; by the latter he could acquire and dispose of property.
+Citizenship was acquired by birth and by manumission; it was lost when a
+Roman became a prisoner of war, or had been exiled for crime, or became
+a citizen of another State. An unsullied reputation was required by law
+for a citizen to exercise his rights to their full extent.
+
+The Roman jurists acknowledged all persons originally free by natural
+law; and while they recognized slavery, they ascribed the power of
+masters entirely to the law and custom of nations. Persons taken in war
+were considered at the absolute control of their captors, and were
+therefore, _de facto_, slaves; the children of a female slave followed
+the condition of their mother, and belonged to her master. But masters
+could manumit their slaves, who thus became Roman citizens with some
+restrictions. After the emancipation of a slave, he was bound to render
+certain services to his former master as patron, and if the freedman
+died intestate his property reverted to his patron.
+
+Marriage was contracted by the simple consent of the parties, though in
+early times equality of condition was required. The _lex Canuleia_,
+A.U.C. 309, authorized connubium between patricians and plebeians, and
+the _lex Julia_, A.U.C. 757, allowed it between freedmen and freeborn.
+By the _conventio in manum_, a wife passed out of her family into that
+of her husband, who acquired all her property; without it, the woman
+remained in the power of her father, and retained the free disposition
+of her property. Polygamy was not permitted; and relationship within
+certain degrees rendered the parties incapable of contracting marriage.
+(These rules as to forbidden degrees have been substantially adopted in
+England.) Celibacy was discouraged. Concubinage was allowed, if a man
+had not a wife, and provided the concubine was not the wife of another
+man; this heathenish custom was abrogated by Justinian. The wife was
+entitled to protection and support from her husband, and she retained
+her property independent of him. On her marriage the father gave his
+daughter a dowry in proportion to his means, the management of which,
+with its usufruct during marriage, belonged to the husband; but he could
+not alienate real estate without the wife's consent, and on the
+dissolution of marriage the _dos_ reverted to the wife. Divorce existed
+in all ages at Rome, and was very common at the beginning of the empire;
+to check its prevalence, laws were passed inflicting severe penalties on
+those whose bad conduct led to it. Every man, whether married or not,
+could adopt children under certain restrictions, and they passed
+entirely under paternal power. But the marriage relation among the
+Romans did not accord after all with those principles of justice which
+we see in other parts of their legislative code. The Roman husband, like
+the father, was a tyrant. The facility of divorce destroyed mutual
+confidence, and inflamed every trifling dispute; for a word or a
+message or a letter or the mandate of a freedman was quite sufficient to
+secure a separation. It was not until Christianity became the religion
+of the empire that divorce could not be easily effected without a just
+cause. This facility of divorce was a great stigma on the Roman laws,
+and the degradation of woman was the principal consequence. But woman
+never was honored in any Pagan land, although her condition at Rome was
+better than it was at Athens. She always was regarded as a possession
+rather than as a person; her virtue was mistrusted, and her aspirations
+were scorned; she was hampered and guarded more like a slave than the
+equal companion of man. But the progress of legislation, as a whole, was
+in her favor, and she continued to gain new privileges until the fall of
+the empire. The Roman Catholic Church regards marriage as one of the
+sacraments, and through all the Middle Ages and down to our own day the
+great authority of the Church has been one of the strongest supports of
+that institution, as necessary to Christianity as to civilization. We
+Americans have improved on the morality of Jesus, of the early and later
+Church, and of the great nations of modern Europe; and in many of our
+States persons are allowed to slip out of the marriage tie about as
+easily as they get into it.
+
+Nothing is more remarkable in the Roman laws than the extent of
+paternal power. It was unjust, and bears the image of a barbarous age.
+Moreover, it seems to have been coeval with the foundation of the city.
+A father could chastise his children by stripes, by imprisonment, by
+exile, by sending them to the country with chains on their feet. He was
+even armed with the power of life and death. "Neither age nor rank,"
+says Gibbon, "nor the consular office, could exempt the most illustrious
+citizen from the bonds of filial subjection. Without fear, though not
+without danger of abuse, the Roman legislators had reposed unbounded
+confidence in the sentiments of paternal love, and the oppression was
+tempered by the assurance that each generation must succeed in its turn
+to the awful dignity of parent and master." By an express law of the
+Twelve Tables a father could sell his children as slaves. But the abuse
+of paternal power was checked in the republic by the censors, and
+afterward by emperors. Alexander Severus limited the right of the father
+to simple correction, and Constantine declared the father who should
+kill his son to be guilty of murder. The rigor of parents in reference
+to the disposition of the property of children was also gradually
+relaxed. Under Augustus, the son could keep absolute possession of what
+he had acquired in war; under Constantine, he could retain any property
+acquired in the civil service, and all property inherited from the
+mother could also be retained. In later times, a father could not give
+his son or daughter to another by adoption without their consent. Thus
+this _patria potestas_ was gradually relaxed as civilization advanced,
+though it remained a peculiarity of Roman law to the latest times, and
+was severer than is ever seen in the modern world. Fathers were bound to
+maintain their children when they had no separate means to supply their
+wants, and children were also bound to maintain their parents if in
+want. These reciprocal duties, creditable to the Roman lawgivers, are
+recognized in the French Code, but not in the English, which also
+recognizes the right of a father to bequeath his whole estate to
+strangers,--a thing which Roman fathers had not power to do. The age
+when children attained majority among the Romans was twenty-five years.
+Women were condemned to the perpetual tutelage of parents, husbands, or
+guardians, as it was supposed they never could attain to the age of
+reason and experience. The relation of guardian and ward was strictly
+observed by the Romans. They made a distinction between the right to
+govern a person and the right to manage his estate, although the tutor
+or guardian could do both. If the pupil was an infant, the tutor could
+act without the intervention of the pupil; if the pupil was above seven
+years of age, he was considered to have an imperfect will. The youth
+ceased to be a pupil, if a boy, at fourteen; if a girl, at twelve. The
+tutor managed the estate of the pupil, but was liable for loss
+occasioned by bad management. He could sell movable property when
+expedient, but not real estate, without judicial authority. The tutor
+named by the father was preferred to all others.
+
+The Institutes of Justinian pass from persons to things, or the law
+relating to real rights; in other words, that which pertains to
+property. Some things common to all, like air, light, the ocean, and
+things sacred, like temples and churches, are not classed as property.
+
+Two things were required for the transfer of property, for it is the
+essence of property that the owner of a thing should have the right to
+transfer it,--first, the consent of the owner to transfer the thing upon
+some just ground; and secondly, the actual delivery of the thing to the
+person who is to acquire it. Movables were presumed to be the property
+of the possessors, until positive evidence was produced to the contrary.
+A prescriptive title to movables was acquired by possession for one
+year, and to immovables by possession for two years. Undisturbed
+possession for thirty years constituted in general a valid title.
+
+When a Roman died, his heirs succeeded to all his property by hereditary
+right. If he left no will, his estate devolved upon his relatives in a
+certain order prescribed by law. The power of making a testament only
+belonged to citizens above puberty. Children under the paternal power
+could not make a will. Males above fourteen and females above twelve,
+when not under power, could make wills without the authority of their
+guardian; but pupils, lunatics, prisoners of war, criminals, and various
+other persons were incapable of making a testament. The testator could
+divide his property among his heirs in such proportions as he saw fit;
+but if there was no distribution, all the heirs participated equally. A
+man could disinherit either of his children by declaring his intentions
+in his will, but only for grave reasons,--such as grievously injuring
+his person or character or feelings, or attempting his life. No will was
+effectual unless one or more persons were appointed heirs to represent
+the deceased. Wills were required to be signed by the testator, or some
+person for him, in the presence of seven witnesses who were Roman
+citizens. If a will was made by a parent for distributing his property
+solely among his children, no witnesses were required; and the ordinary
+formalities were dispensed with among soldiers in actual service, and
+during the prevalence of pestilence. The testament was opened in the
+presence of the witnesses, or a majority of them; and after they had
+acknowledged their seals a copy was made, and the original was deposited
+in the public archives.
+
+According to the Twelve Tables, the powers of a testator in disposing
+of his property were unlimited; but in process of time, laws were
+enacted to restrain immoderate or unnatural bequests. By the Falcidian
+law, in the time of Augustus, no one could leave in legacies more than
+three fourths of his estate, so that the heirs could inherit at least
+one fourth. Again, a law was passed by which the descendants were
+entitled to one third of the succession, and to one half if there were
+more than four. In France, if a man die leaving one lawful child, he can
+dispose of only half his estate by will; if he leaves two children, he
+can dispose only of one third; if he leaves three or more children, then
+he can dispose by will of only one fourth of his estate. In England, a
+man can disinherit both his wife and children. These, and many other
+matters,--bequests in trust, succession of men dying intestate, heirs at
+law, etc.,--were regulated by the Romans in ways on which our modern
+legislators have improved little or none.
+
+In the matter of contracts the Roman law was especially comprehensive,
+and the laws of France and Scotland are substantially based upon the
+Roman system. The Institutes of Gaius and Justinian distinguish four
+sorts of obligations,--_aut re, aut verbis, aut literis, aut consensu_.
+Gibbon, in his learned chapter, prefers to consider the specific
+obligations of men to each other under promises, benefits, and
+injuries. Lord Mackenzie treats the subject in the order of the
+Institutes:--
+
+"Obligations contracted _re_--by the intervention of _things_--are
+called by the moderns real contracts, because they are not perfected
+till something has passed from one party to another. Of this description
+are the contracts of loan, deposit, and pledge,--security for
+indebtedness. Till the subject is actually lent, deposited, or pledged,
+it does not form the special contract of loan, deposit, or pledge."
+
+Next to the perfection of contracts by _re_,--the intervention of
+things,--were obligations contracted by _verbis_, spoken _words_, and by
+_literis_, or writings. The _verborum obligatio_ was contracted by
+uttering certain words of formal style,--an interrogation being put by
+one party, and an answer given by the other. These stipulations were
+binding. In England all guarantees must be in writing.
+
+The _obligatio literis_ was a written acknowledgment of debt, chiefly
+employed when money was borrowed; but the creditor could not sue upon a
+note within two years from its date, without being called upon also to
+prove that the money was in fact paid to the debtor.
+
+Contracts perfected by consent, _consensu_, had reference to sale,
+hiring; partnership, and mandate, or orders to be carried out by agents.
+All contracts of sale were good without writing.
+
+Acts which caused damage to another opened a new class of cases. The
+law obliged the wrong-doer to make reparation, and this responsibility
+extended to damages arising not only from positive acts, but from
+negligence or imprudence. In cases of libel or slander, the truth of the
+allegation might be pleaded in justification. In all cases it was
+necessary to show that an injury had been committed maliciously; but if
+damage arose in the exercise of a right, as killing a slave in
+self-defence, no claim for reparation could be maintained. If any one
+exercised a profession or trade for which he was not qualified, he was
+liable to all the damage his want of skill or knowledge might
+occasion,--a provision that some of our modern laws might advantageously
+revive. When any damage was done by a slave or an animal, the owner of
+the same was liable for the loss, though the mischief was done without
+his knowledge and against his will. If anything was thrown from a window
+giving on the public thoroughfare so as to injure any one by the fall,
+the occupier was bound to repair the damage, though done by a stranger.
+Legal claims might be transferred to a third person by sale, exchange,
+or donation; but to prevent speculators from purchasing debts at low
+prices, it was ordered that the assignee should not be entitled to exact
+from the debtor more than he himself had paid to acquire the debt, with
+interest,--a wise and just regulation.
+
+By the ancient constitution, the king had the prerogative of
+determining civil causes. The right then devolved on the consuls,
+afterward on the praetor, and in certain cases on the curule and
+plebeian ediles, who were charged with the internal police of the city.
+
+The praetor, a magistrate next in dignity to the consuls, acted as
+supreme judge of the civil courts, assisted by a council of
+jurisconsults to determine questions in law. At first one praetor was
+sufficient, but as the limits of the city and empire extended, he was
+joined by a colleague. After the conquest of Sicily, Sardinia, and the
+two Spains, new praetors were appointed to administer justice in the
+provinces. The praetor held his court in the comitium, wore a robe
+bordered with purple, sat in a curule chair, and was attended
+by lictors.
+
+The praetor delegated his power to three classes of judges, called
+respectively _judex_, _arbiter_, and _recuperator_. When parties were at
+issue about facts, it was the custom for the praetor to fix the question
+of law upon which the action turned, and then to remit to a delegate, or
+judge, to inquire into the facts and pronounce judgment according to
+them. In the time of Augustus there were four thousand judices, who were
+merely private citizens, generally senators or men of consideration. The
+judex was invested by the magistrate with a judicial commission for a
+single case only. After being sworn to duty, he received from the
+praetor a formula containing a summary of all the points under
+litigation, from which he was not allowed to depart. He was required not
+merely to investigate facts, but to give sentence; and as law questions
+were more or less mixed up with the case, he was allowed to consult one
+or more jurisconsults. If the case was beyond his power to decide, he
+could decline to give judgment. The arbiter, like the judex, received a
+formula from the praetor, and seemed to have more extensive power. The
+recuperators heard and determined cases, but the number appointed for
+each case was usually three or five.
+
+The _centumvirs_ constituted a permanent tribunal composed of members
+annually elected, in equal numbers, from each tribe; and this tribunal
+was presided over by the praetor, and divided into four chambers, which
+under the republic was placed under the ancient quaestors. The
+centumvirs decided questions of property, embracing a wide range of
+subjects. The Romans had no class of men like the judges of modern
+times; the superior magistrates were changed annually, and political
+duties were mixed with judicial. The evil was partially remedied by the
+institution of legal assessors, selected from the most learned
+jurisconsults. Under the empire the praetors were greatly increased;
+under Tiberius there were sixteen who administered justice, besides the
+consuls, six ediles, and ten tribunes of the people. The Emperor himself
+became the supreme judge, and he was assisted in the discharge of his
+judicial duties by a council composed of the consuls, a magistrate of
+each grade, and fifteen senators. At first, the duties of the praetorian
+prefects were purely military, but finally they discharged important
+judicial functions. The prefect of the city, in the time of the
+emperors, was a great judicial personage, who heard appeals from the
+praetors themselves.
+
+In all cases brought before the courts, the burden of proof was with the
+party asserting an affirmative fact. Proof by writing was generally
+considered most certain, but proof by witnesses was also admitted.
+Pupils, lunatics, infamous persons, interested parties, near relatives,
+and slaves could not bear evidence, nor any person who had a strong
+enmity against either party. The witnesses were required to give their
+testimony on oath. In most cases two witnesses were enough to prove a
+fact. When witnesses gave conflicting testimony, the judge regarded
+those who were most worthy of credit rather than those who were most
+numerous. In the English courts the custom used to be as with the
+Romans, of refusing testimony from those who were interested; but this
+has been removed. On the failure of regular proof, the Roman law allowed
+a party to refer the facts in a civil action to the oath of his
+adversary.
+
+Under the Roman republic there was no appeal in civil suits, but under
+the emperors a regular system was established. Under Augustus there was
+an appeal from all the magistrates to the prefect of the city, and from
+him to the praetorian prefect or even to the Emperor. In the provinces
+there was an appeal from the municipal magistrates to the governors, and
+from them to the Emperor, as Paul appealed from Festus to Caesar. Under
+Justinian no appeal was allowed from a suit which did not involve at
+least twenty pounds in gold.
+
+In regard to criminal courts among the Romans during the republic, the
+only body which had absolute power of life and death was the _comitia
+centuriata_. The senate had no jurisdiction in criminal cases, so far as
+Roman citizens were concerned. It was only in extraordinary emergencies
+that the senate, with the consuls, assumed the responsibility of
+inflicting summary punishment. Under the emperors, the senate was armed
+with the power of criminal jurisdiction; and as the senate was the tool
+of the imperator, he could crush whomsoever he pleased.
+
+As it was inconvenient, when Rome had become a very great city, to
+convene the comitia for the trial of offenders, the expedient was
+adopted of delegating the jurisdiction of the people to persons invested
+with temporary authority, called _quaestors_. These were finally
+established into regular and permanent courts, called _quaestores
+perpetui_. Every case submitted to these courts was tried by a judge and
+jury. It was the duty of the judge to preside and regulate proceedings
+according to law; and it was the duty of the jury, after hearing the
+evidence and pleadings, to decide on the guilt or innocence of the
+accused. As many as fifty persons frequently composed the jury, whose
+names were drawn out of an urn. Each party had a right to challenge a
+certain number, and the verdict was decided by a majority of votes. At
+first the judices were chosen from the senate, and afterward from the
+equestrians, and then again from both orders. But in process of time the
+quaestores perpetui gave place to imperial magistrates. The accused
+defended himself in person or by counsel.
+
+The Romans divided _crimes_ into public and private. Private crimes
+could be prosecuted only by the party injured, and were generally
+punished by pecuniary fines, as among the old Germanic nations.
+
+Of public crimes the _crimen laesae majestatis_, or treason, was
+regarded as the greatest; and this was punished with death and with
+confiscation of goods, while the memory of the offender was declared
+infamous. Greater severity could scarcely be visited on a culprit.
+Treason comprehended conspiracy against the government, assisting the
+enemies of Rome, and misconduct in the command of armies. Thus Manlius,
+in spite of his magnificent services, was hurled from the Tarpeian
+Rock, because he was convicted of an intention to seize upon the
+government. Under the empire not only any attempt on the life of the
+Emperor was treason, but disrespectful words or acts. The criminal was
+even tried after death, that his memory might become infamous; and this
+barbarous practice was perpetuated in France and Scotland as late as the
+beginning of the seventeenth century. In England men have been executed
+for treasonable words. Besides treason there were other crimes against
+the State, such as a breach of the peace, extortion on the part of
+provincial governors, embezzlement of public property, stealing sacred
+things, bribery,--most of which offences were punished by pecuniary
+penalties.
+
+But there were also crimes against individuals, which were punished with
+the death penalty. Wilful murder, poisoning, and parricide were
+capitally punished. Adultery was punished by banishment, besides a
+forfeiture of considerable property; Constantine made it a capital
+offence. Rape was punished with death and confiscation of goods, as in
+England till a late period, when transportation for life became the
+penalty. The punishments inflicted for forgery, coining base money, and
+perjury were arbitrary. Robbery, theft, patrimonial damage, and injury
+to person and property were private trespasses, and not punished by the
+State. After a lapse of twenty years without accusation, crimes were
+supposed to be extinguished. The Cornelian, Pompeian, and Julian laws
+formed the foundation of criminal jurisprudence. This however never
+attained the perfection that was seen in the Civil Code, in which the
+full maturity of Roman wisdom was reached. The emperors greatly
+increased the severity of punishments, as was probably necessary in a
+corrupt state of society. After the decemviral laws fell into disuse,
+the Romans in the days of the republic passed from extreme rigor to
+great lenity, as is observable in the transition from the Puritan régime
+to our own times in the United States. Capital punishment for several
+centuries was exceedingly rare, and was frequently prevented by
+voluntary exile. Under the empire, again, public executions were
+frequent and revolting.
+
+Fines were a common mode of punishment with the Romans, as with the
+early Germans. Imprisonment in a public jail was rare, the custom of
+bail being in general use. Although retaliation was authorized by the
+Twelve Tables for bodily injuries, it was seldom exacted, since
+pecuniary compensation was taken in lieu. Corporal punishments were
+inflicted upon slaves, but rarely upon citizens, except for military
+crimes; but Roman citizens could be sold into slavery for various
+offences, chiefly military, and criminals were often condemned to labor
+in the mines or upon public works. Banishment was common,--_aquae et
+ignis interdictio_; and this was equivalent to the deprivation of the
+necessities of life and incapacitating a person from exercising the
+rights of citizenship. Under the emperors persons were confined often on
+the rocky islands off the coast, or in a compulsory residence in a
+particular place assigned. Thus Chrysostom was sent to a dreary place on
+the banks of the Euxine, and Ovid was banished to Tomi. Death, when
+inflicted, was by hanging, scourging, and beheading; also by strangling
+in prison. Slaves were often crucified, and were compelled to carry
+their cross to the place of execution. This was the most ignominious and
+lingering of all deaths; it was abolished by Constantine, from reverence
+to the sacred symbol. Under the emperors, execution took place also by
+burning alive and exposure to wild beasts; it was thus the early
+Christians were tormented, since their offence was associated with
+treason. Persons of distinction were treated with more favor than the
+lower classes, and their punishments were less cruel and ignominious;
+thus Seneca, condemned for privity to treason, was allowed to choose his
+mode of death. The criminal laws of modern European States followed too
+often the barbarous custom of the Roman emperors until a recent date.
+Since the French Revolution the severity of the penal codes has been
+much modified.
+
+The penal statutes of Rome however, as Gibbon emphatically remarks,
+"formed a very small portion of the Code and the Pandects; and in all
+judicial proceedings the life or death of the citizen was determined
+with less caution and delay than the most ordinary question of covenant
+or inheritance." This was owing to the complicated relations of society,
+by which obligations are created or annulled, while duties to the State
+are explicit and well known, being inscribed not only on tables of
+brass, but on the conscience itself. It was natural, with the growth and
+development of commerce and dominion, that questions should arise which
+could not be ordinarily settled by ancient customs, and the practice of
+lawyers and the decisions of judges continually raised new difficulties,
+to be met only by new edicts. It is a pleasing fact to record, that
+jurisprudence became more just and enlightened as it became more
+intricate. The principles of equity were more regarded under the
+emperors than in the time of Cato. It is in the application of these
+principles that the laws of the Romans have obtained so high
+consideration; their abuse consisted in the expense of litigation, and
+the advantages which the rich thus obtained over the poor.
+
+But if delays and forms led to an expensive and vexatious administration
+of justice, these were more than compensated by the checks which a
+complicated jurisprudence gave to hasty or partial decisions. It was in
+the minuteness and precision of the forms of law, and in the foresight
+with which questions were anticipated in the various transactions of
+business, that the Romans in their civil and social relations were very
+much on a level with modern times. It would be difficult to find in the
+most enlightened of modern codes greater wisdom and foresight than
+appear in the legacy of Justinian as to all questions pertaining to the
+nature, the acquisition, the possession, the use, and the transfer of
+property. Civil obligations are most admirably defined, and all
+contracts are determined by the wisest application of the natural
+principles of justice. Nothing can be more enlightened than the laws
+which relate to leases, to sales, to partnerships, to damages, to
+pledges, to hiring of work, and to quasi-contracts. The laws pertaining
+to the succession to property, to the duties of guardians, to the rights
+of wards, to legacies, to bequests in trust, and to the general
+limitation of testamentary powers were singularly clear. The regulations
+in reference to intestate succession, and to the division of property
+among males and females, were wise and just; we find no laws of entail,
+no unequal rights, no absurd distinction between brothers, no peculiar
+privileges given to males over females, or to older sons. Particularly
+was everything pertaining to property and contracts and wills guarded
+with the most jealous care. A man was sure of possessing his own, and of
+transmitting it to his children. In the Institutes of Justinian we see
+on every page a regard to the principles of natural justice: but
+moreover we find that malicious witnesses should be punished; that
+corrupt judges should be visited with severe penalties; that libels and
+satires should subject their authors to severe chastisement; that every
+culprit should be considered innocent until his guilt was proved.
+
+No infringement on personal rights could be tolerated. A citizen was
+free to go where he pleased, to do whatsoever he would, if he did not
+trespass on the rights of another; to seek his pleasure unobstructed,
+and pursue his business without vexatious incumbrances. If he was
+injured or cheated, he was sure of redress; nor could he be easily
+defrauded with the sanction of the laws. A rigorous police guarded his
+person, his house, and his property; he was supreme and uncontrolled
+within his family. This security to property and life and personal
+rights was guaranteed by the greatest tyrants. Although political
+liberty was dead, the fullest personal liberty was enjoyed under the
+emperors, and it was under their sanction that jurisprudence in some of
+the most important departments of life reached perfection. If injustice
+was suffered it was not on account of the laws, but owing to the
+depravity of men, the venality of the rich, and the tricks of lawyers;
+the laws were wise and equal. The civil jurisprudence of the Romans
+could be copied with safety by the most enlightened of European States;
+indeed, it is already the foundation of their civil codes, especially in
+France and Germany.
+
+That there were some features in the Roman laws which we in these
+Christian times cannot indorse, and which we reprehend, cannot be
+denied. Under the republic there was not sufficient limit to paternal
+power, and the _pater familias_ was necessarily a tyrant. It was unjust
+that the father should control the property of his son, and cruel that
+he was allowed an absolute control not only over his children, but also
+his wife. Yet the limits of paternal power were more and more curtailed,
+so that under the later emperors fathers were not allowed to have more
+authority than was perhaps expedient.
+
+The recognition of slavery as a domestic institution was another blot,
+and slaves could be treated with the grossest cruelty and injustice
+without possibility of redress. But here the Romans were not sinners
+beyond all other nations, and our modern times have witnessed a
+parallel. It was not the existence of slavery, however, which was the
+greatest evil, but the facility by which slaves could be made. The laws
+pertaining to debt were severe, and were most disgraceful in dooming a
+debtor to the absolute power of a creditor. To subject men of the same
+race to slavery for trifling debts which they could not discharge, was
+the great defect of the Roman laws. But even these cruel regulations
+were modified, so that in the corrupt times of the empire there was no
+greater practical severity than was common in England as late as one
+hundred years ago. The temptations to fraud were enormous in a wicked
+state of society, and demanded a severe remedy. It is possible that our
+modern laws may show too great leniency to debtors who are not merely
+unfortunate, but dishonest. The problem is not yet solved, whether men
+should be severely handled who are guilty of reckless and unprincipled
+speculations and unscrupulous dealings, or whether they should be
+allowed immunity to prosecute their dangerous and disgraceful courses.
+
+Moreover, the penal code of the Romans in reference to breaches of trust
+or carelessness or ignorance, by which property was lost or squandered,
+may have been too severe, as is still the case in England in reference
+to hunting game on another's grounds. It was hard to doom a man to death
+who drove away his neighbor's cattle, or even entered in the night his
+neighbor's house; but severe penalties alone will keep men from crimes
+where there is a low state of virtue and religion, and general
+prosperity and contentment become impossible where there is no efficient
+protection to property. Society was never more secure and happy in
+England than when vagabonds could be arrested, and when petty larcenies
+were visited with certain retribution. Every traveller in France and
+England feels that in regard to the punishment of crime, those older
+countries, restricted as are their political privileges, are in most
+questions of secure and comfortable living vastly superior to our own.
+The Romans lost under the emperors their political rights, but gained
+protection and safety in their relations with society. Where quiet and
+industrious citizens feel safe in their homes, are protected from
+scoundrels in their dealings, have ample scope for industrial
+enterprise, and are free to choose their private pleasures, they resign
+themselves to the loss of electing their rulers without great
+unhappiness. There are greater evils in the world than the deprivation
+of the elective franchise, lofty and glorious as is this privilege. The
+arbitrary rule of the emperors was fatal to political aspirations and
+rights and the growth of a genuine manhood; yet it is but fair to note
+that the evils of political slavery were qualified and set off by the
+excellence of the civil code and the privileges of social freedom.
+
+The great practical evil connected with Roman jurisprudence was the
+intricacy and perplexity and uncertainty of the laws, together with the
+expense involved in litigation. The class of lawyers was large, and
+their gains were extortionate. Justice was not always to be found on the
+side of right. The law was uncertain as well as costly. The most learned
+counsel could be employed only by the rich, and even judges were venal,
+so that the poor did not easily find adequate redress. But all this is
+the necessary attendant on a factitious state of society, and by many is
+regarded as being quite as characteristic of modern, civilized Christian
+England and America as it was of Pagan Rome. Material civilization leads
+to an undue estimate of money; and when money purchases all that
+artificial people desire, then all classes will prostitute themselves
+for its possession, and justice, dignity, and elevation of sentiment
+will be forced to retreat,--as hermits sought a solitude when society
+had reached its lowest degradation, out of pure despair of its
+renovation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+The authorities for this chapter are very numerous. Since the Institutes
+of Gaius have been recovered, many eminent writers on Roman law have
+appeared, especially in Germany and France. Many might be cited, but for
+all ordinary purposes of historical study the work of Lord Mackenzie on
+Roman Law, together with the articles of George Long in Smith's
+Dictionary, will be found most useful. Maine's Treatise on Ancient Law
+is exceedingly interesting and valuable. Gibbon's famous chapter should
+also be read by every student. There is a fine translation of the
+Institutes of Justinian, which is quite accessible, by Dr. Harris of
+Oxford. The Code, Pandects, Institutes, and Novels are of course the
+original authority, with the long-lost Institutes of Gaius.
+
+In connection with the study of the Roman law, it would be well to read
+Sir George Bowyer's Commentaries on the Modern Civil Law. Also Irving,
+Introduction to the Study of the Civil Law; Lindley, Introduction to the
+Study of Jurisprudence; Wheaton's Elements of International Law; and
+Vattel, Le Droit des Gens.
+
+
+
+
+THE FINE ARTS.
+
+
+ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, PAINTING.
+
+500-430 B.C.
+
+
+My object in the present lecture is not a criticism of the principles
+of art so much as an enumeration of its various forms among the
+ancients, to show that in this department of civilization they reached
+remarkable perfection, and were not inferior to modern Christian nations.
+
+The first development of art among all the nations of antiquity was in
+architecture. The earliest buildings erected were houses to protect
+people from heat, cold, and the fury of the elements of Nature. At that
+remote period much more attention was given to convenience and practical
+utility than to beauty or architectural effect. The earliest houses were
+built of wood, and stone was not employed until temples and palaces
+arose. Ordinary houses were probably not much better than log-huts and
+hovels, until wealth was accumulated by private persons.
+
+The earliest monuments of enduring magnificence were the temples of
+powerful priests and the palaces of kings; and in Egypt and Assyria
+these appear earliest, as well as most other works showing civilization.
+Perhaps the first great monument which arose after the deluge of Noah
+was the Tower of Babel, built probably of brick. It was intended to be
+very lofty, but of its actual height we know nothing, nor of its style
+of architecture. Indeed, we do not know that it was ever advanced beyond
+its foundations; yet there are some grounds for supposing that it was
+ultimately finished, and became the principal temple of the Chaldaean
+metropolis.
+
+From the ruins of ancient monuments we conclude that architecture
+received its earliest development in Egypt, and that its effects were
+imposing, massive, and grand. It was chiefly directed to the erection of
+palaces and temples, the ruins of which attest grandeur and vastness.
+They were built of stone, in blocks so huge and heavy that even modern
+engineers are at loss to comprehend how they could have been transported
+and erected. All the monuments of the Pharaohs are wonders, especially
+such as appear in the ruins of Karnak,--a temple formerly designated as
+that of Jupiter Ammon. It was in the time of Sesostris, or Rameses the
+Great, the first of the Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty, that
+architecture in Egypt reached its greatest development. Then we find the
+rectangular-cut blocks of stone in parallel courses, the heavy pier, the
+cylindrical column with its bell-shaped capital, and the bold and
+massive rectangular architraves extending from pier to pier and column
+to column, surmounted by a deep covered coping or cornice.
+
+The imposing architecture of Egypt was chiefly owing to the impressive
+vastness of the public buildings. It was not produced by beauty of
+proportion or graceful embellishments; it was designed to awe the
+people, and kindle sentiments of wonder and astonishment. So far as this
+end was contemplated it was nobly reached; even to this day the
+traveller stands in admiring amazement before those monuments that were
+old three thousand years ago. No structures have been so enduring as the
+Pyramids; no ruins are more extensive and majestic than those of Thebes.
+The temple of Karnak and the palace of Rameses the Great were probably
+the most imposing ever built by man. This temple was built of blocks of
+stone seventy feet in length, on a platform one thousand feet long and
+three hundred wide, with pillars sixty feet in height. But this and
+other structures did not possess that unity of design which marked the
+Grecian temples. Alleys of colossal sphinxes formed the approach. At
+Karnak the alley was six thousand feet long, and before the main body
+of the edifice stood two obelisks commemorative of the dedication. The
+principal structures of Egyptian temples do not follow the straight
+line, but begin with pyramidal towers which flank the gateways; then
+follow, usually, a court surrounded with colonnades, subordinate
+temples, and houses for the priests. A second pylon, or pyramidal tower,
+leads to the interior and most considerable part of the temple,--a
+portico inclosed with walls, which receives light only through the
+entablature or openings in the roof. Adjoining this is the cella of the
+temple, without columns, enclosed by several walls, often divided into
+various small chambers with monolithic receptacles for idols or mummies
+or animals. The columns stand within the walls. The colonnade is not, as
+among the Greeks, an expansion of the temple; it is merely the wall with
+apertures. The walls, composed of square blocks, are perpendicular only
+on the inside, and bevelled externally, so that the thickness at the
+bottom sometimes amounts to twenty-four feet; thus the whole building
+assumes a pyramidal form, the fundamental principle of Egyptian
+architecture. The columns are more slender than the early Doric, are
+placed close together, and have bases of circular plinths; the shaft
+diminishes upward, and is ornamented with perpendicular or oblique
+furrows, but not fluted like Grecian columns. The capitals are of the
+bell form, ornamented with all kinds of foliage, and have a narrow but
+high abacus. They abound with sculptured decorations, the designs of
+which were borrowed from the vegetation of the country. The highest of
+the columns of the temple of Luxor is five and a quarter times the
+greatest diameter.
+
+But no monuments have ever excited so much curiosity and wonder as the
+Pyramids, not in consequence of any particular beauty or ingenuity in
+their construction, but because of their immense size and unknown age.
+None but sacerdotal monarchs would ever have erected them; none but a
+fanatical people would ever have toiled upon them. We do not know for
+what purpose they were raised, unless as sepulchres for kings. They are
+supposed to have been built at a remote antiquity, between two thousand
+and three thousand years before Christ. Lepsius thought that the oldest
+of these Pyramids were built more than three thousand years before
+Christ. The Pyramid of Cheops, at Memphis, covers a square whose side is
+seven hundred and sixty-eight feet, and rises into the air nearly five
+hundred feet. It is a solid mass of stone, which has suffered less from
+time than the mountains near it. Possibly it stands over an immense
+substructure, in which may yet be found the lore of ancient Egypt; it
+may even prove to be the famous labyrinth of which Herodotus speaks,
+built by the twelve kings of Egypt. According to this author, one
+hundred thousand men worked on this monument for forty years.
+
+The palaces of the kings are mere imitations of the temples, their only
+difference of architecture being that their rooms are larger and in
+greater numbers. Some think that the famous labyrinth was a collective
+palace of many rulers.
+
+Of Babylonian architecture we know little beyond what the Hebrew
+Scriptures and ancient authors tell us. But though nothing survives of
+ancient magnificence, we know that a city whose walls, according to
+Herodotus, were eighty-seven feet in thickness, three hundred and
+thirty-seven in height, and sixty miles in circumference, and in which
+were one hundred gates of brass, must have had considerable
+architectural splendor. This account of Babylon, however, is probably
+exaggerated, especially as to the height of the walls. The tower of
+Belus, the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Obelisk of Semiramis were
+probably wonderful structures, certainly in size, which is one of the
+conditions of architectural effect.
+
+The Tyrians must have carried architecture to considerable perfection,
+since the Temple of Solomon, one of the most magnificent in the ancient
+world, was probably built by artists from Tyre. It was not remarkable
+for size,--it was, indeed, very small,--but it had great splendor of
+decoration. It was of quadrangular outline, erected upon a solid
+platform of stone, and bearing a striking resemblance to the oldest
+Greek temples, like those of Aegina and Paestum. The portico of the
+Temple as rebuilt by Herod was one hundred and eighty feet high, and the
+Temple itself was entered by nine gates, thickly coated with silver and
+gold. The inner sanctuary was covered on all sides with plates of gold,
+and was dazzling to the eye. The various courts and porticos and palaces
+with which it was surrounded gave to it a very imposing effect.
+
+Architectural art in India was not so impressive and grand as in Egypt,
+and was directed chiefly to the erection of temples. Nor is it of very
+ancient date. There is no stone architecture now remaining in India,
+according to Sir James Fergusson, older than two and a half centuries
+before Christ; and this is in the form of Buddhist temples, generally
+traced to the great Asoka, who reigned from 272 B.C. to 236 B.C., and
+who established Buddhism as a state religion. There were doubtless
+magnificent buildings before his time, but they were of wood, and have
+all perished. We know, however, nothing about them.
+
+The Buddhist temples were generally excavated out of the solid rock, and
+only the façades were ornamented. These were not larger than ordinary
+modern parochial churches, and do not give the impression of
+extraordinary magnificence. Besides these rock-hewn temples in India
+there remain many examples of a kind of memorial monument called
+_stupas_, or _topes_. The earliest of these are single columns; but the
+later and more numerous are in the shape of cones or circular mounds,
+resembling domes, rarely exceeding one hundred feet in diameter. Around
+the apex of each was a balustrade, or some ornamental work, about six
+feet in diameter. These topes remind one of the Pantheon at Rome in
+general form, but were of much smaller size. They were built on a stone
+basement less than fifty feet in height, above which was the brickwork.
+In process of time they came to resemble pyramidal towers rather than
+rounded domes, and were profusely ornamented with carvings. The great
+peculiarity of all Indian architectural monuments is excessive
+ornamentation rather than beauty of proportion or grand effect.
+
+In course of time, however, Indian temples became more and more
+magnificent; and a Chinese traveller in the year 400 A.D. describes one
+in Gaudhava as four hundred and seventy feet high, decorated with every
+sort of precious substance. Its dome, as it appears in a bas-relief,
+must have rivalled that of St. Peter's at Rome; but no trace of it now
+remains. The topes of India, which were numerous, indicate that the
+Hindus were acquainted with the arch, both pointed and circular, which
+was not known to the Egyptians or the Greeks. The most important of
+these buildings, in which are preserved valuable relics, are found in
+the Punjab. They were erected about twenty years before Christ. In size,
+they are about one hundred and twenty-seven feet in diameter. Connected
+with the circular topes are found what are called _rails_, surrounding
+the topes, built in the form of rectangles, with heavy pillars. One of
+the most interesting of these was found to be two hundred and
+seventy-five feet long, having square pillars twenty-two feet in height,
+profusely carved with scenes from the life of Buddha, topped by capitals
+in the shape of elephants supporting a succession of horizontal stone
+beams, all decorated with a richness of carving unknown in any other
+country. The Amravati rail, one of the finest of the ancient monuments
+of India, is found to be one hundred and ninety-five by one hundred and
+sixty-five feet, having octagonal pillars ornamented with the most
+elaborate carvings.
+
+From an architectural point of view, the rails were surpassed by the
+_chaityas_, or temple-caves, in western India. These were cut in the
+solid rock. Some one thousand different specimens are to be found. The
+facades of these caves are perfect, generally in the form of an arch,
+executed in the rock with every variety of detail, and therefore
+imperishable without violence. The process of excavation extended
+through ten centuries from the time of Asoka; and the interiors as well
+as the façades were highly ornamented with sculptures. The temple-caves
+are seldom more than one hundred and fifty feet deep and fifty feet in
+width, and the roofs are supported by pillars like the interior of
+Gothic cathedrals, some of which are of beautiful proportions with
+elaborated capitals. Though these rock-hewn temples are no larger than
+ordinary Christian churches, they are very impressive from the richly
+decorated carvings; they were lighted from a single opening in the
+façade, sometimes in the shape of a horseshoe.
+
+Besides these chaityas, or temples, there are still more numerous
+_viharas_, or monasteries, found in India, of different dates, but none
+older than the third century before Christ. They show a central hall,
+surrounded on three sides by cells for the monks. On the fourth side is
+an open verandah; facing this is generally a shrine with an image of
+Buddha. These edifices are not imposing unless surrounded by galleries,
+as some were, supported by highly decorated pillars. The halls are
+constructed in several stories with heavy masonry, in the shape of
+pyramids adorned with the figures of men and animals. One of these halls
+in southern India had fifteen hundred cells. The most celebrated was
+the Nalanda monastery, founded in the first century by Nagarjuna, which
+accommodated ten thousand priests, and was enclosed by a wall measuring
+sixteen hundred feet by four hundred. It was to Central India what Mount
+Casino was to Italy, and Cluny was to France, in the Middle Ages,--the
+seat of learning and art.
+
+It was not until the Mohammedan conquest in India that architecture
+received a new impulse from the Saracenic influence. Then arose the
+mosques, minarets, and palaces which are a wonder for their
+magnificence, and in which are seen the influence of Greek art as well
+as that of India. There is an Oriental splendor in these palaces and
+mosques which has called out the admiration of critics, although it is
+different from those types of beauty which we are accustomed to praise.
+But these later edifices were erected in the Middle Ages, coeval with
+the cathedrals of Europe, and therefore do not properly come under the
+head of ancient art, in which the ancient Hindus, whether of Aryan or
+Turanian descent, did not particularly excel. It was in matters of
+religion and philosophy that the Hindus felt most interest, even as the
+ancient Jews thought more of theology than of art and science.
+
+Architecture, however, as the expression of genius and high
+civilization, was carried to perfection only by the Greeks, who excelled
+in so many things. It was among the ancient Dorians, who descended from
+the mountains of northern Greece eighty years after the fall of Troy,
+that architectural art worthy of the name first appeared. The Pelasgi
+erected Cyclopean structures fifteen hundred years before Christ, as
+seen in the massive walls of the Acropolis at Athens, constructed of
+huge blocks of hewn stone, and in the palaces of the princes of the
+heroic times. The lintel of the doorway of the Mycenaean treasury is
+composed of a single stone twenty-seven feet long and sixteen broad. But
+these edifices, which aimed at splendor and richness merely, were
+deficient in that simplicity and harmony which have given immortality to
+the temples of the Dorians. In this style of architecture everything was
+suitable to its object, and was grand and noble. The great thickness of
+the columns, the beautiful entablature, the ample proportion of the
+capital, the great horizontal lines of the architrave and cornice
+predominating over the vertical lines of the columns, the severity of
+geometrical forms produced for the most part by straight lines, gave an
+imposing simplicity to the Doric temple.
+
+How far the Greek architects were indebted to the Egyptian we cannot
+tell, for though columns are found amid the ruins of the Egyptian
+temples, they are of different shape from any made by the Greeks. In the
+structures of Thebes we find both the tumescent and the cylindrical
+columns, from which amalgamation might have been produced the Doric
+column. The Greeks seized on beauty wherever they found it, and improved
+upon it. The Doric column was not probably an entirely new creation, but
+shaped after models furnished by the most original of all the ancient
+nations, even the Egyptians. The Doric temples were uniform in plan. The
+columns were fluted, and were generally about six diameters in height;
+they diminished gradually upward from the base, with a slightly con
+vexed swelling; they were surmounted by capitals regularly proportioned
+according to their height. The entablature which the column supported
+was also of a certain number of diameters in height. So regular and
+perfect was the plan of the temple, that "if the dimensions of a single
+column and the proportion the entablature should bear to it were given
+to two individuals acquainted with the style, with directions to compose
+a temple, they would produce designs exactly similar in size,
+arrangement, and general proportions." The Doric order possessed a
+peculiar harmony, but taste and skill were nevertheless necessary in
+order to determine the number of diameters a column should have, and
+also the height of the entablature.
+
+The Doric was the favorite order of European Greece for one thousand
+years, and also of her colonies in Sicily and Magna Graecia. It was
+used exclusively until after the Macedonian conquest, and was chiefly
+applied to temples. The massive temples of Paestum, the colossal
+magnificence of the Sicilian ruins, and the more elegant proportions of
+the Athenian structures, like the Parthenon and Temple of Theseus, show
+the perfection of the Doric architecture. Although the general style of
+all the Doric temples is so uniform, hardly two temples were alike. The
+earlier Doric was more massive; the later was more elegant, and its
+edifices were rich in sculptured decorations. Nothing could surpass the
+beauty of a Doric temple in the time of Pericles. The stylobate, or
+general base upon which the columnar story stood, from two thirds to a
+whole diameter of a column in height, was built in three equal courses,
+which gradually receded upward and formed steps, as it were, of a grand
+platform. The column, simply set upon the stylobate, without base or
+pedestal, was from four to six diameters in height, with twenty flutes,
+having a capital of half a diameter. On this rested the entablature, two
+column-diameters in height, which was divided into architrave (lower
+mouldings), frieze (broad middle space), and cornice (upper mouldings).
+The great beauty of the temple was the portico in front,--a forest of
+columns supporting the triangular pediment, about a diameter and a half
+to the apex, making an angle at the base of about fourteen degrees.
+From the pediment projects the cornice, while in the apex and at the
+base of the flat three-cornered gable are sculptured ornaments,
+generally the figures of men or animals. The whole outline of columns
+supporting the entablature is graceful, while the variety of light and
+shade arising from the arrangement of mouldings and capitals produces a
+grand effect.
+
+The Parthenon, the most beautiful specimen of the Doric, has never been
+equalled, and it still stands august in its ruins, the glory of the old
+Acropolis and the pride of Athens. It was built of white Pentelic
+marble, and rested on a basement of limestone. It was two hundred and
+twenty-seven feet in length, one hundred and one in breadth, and
+sixty-five in height, surrounded with forty-eight fluted columns, six
+feet and two inches at the base and thirty-four feet in height, while
+within the peristyle, at either end, was an interior range of columns
+standing before the end of the cella. The frieze and the pediment were
+elaborately ornamented with reliefs and statues, and the cella, within
+and without, was adorned with the choicest sculptures of Phidias, The
+remains of the exquisite sculptures of the pediment and the frieze were
+in the early part of this century brought from Greece by Lord Elgin,
+purchased by the English government, and placed in the British Museum,
+where, preserved from further dilapidation, they stand as indisputable
+evidence of the perfection of Greek art. The grandest adornment of the
+temple was the colossal statue of Minerva in the eastern apartment of
+the cella, forty feet in height, composed of gold and ivory; the inner
+walls of the chamber were decorated with paintings, and the whole temple
+was a repository of countless treasure. But the Parthenon, so regular to
+the eye with its vertical, oblique, and horizontal lines, was curved in
+every line, with the exception of the gable,--with its entablature,
+architrave, frieze, and cornice, together with the basement, all arched
+upwards; and even the columns had a slight convexity of vertical line,
+amounting to 1/550 of the entire height of shaft, though so slightly as
+not to be perceptible. These curved lines gave to the structure a
+peculiar grace which cannot be imitated, as well as an effect
+of solidity.
+
+Nearly coeval with the Doric was the Ionic order, invented by the
+Asiatic Greeks, still more graceful, though not so imposing. The
+Acropolis is a perfect example of this order. The column is nine
+diameters in height, with a base, while the capital is more ornamented
+than the Doric. The shaft is fluted with twenty-four flutes and
+alternate fillets (flat longitudinal ridges), and the fillet is about a
+quarter the width of the flute. The pediment is flatter than that of
+the Doric order, and more elaborate. The great distinction of the Ionic
+column is a base, and a capital formed with volutes (spiral scrolls),
+the shaft also being more slender. Vitruvius, the greatest authority
+among the ancients in architecture, says that "the Greeks, in inventing
+these two kinds of columns, imitated in the one the naked simplicity and
+dignity of man, and in the other the delicacy and ornaments of woman;
+the base of the Ionic was the imitation of sandals, and the volutes of
+ringlets." The discoveries of many of the Ionic ornamentations among the
+remains of Assyrian architecture indicate the Oriental source of the
+Ionic ideas, just as the Doric style seems to have originated in Egypt.
+The artistic Greeks, however, always simplified and refined upon
+their masters.
+
+The Corinthian order exhibits a still greater refinement and elegance
+than the other two, and was introduced toward the end of the
+Peloponnesian War. Its peculiarity consists in columns with foliated
+capitals modelled after the acanthus leaf, and still greater height,
+about ten diameters, surmounted with a more ornamented entablature. Of
+this order the most famous temple in Greece was that of Minerva at
+Tegea, built by Scopas of Paros, but destroyed by fire four hundred
+years before Christ.
+
+Nothing more distinguished Greek architecture than the variety, the
+grace, and the beauty of the mouldings, generally in eccentric curves.
+The general outline of the moulding is a gracefully flowing cyma, or
+wave, concave at one end and convex at the other, like an Italic _f_,
+the concavity and convexity being exactly in the same curve, according
+to the line of beauty which Hogarth describes.
+
+The most beautiful application of Greek architecture was in the temples,
+which were very numerous and of extraordinary grandeur, long before the
+Persian War. Their entrance was always from the west or the east. They
+were built either in an oblong or round form, and were mostly adorned
+with columns. Those of an oblong form had columns either in the front
+alone, or in the eastern and western fronts, or on all the four sides.
+They generally had porticos attached to them, and were without windows,
+receiving their light from the door or from above. The friezes were
+adorned with various sculptures, as were sometimes the pediments, and no
+expense was spared upon them. The most important part of the temple was
+the cell (_cella,_ or temple proper, a square chamber), in which the
+statue of the deity was kept, generally surrounded with a balustrade. In
+front of the cella was the vestibule, and in the rear or back a chamber
+in which the treasures of the temple were kept. Names were applied to
+the temples as well as to the porticos, according to the number of
+columns in the portico at either end of the temple,--such as the
+tetrastyle (four columns in front), or hexastyle (when there were six).
+There were never more than ten columns across the front. The Parthenon
+had eight, but six was the usual number. It was the rule to have twice
+as many columns along the sides as in front. Some of the temples had
+double rows of columns on all sides, like that of Diana at Ephesus and
+of Quirinus at Rome. The distance between the columns varied from one
+diameter and a half to four diameters. About five eighths of a Doric
+temple were occupied by the cella, and three eighths by the portico.
+
+That which gives to the Greek temples so much simplicity and
+harmony,--the great elements of beauty in architecture,--is the simple
+outline in parallelogrammic and pyramidal forms, in which the lines are
+uninterrupted through their entire length. This simplicity and harmony
+are more apparent in the Doric than in any of the other orders, but
+pertain to all the Grecian temples of which we have knowledge. The Ionic
+and Corinthian, or the voluted and foliated orders, do not possess that
+severe harmony which pervades the Doric; but the more beautiful
+compositions are so consummate that they will ever be taken as models
+of study.
+
+There is now no doubt that the exteriors of the Grecian temples were
+ornamented in color,--perhaps with historical pictures, etc.,--although
+as the traces have mostly disappeared it is impossible to know the
+extent or mode of decoration. It has been thought that the mouldings
+also may have been gilded or colored, and that the background of the
+sculptures had some flat color laid on as a relief to the raised
+figures. We may be sure, however it was done, that the effect was not
+gaudy or crude, but restrained within the limits of refinement and good
+taste by the infallible artistic instinct of those masters of the
+beautiful.
+
+It is not the magnitude of the Greek temples and other works of art
+which most impresses us. It is not for this that they are important
+models; it is not for this that they are copied and reproduced in all
+the modern nations of Europe. They were generally small compared with
+the temples of Egypt, and with the vast dimensions of Roman
+amphitheatres; only three or four would compare in size with a Gothic
+cathedral,--the Parthenon, the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens, and
+the Temple of Diana at Ephesus; even the Pantheon at Rome is small,
+compared with the later monuments of the Caesars. The traveller is
+always disappointed in contemplating the ruins of Greek buildings so far
+as size is concerned. But it is their matchless proportions, their
+severe symmetry, the grandeur of effect, the undying beauty, the
+graceful form which impress us, and make us feel that they are perfect.
+By the side of the Colosseum they are insignificant in magnitude; they
+do not cover acres, like the baths of Caracalla. Yet who has copied the
+Flavian amphitheatre; who erects an edifice after the style of the
+Thermae? All artists, however, copy the Parthenon. That, and not the
+colossal monuments of the Caesars, reappears in the capitals of Europe,
+and stimulates the genius of a Michael Angelo or a Christopher Wren.
+
+The flourishing period of Greek architecture was during the period from
+Pericles to Alexander,--one hundred and thirteen years. The Macedonian
+conquest introduced more magnificence and less simplicity. The Roman
+conquest accelerated the decline in severe taste, when different orders
+began to be used indiscriminately.
+
+In this state the art passed into the hands of the masters of the world,
+and they inaugurated a new era in architecture. The art was still
+essentially Greek, although the Romans derived their first knowledge
+from the Etruscans. The Cloaca Maxima, or Great Sewer, was built during
+the reign of the second Tarquin,--the grandest monument of the reign of
+the kings. It is not probable that temples and other public buildings in
+Rome were either beautiful or magnificent until the conquest of Greece,
+after which Grecian architects were employed. The Romans adopted the
+Corinthian style, which they made even more ornamental; and by the
+successful combination of the Etruscan arch with the Grecian column they
+laid the foundation of a new and original style, susceptible of great
+variety and magnificence. They entered into architecture with the
+enthusiasm of their teachers, but in their passion for novelty lost
+sight of the simplicity which is the great fascination of a Doric
+temple. Says Memes:--
+
+"They [the Romans] deemed that lightness and grace were to be attained
+not so much by proportion between the vertical and the horizontal as by
+the comparative slenderness of the former. Hence we see a poverty in
+Roman architecture in the midst of profuse ornament. The great error was
+a constant aim to lessen the diameter while they increased the elevation
+of the columns. Hence the massive simplicity and severe grandeur of the
+ancient Doric disappear in the Roman, the characteristics of the order
+being frittered down into a multiplicity of minute details."
+
+When the Romans used the Doric at all, they used a base for the column,
+which was never done at Athens. They also altered the Doric capital,
+which cannot be improved. Again, most of the Grecian Doric temples were
+peripteral,--surrounded with pillars on all the sides. But the Romans
+built with porticos on one front only, which had a greater projection
+than the Grecian. They generally were projected three columns, while the
+Greek portico had usually but a single row. Many of the Roman temples
+are circular, like the Pantheon, which has a portico of eight columns
+projected to the depth of three. Nor did the Romans construct hypaethral
+or uncovered temples with internal columns, like the Greeks. The
+Pantheon is an exception, since the dome has an open eye; and one great
+ornament of this beautiful structure is in the arrangement of internal
+columns placed in the front of niches, composed of antae, or pier-formed
+ends of walls, to carry an entablature round under an attic on which the
+cupola rests. The Romans also adopted coupled columns, broken and
+recessed entablatures, and pedestals, which are considered blemishes.
+They again paid more attention to the interior than to the exterior
+decoration of their palaces and baths,--as we may infer from the ruins
+of Hadrian's villa at Tivoli and the excavations of Pompeii.
+
+The pediments (roof-angles) used in Roman architectural works are
+steeper than those made by the Greeks, varying in inclination from
+eighteen to twenty-five degrees, instead of fourteen. The mouldings are
+the same as the Grecian in general form, although they differ from them
+in contour; they are less delicate and graceful, but were used in great
+profusion. Roman architecture is overdone with ornament, every moulding
+carved, and every straight surface sculptured with foliage or historical
+subjects in relief. The ornaments of the frieze consist of foliage and
+animals, with a variety of other things. The great exuberance of
+ornament is considered a defect, although when applied to some
+structures it is exceedingly beautiful. In the time of the first Caesars
+Roman architecture had, from the huge size of the buildings, a character
+of grandeur and magnificence. Columns and arches appeared in all the
+leading public buildings,--columns generally forming the external and
+arches the internal construction. Fabric after fabric arose on the ruins
+of others. The Flavii supplanted the edifices of Nero, which ministered
+to debauchery, by structures of public utility.
+
+The Romans invented no new principle in architecture, unless it be the
+arch, which was known, though not practically applied, by the Assyrians,
+Egyptians, and Greeks. The Romans were a practical and utilitarian
+people, and needed for their various structures greater economy of
+material than was compatible with large blocks of stone, especially for
+such as were carried to great altitudes. The arch supplied this want,
+and is perhaps the greatest invention ever made in architecture. No
+instance of its adoption occurs in the construction of Greek edifices
+before Greece became a part of the Roman empire. Its application dates
+back to the Cloaca Maxima, and may have been of Etrurian invention. Some
+maintain that Archimedes of Sicily was the inventor of the arch; but to
+whomsoever the glory of the invention is due, it is certain that the
+Romans were the first of European nations to make a practical
+application of its wonderful qualities. It enabled them to rear vast
+edifices with the humblest materials, to build bridges, aqueducts,
+sewers, amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, as well as temples and
+palaces. The merits of the arch have never been lost sight of by
+succeeding generations, and it is an essential element in the
+magnificent Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Its application
+extends to domes and cupolas, to floors and corridors and roofs, and to
+various other parts of buildings where economy of material and labor is
+desired. It was applied extensively to doorways and windows, and is an
+ornament as well as a utility. The most imposing forms of Roman
+architecture may be traced to a knowledge of the properties of the arch,
+and as brick was more extensively used than any other material, the arch
+was invaluable. The imperial palace on Mount Palatine, the Pantheon
+(except its portico and internal columns), the temples of Peace, of
+Venus and Rome, and of Minerva Medica, were of brick. So were the great
+baths of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian, the villa of Hadrian, the
+city walls, the villa of Mecaenas at Tivoli, and most of the palaces of
+the nobility,--although, like many of the temples, they were faced with
+stone. The Colosseum was of travertine, a cheap white limestone, and
+faced with marble. It was another custom to stucco the surface of brick
+walls, as favorable to decorations. In consequence of the invention of
+the arch, the Romans erected a greater variety of fine structures than
+either the Greeks or Egyptians, whose public edifices were chiefly
+confined to temples. The arch entered into almost every structure,
+public or private, and superseded the use of long stone-beams, which
+were necessary in the Grecian temples, as also of wooden timbers, in the
+use of which the Romans were not skilled, and which do not really
+pertain to architecture: an imposing edifice must always be constructed
+of stone or brick. The arch also enabled the Romans to economize in the
+use of costly marbles, of which they were very fond, as well as of other
+stones. Some of the finest columns were made of Egyptian granite, very
+highly polished.
+
+The extensive application of the arch doubtless led to the deterioration
+of the Grecian architecture, since it blended columns with arcades, and
+thus impaired the harmony which so peculiarly marked the temples of
+Athens and Corinth; and as taste became vitiated with the decline of
+the empire, monstrous combinations took place, which were a great fall
+from the simplicity of the Parthenon and the interior of the Pantheon.
+
+But whatever defects marked the age of Diocletian and Constantine, it
+can never be questioned that the Romans carried architecture to a
+perfection rarely attained in our times. They may not have equalled the
+severe simplicity of their teachers the Greeks, but they surpassed them
+in the richness of their decorations, and in all buildings designed for
+utility, especially in private houses and baths and theatres.
+
+The Romans do not seem to have used other than semicircular arches. The
+Gothic, or Pointed, or Christian architecture, as it has been variously
+called, was the creation of the Middle Ages, and arose almost
+simultaneously in Europe after the first Crusade, so that it would seem
+to be of Eastern origin. But it was a graft on the old Roman arch, in
+the curve of the ellipse rather than the circle.
+
+Aside from this invention of the arch, to which we are indebted for the
+most beautiful ecclesiastical structures ever erected, we owe everything
+in architecture to the Greeks and Romans. We have found out no new
+principles which were not known to Vitruvius. No one man was the
+inventor or creator of the wonderful structures which ornamented the
+cities of the ancient world. We have the names of great architects, who
+reared various and faultless models, but they all worked upon the same
+principles, and these can never be subverted; so that in architecture
+the ancients are our schoolmasters, whose genius we revere the more we
+are acquainted with their works. What more beautiful than one of those
+grand temples which the cultivated heathen Greeks erected to the worship
+of their unknown gods!--the graduated and receding stylobate as a base
+for the fluted columns, rising at regular distances in all their severe
+proportion and matchless harmony, with their richly carved capitals
+supporting an entablature of heavy stones, most elaborately moulded and
+ornamented with the figures of plants and animals; and rising above
+this, on the ends of the temple, or over a portico several columns deep,
+the pediment, covered with chiselled cornices, with still richer
+ornaments rising from the apices and at the feet, all carved in white
+marble, and then spread over an area larger than any modern churches,
+making a forest of columns to bear aloft those ponderous beams of stone,
+without anything tending to break the continuity of horizontal lines, by
+which the harmony and simplicity of the whole are regulated! So
+accurately squared and nicely adjusted were the stones and pillars of
+which these temples were composed, that there was scarcely need even of
+cement. Without noise or confusion or sound of hammers did those
+temples rise, since all their parts were cut and carved in the distant
+quarries, and with mathematical precision. And within the cella, nearly
+concealed by surrounding columns, were the statues of the gods, and the
+altars on which incense was offered, or sacrifices made. In every part,
+interior and exterior, do we see a matchless proportion and beauty,
+whether in the shaft or the capital or the frieze or the pilaster or the
+pediment or the cornices, or even the mouldings,--everywhere grace and
+harmony, which grow upon the mind the more they are contemplated. The
+greatest evidence of the matchless creative genius displayed in those
+architectural wonders is that after two thousand years, and with all the
+inventions of Roman and modern artists, no improvement has been made;
+and those edifices which are the admiration of our own times are deemed
+beautiful as they approximate the ancient models, which will forever
+remain objects of imitation. No science can make two and two other than
+four; no art can make a Doric temple different from the Parthenon
+without departing from the settled principles of beauty and proportion
+which all ages have indorsed. Such were the Greeks and Romans in an art
+which is one of the greatest indices of material civilization, and which
+by them was derived from geometrical forms, or the imitation of Nature.
+
+The genius displayed by the ancients in sculpture is even more
+remarkable than their skill in architecture. Sculpture was carried to
+perfection only by the Greeks; but they did not originate the art, since
+we read of sculptured images from the remotest antiquity. The earliest
+names of sculptors are furnished by the Old Testament. Assyria and Egypt
+are full of relics to show how early this art was cultivated. It was not
+carried to perfection as early, probably, as architecture; but rude
+images of gods, carved in wood, are as old as the history of idolatry.
+The history of sculpture is in fact identified with that of idols. The
+Egyptians were probably the first who made any considerable advances in
+the execution of statues. Those which remain are rude, simple, uniform,
+without beauty or grace (except a certain serenity of facial expression
+which seems to pervade all their portraiture), but colossal and grand.
+Nearly two thousand years before Christ the walls of Thebes were
+ornamented with sculptured figures, even as the gates of Babylon were
+made of sculptured bronze. The dimensions of Egyptian colossal figures
+surpass those of any other nation. The sitting statues of Memnon at
+Thebes are fifty feet in height, and the Sphinx is twenty-five,--all of
+granite. The number of colossal statues was almost incredible. The
+sculptures found among the ruins of Karnak must have been made nearly
+four thousand years ago. They exhibit great simplicity of design, but
+have not much variety of expression. They are generally carved from the
+hardest stones, and finished so nicely that we infer that the Egyptians
+were acquainted with the art of hardening metals for their tools to a
+degree not known in our times. But we see no ideal grandeur among any of
+the remains of Egyptian sculpture; however symmetrical or colossal,
+there is no diversity of expression, no trace of emotion, no
+intellectual force,--everything is calm, impassive, imperturbable. It
+was not until sculpture came into the hands of the Greeks that any
+remarkable excellence in grace of form or expression of face was
+reached. But the progress of development was slow. The earliest carvings
+were rude wooden images of the gods, and more than a thousand years
+elapsed before the great masters were produced whose works marked the
+age of Pericles.
+
+It is not my object to give a history of the development of the plastic
+art, but to show the great excellence it attained in the hands of
+immortal sculptors.
+
+The Greeks had an intuitive perception of the beautiful, and to this
+great national trait we ascribe the wonderful progress which sculpture
+made. Nature was most carefully studied by the Greek artists, and that
+which was most beautiful in Nature became the object of their imitation.
+They even attained to an ideal excellence, since they combined in a
+single statue what could not be found in a single individual,--as Zeuxis
+is said to have studied the beautiful forms of seven virgins of Crotona
+in order to paint his famous picture of Venus. Great as was the beauty
+of Phryne or Aspasia or Lais, yet no one of them could have served for a
+perfect model; and it required a great sensibility to beauty in order to
+select and idealize what was most perfect in the human figure. Beauty
+was adored in Greece, and every means were used to perfect it,
+especially beauty of form, which is the characteristic excellence of
+Grecian statuary. The gymnasia were universally frequented; and the
+great prizes of the games, bestowed for feats of strength and agility,
+were regarded as the highest honors which men could receive,--the
+subject of the poet's ode and the people's admiration. Statues of the
+victors perpetuated their fame and improved the sculptor's art. From the
+study of these statues were produced those great creations which all
+subsequent ages have admired; and from the application of the principles
+seen in these forms we owe the perpetuation of the ideas of grace and
+beauty such as no other people besides the Greeks had ever discovered,
+or indeed scarcely appreciated. The sculpture of the human figure became
+a noble object of ambition in Greece, and was most munificently
+rewarded. Great artists arose, whose works adorned the temples of Greece
+so long as she preserved her independence, and when that was lost, her
+priceless productions were scattered over Asia and Europe. The Romans
+especially seized what was most prized, whether or not they could tell
+what was most perfect. Greece lived in her marble statues more than in
+her government or laws; and when we remember the estimation in which
+sculpture was held among the Greeks, the great prices paid for
+masterpieces, the care and attention with which they were guarded and
+preserved, and the innumerable works which were produced, filling all
+the public buildings, especially consecrated places, and even open
+spaces and the houses of the rich and great, calling from all classes
+admiration and praise,--we cannot think it likely that so great
+perfection will ever be reached again in those figures which are
+designed to represent beauty of form. Even the comparatively few statues
+which have survived the wars and violence of two thousand years,
+convince us that the moderns can only imitate; they can produce no
+creations equal to those by Athenian artists. "No mechanical copying of
+Greek statues, however skilful the copyist, can ever secure for modern
+sculpture the same noble and effective character it possessed among the
+Greeks, for the simple reason that the imitation, close as may be the
+resemblance, is but the result of the eye and hand, while the original
+is the expression of a true and deeply felt sentiment. Art was not
+sustained by the patronage of a few who affect to have what is called
+_taste_; in Greece the artist, having a common feeling for the beautiful
+with his countrymen, produced his works for the public, which were
+erected in places of honor and dedicated in temples of the gods."
+
+It was not until the Persian wars awakened among the Greeks the
+slumbering consciousness of national power, and Athens became the
+central point of Grecian civilization, that sculpture, like architecture
+and painting, reached its culminating point of excellence under Phidias
+and his contemporaries. Great artists had previously made themselves
+famous, like Miron, Polycletus, and Ageladas; but the great riches which
+flowed into Athens at this time gave a peculiar stimulus to art,
+especially under the encouragement of such a ruler as Pericles, whose
+age was the golden era of Grecian history.
+
+Pheidias, or Phidias, was to sculpture what Aeschylus was to tragic
+poetry,--the representative of the sublime and grand. He was born four
+hundred and eighty-four years before Christ, and was the pupil of
+Ageladas. He stands at the head of the ancient sculptors, not from what
+_we_ know of him, for his masterpieces have perished, but from the
+estimation in which he was held by the greatest critics of antiquity. It
+was to him that Pericles intrusted the adornment of the Parthenon, and
+the numerous and beautiful sculptures of the frieze and the pediment
+were the work of artists whom he directed. His great work in that
+wonderful edifice was the statue of the goddess Minerva herself, made of
+gold and ivory, forty feet in height, standing victorious, with a spear
+in her left hand and an image of victory in her right, with helmet on
+her head, and her shield resting by her side. The cost of this statue
+may be estimated when we consider that the gold alone used upon it was
+valued at forty-four talents, equal to five hundred thousand dollars of
+our money,--an immense sum in that age. Some critics suppose that this
+statue was overloaded with ornament, but all antiquity was unanimous in
+its admiration. The exactness and finish of detail were as remarkable as
+the grandeur of the proportions. Another of the famous works of Phidias
+was a colossal bronze statue of Athene Promachos, sixty feet in height,
+on the Acropolis between the Propylaea and the Parthenon. But both of
+these yielded to the colossal statue of Zeus in his great temple at
+Olympia, represented in a sitting posture, forty feet high, on a
+pedestal of twenty feet. The god was seated on a throne. Ebony, gold,
+ivory, and precious stones formed, with a multitude of sculptured and
+painted figures, the wonderful composition of this throne. In this his
+greatest work the artist sought to embody the idea of majesty and
+repose,--of a supreme deity no longer engaged in war with Titans and
+Giants, but enthroned as a conqueror, ruling with a nod the subject
+world, and giving his blessing to those victories which gave glory to
+the Greeks. So famous was this statue, which was regarded as the
+masterpiece of Grecian art, that it was considered a calamity to die
+without having seen it; and this served for a model for all subsequent
+representations of majesty and power in repose among the ancients. It
+was removed to Constantinople by Theodosius I., and was destroyed by
+fire in the year 475 A.D. Phidias executed various other famous works,
+which have perished; but even those that were executed under his
+superintendence which have come down to our times,--like the statues
+which ornamented the pediment of the Parthenon,--are among the finest
+specimens of art that exist, and exhibit the most graceful and
+appropriate forms which could have been selected, uniting grandeur with
+simplicity, and beauty with accuracy of anatomical structure. His
+distinguishing excellence was ideal beauty, and that of the
+sublimest order.
+
+Of all the wonders and mysteries of ancient art the colossal statues of
+ivory and gold were perhaps the most remarkable, and the difficulty of
+executing them has been set forth by the ablest of modern critics, like
+Winckelmann, Heyne, and De Quincey. "The grandeur of their dimensions,
+the perfection of their workmanship, the richness of their materials,
+their majesty, beauty, and ideal truth, the splendor of the architecture
+and pictorial decoration with which they were associated,--all conspired
+to impress the beholder with wonder and awe, and induce a belief of the
+actual presence of the god."
+
+After the Peloponnesian War a new school of art arose in Athens, which
+appealed more to the passions. Of this school was Praxiteles, who aimed
+to please without seeking to elevate or instruct. No one has probably
+ever surpassed him in execution. He wrought in bronze and marble, and
+was one of the artists who adorned the Mausoleum of Artemisia. Without
+attempting the sublime impersonation of the deity, in which Phidias
+excelled, he was unsurpassed in the softer graces and beauties of the
+human form, especially in female figures. His most famous work was an
+undraped statue of Venus, for his native town of Cnidus, which was so
+remarkable that people flocked from all parts of Greece to see it. He
+did not aim at ideal majesty so much as at ideal gracefulness; his works
+were formed from the most beautiful living models, and hence expressed
+only the ideal of sensuous charms. It is probable that the Venus de
+Medici of Cleomenes was a mere copy of the Aphrodite of Praxiteles,
+which was so highly extolled by, the ancient authors; it was of Parian
+marble, and modelled from the celebrated Phryne. His statues of Dionysus
+also expressed the most consummate physical beauty, representing the god
+as a beautiful youth crowned with ivy, and expressing tender and dreamy
+emotions. Praxiteles sculptured several figures of Eros, or the god of
+love, of which that at Thespiae attracted visitors to the city in the
+time of Cicero. It was subsequently carried to Rome, and perished by a
+conflagration in the time of Titus. One of the most celebrated statues
+of this artist was an Apollo, many copies of which still exist. His
+works were very numerous, but chiefly from the circle of Dionysus,
+Aphrodite, and Eros, in which adoration for corporeal attractions is the
+most marked peculiarity, and for which the artist was fitted by his
+dissolute life.
+
+Scopas was the contemporary of Praxiteles, and was the author of the
+celebrated group of Niobe, which is one of the chief ornaments of the
+gallery of sculpture at Florence. He flourished about three hundred and
+fifty years before Christ, and wrought chiefly in marble. He was
+employed in decorating the Mausoleum which Artemisia erected to her
+husband,--one of the wonders of the world. His masterpiece is said to
+have been a group representing Achilles conducted to the island of Leuce
+by the divinities of the sea, which ornamented the shrine of Domitius in
+the Flaminian Circus. In this, tender grace, heroic grandeur, daring
+power, and luxurious fulness of life were combined with wonderful
+harmony. Like the other great artists of this school, Scopas exhibited
+the grandeur and sublimity for which Phidias was celebrated, but a
+greater refinement and luxury, as well as skill in the use of drapery.
+
+Sculpture in Greece culminated, as an art, in Lysippus, who worked
+chiefly in bronze. He is said to have executed fifteen hundred statues,
+and was much esteemed by Alexander the Great, by whom he was extensively
+patronized. He represented men not as they were, but as they appeared to
+be; and if he exaggerated, he displayed great energy of action. He aimed
+to idealize merely human beauty, and his imitation of Nature was carried
+out in the minutest details. None of his works are extant; but as he
+alone was permitted to make the statue of Alexander, we infer that he
+had no equals. The Emperor Tiberius transferred one of his statues (that
+of an athlete) from the baths of Agrippa to his own chamber, which so
+incensed the people that he was obliged to restore it. His favorite
+subject was Hercules, and a colossal statue of this god was carried to
+Rome by Fabius Maximus, when he took Tarentum, and afterward was
+transferred to Constantinople; the Farnese Hercules and the Belvidere
+Torso are probably copies of this work. He left many eminent scholars,
+among whom were Chares (who executed the famous Colossus of Rhodes),
+Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus who sculptured the group of the
+"Laocoön." The Rhodian school was the immediate offshoot from the school
+of Lysippus at Sicyon; and from this small island of Rhodes the Romans,
+when they conquered it, carried away three thousand statues. The
+Colossus was one of the wonders of the world (seventy cubits in height);
+and the Laocoön (the group of the Trojan hero and his two sons encoiled
+by serpents) is a perfect miracle of art, in which pathos is exhibited
+in the highest degree ever attained in sculpture. It was discovered in
+1506, near the baths of Titus, and is one of the choicest remains of
+ancient plastic art.
+
+The great artists of antiquity did not confine themselves to the
+representation of man, but also carved animals with exceeding accuracy
+and beauty. Nicias was famous for his dogs, Myron for his cows, and
+Lysippus for his horses. Praxiteles composed his celebrated lion after a
+living animal. "The horses of the frieze of the Elgin Marbles," says
+Flaxman, "appear to live and move; to roll their eyes, to gallop,
+prance, and curvet; the veins of their faces and legs seem distended
+with circulation. The beholder is charmed with the deer-like lightness
+and elegance of their make; and although the relief is not above an inch
+from the background, and they are so much smaller than nature, we can
+scarcely suffer reason to persuade us they are not alive." The Greeks
+also carved gems, cameos, medals, and vases, with unapproachable
+excellence. Very few specimens have come down to our times, but those
+which we possess show great beauty both in design and execution.
+
+Grecian statuary began with ideal representations of the deities, and
+was carried to the greatest perfection by Phidias in his statues of
+Jupiter and Minerva. Then succeeded the school of Praxiteles, in which
+the figures of gods and goddesses were still represented, but in mortal
+forms. The school of Lysippus was famous for the statues of celebrated
+men, especially in cities where Macedonian rulers resided. Artists were
+expected henceforth to glorify kings and powerful nobles and rulers by
+portrait statues. From this period, however, plastic art degenerated;
+nor were works of original genius produced, but rather copies or
+varieties from the three great schools to which allusion has been made.
+Sculpture may have multiplied, but not new creations; although some
+imitations of great merit were produced, like the Hermaphrodite, the
+Torso, the Farnese Hercules, and the Fighting Gladiator. When Corinth
+was sacked by Mummius, some of the finest statues of Greece were carried
+to Rome; and after the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, the Greek
+artists emigrated to Italy. The fall of Syracuse introduced many works
+of priceless value into Rome; but it was from Athens, Delphi, Corinth,
+Elis, and other great centres of art that the richest treasures were
+brought. Greece was despoiled to ornament Italy.
+
+The Romans did not create a school of sculpture. They borrowed wholly
+from the Greeks, yet made, especially in the time of Hadrian, many
+beautiful statues. They were fond of this art, and all eminent men had
+statues erected to their memory. The busts of emperors were found in
+every great city, and Rome was filled with statues. The monuments of the
+Romans were even more numerous than those of the Greeks, and among them
+some admirable portraits are found. These sculptures did not express
+that consummation of beauty and grace, of refinement and sentiment,
+which marked the Greeks; but the imitations were good. Art had reached
+its perfection under Lysippus; there was nothing more to learn. Genius
+in that department could soar no higher. It will never rise to
+loftier heights.
+
+It is noteworthy that the purest forms of Grecian art arose in its
+earlier stages. From a moral point of view, sculpture declined from the
+time of Phidias. It was prostituted at Rome under the emperors. The
+specimens which have often been found among the ruins of ancient baths
+make us blush for human nature. The skill of execution did not decline
+for several centuries; but the lofty ideal was lost sight of, and gross
+appeals to human passions were made by those who sought to please
+corrupt leaders of society in an effeminate age. The turgidity and
+luxuriance of art gradually passed into tameness and poverty. The
+reliefs on the Arch of Constantine are rude and clumsy compared with
+those on the column of Marcus Aurelius.
+
+It is not my purpose to describe the decline of art, or enumerate the
+names of the celebrated masters who exalted sculpture in the palmy days
+of Pericles or even Alexander. I simply speak of sculpture as an art
+which reached a great perfection among the Greeks and Romans, as we have
+a right to infer from the specimens that have been preserved. How many
+more must have perished, we may infer from the criticisms of the ancient
+authors. The finest productions of our own age are in a measure
+reproductions; they cannot be called creations, like the statue of the
+Olympian Jove. Even the Moses of Michael Angelo is a Grecian god, and
+Powers's Greek Slave is a copy of an ancient Venus. The very tints which
+have been admired in some of the works of modern sculptors are borrowed
+from Praxiteles, who succeeded in giving to his statues an appearance of
+living flesh. The Museum of the Vatican alone contains several thousand
+specimens of ancient sculpture which have been found among the débris of
+former magnificence, many of which are the productions of Greek artists
+transported to Rome. Among them are antique copies of the Cupid and the
+Faun of Praxiteles, the statue of Demosthenes, the Minerva Medica, the
+Athlete of Lysippus, the Torso Belvedere sculptured by Apollonius, the
+Belvidere Antinous, of faultless anatomy and a study for Domenichino,
+the Laocoön, so panegyrized by Pliny, the Apollo Belvedere, the work of
+Agasias of Ephesus, the Sleeping Ariadne, with numerous other statues of
+gods and goddesses, emperors, philosophers, poets, and statesmen of
+antiquity. The Dying Gladiator, which ornaments the capitol, is alone a
+magnificent proof of the perfection to which sculpture was carried
+centuries after the art had culminated at Athens. And these are only a
+few which stand out among the twenty thousand recovered statues that now
+embellish Italy, to say nothing of those that are scattered over Europe.
+We have the names of hundreds of artists who were famous in their day.
+Not merely the figures of men are chiselled, but of animals and plants.
+Nature in all her forms was imitated; and not merely Nature, but the
+dresses of the ancients are perpetuated in marble. No modern sculptor
+has equalled, in delicacy of finish, the draperies of those ancient
+statues as they appear to us even after the exposure and accidents of
+two thousand years. No one, after a careful study of the museums of
+Europe, can question that of all the nations who have claimed to be
+civilized, the ancient Greeks and Romans deserve a proud pre-eminence in
+an art which is still regarded as among the highest triumphs of human
+genius. All these matchless productions of antiquity are the result of
+native genius alone, without the aid of Christian ideas. Nor with the
+aid of Christianity are we sure that any nation will ever soar to
+loftier heights than did the Greeks in that proud realm which was
+consecrated to Paganism.
+
+We are not so certain in regard to the excellence of the ancients in the
+art of painting as we are in regard to sculpture and architecture, since
+so few specimens of painting have been preserved. We have only the
+testimony of the ancients themselves; and as they had so severe a taste
+and so great a susceptibility to beauty in all its forms, we cannot
+suppose that their notions were crude in this great art which the
+moderns have carried to such great perfection. In this art the moderns
+doubtless excel, especially in perspective and drawing, and light and
+shade. No age, we fancy, can surpass Italy in the fifteenth and
+sixteenth centuries, when the genius of Raphael, Correggio, and
+Domenichino blazed with such wonderful brilliancy.
+
+Painting in some form, however, is very ancient, though not so ancient
+as are the temples of the gods and the statues that were erected to
+their worship. It arose with the susceptibility to beauty of form and
+color, and with the view of conveying thoughts and emotions of the soul
+by imitation of their outward expression. The walls of Babylon were
+painted after Nature with representations of different species of
+animals and of combats between them and man. Semiramis was represented
+as on horseback, striking a leopard with a dart, and her husband Ninus
+as wounding a lion. Ezekiel describes various idols and beasts portrayed
+upon the walls, and even princes painted in vermilion, with girdles
+around their loins. In ages almost fabulous there were some rude
+attempts in this art, which probably arose from the coloring of statues
+and reliefs. The wooden chests of Egyptian mummies are covered with
+painted and hieroglyphic presentations of religious subjects; but the
+colors were laid without regard to light and shade. The Egyptians did
+not seek to represent the passions and emotions which agitate the soul,
+but rather to authenticate events and actions; and hence their
+paintings, like hieroglyphics, are but inscriptions. It was their great
+festivals and religious rites which they sought to perpetuate, not ideas
+of beauty or of grace. Thus their paintings abound with dismembered
+animals, plants, and flowers, with censers, entrails,--whatever was used
+in their religious worship. In Greece also the original painting
+consisted in coloring statues and reliefs of wood and clay. At Corinth,
+painting was early united with the fabrication of vases, on which were
+rudely painted figures of men and animals. Among the Etruscans, before
+Rome was founded, it is said there were beautiful paintings, and it is
+probable that these people were advanced in art before the Greeks. There
+were paintings in some of the old Etruscan cities which the Roman
+emperors wished to remove, so much admired were they even in the days of
+the greatest splendor. The ancient Etruscan vases are famous for designs
+which have never been exceeded in purity of form, but it is probable
+that these were copied from the Greeks.
+
+Whether the Greeks or the Etruscans were the first to paint, however,
+the art was certainly carried to the greatest perfection among the
+former. The development of it was, like all arts, very gradual. It
+probably began by drawing the outline of a shadow, without intermediate
+markings; the next step was the complete outline with the inner
+markings,--such as are represented on the ancient vases, or like the
+designs of Flaxman. They were originally practised on a white ground;
+then light and shade were introduced, and then the application of colors
+in accordance with Nature. We read of a great painting by Bularchus, of
+the battle of Magnete, purchased by a king of Lydia seven hundred and
+eighteen years before Christ. As the subject was a battle, it must have
+represented the movement of figures, although we know nothing of the
+coloring or of the real excellence of the work, except that the artist
+was paid munificently. Cimon of Cleona is the first great name connected
+with the art in Greece. He is praised by Pliny, to whom we owe the
+history of ancient painting more than to any other author. Cimon was not
+satisfied with drawing simply the outlines of his figures, such as we
+see in the oldest painted vases, but he also represented limbs, and
+folds of garments. He invented the art of foreshortening, or the various
+representations of the diminution of the length of figures as they
+appear when looked at obliquely; and hence was the first painter of
+perspective. He first made muscular articulations, indicated the veins,
+and gave natural folds to drapery.
+
+A much greater painter than he was Polygnotus of Thasos, the
+contemporary of Phidias, who came to Athens about the year 463
+B.C.,--one of the greatest geniuses of any age, and one of the most
+magnanimous, who had the good fortune to live in an age of exceeding
+intellectual activity. He painted on panels, which were afterward let
+into the walls, being employed on the public buildings of Athens, and on
+the great temple of Delphi, the hall of which he painted gratuitously.
+He also decorated the Propylaea, which was erected under the
+superintendence of Phidias. The pictures of Polygnotus had nothing of
+that elaborate grouping, aided by the powers of perspective, so much
+admired in modern art. His greatness lay in statuesque painting, which
+he brought nearly to perfection by ideal expression, accurate drawing,
+and improved coloring. He used but few colors, and softened the rigidity
+of his predecessors by making the mouth of beauty smile. He gave great
+expression to the face and figure, and his pictures were models of
+excellence for the beauty of the eyebrows, the blush upon the cheeks,
+and the gracefulness of the draperies. He strove, like Phidias, to
+express character in repose. He imitated the personages and the subjects
+of the old mythology, and treated them in an epic spirit, his subjects
+being almost invariably taken from Homer and the Epic cycle.
+
+Among the works of Polygnotus, as mentioned by Pliny, are his paintings
+in the Temple at Delphi, in the Propylaea of the Acropolis, in the
+Temple of Theseus, and in the Temple of the Dioscuri at Athens. He
+painted in a truly religious spirit, and upon symmetrical principles,
+with great grandeur and freedom, resembling Michael Angelo more than any
+other modern artist.
+
+The use of oil was unknown to the ancients. The artists painted upon
+wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, but not upon canvas, which was
+not used till the time of Nero. They painted upon tablets or panels, and
+not upon the walls,--the panels being afterward framed and encased in
+the walls. The stylus, or cestrum, used in drawing and for spreading the
+wax colors was pointed on one end and flat on the other, and generally
+made of metal. Wax was prepared by purifying and bleaching, and then
+mixed with colors. When painting was practised in watercolors, glue was
+used with the white of an egg or with gums; but wax and resins were also
+worked with water, with certain preparations. This latter mode was
+called encaustic, and was, according to Plutarch, the most durable of
+all methods. It was not generally adopted till the time of Alexander the
+Great. Wax was a most essential ingredient, since it prevented the
+colors from cracking. Encaustic painting was practised both with the
+cestrum and the pencil, and the colors were also burned in.
+
+Fresco, or water-color, on fresh plaster, was used for coloring walls,
+which were divided into compartments or panels. The composition of the
+stucco, and the method of preparing the walls for painting, is described
+by the ancient writers: "They first covered the walls with a layer of
+ordinary plaster, over which, when dry, were successively added three
+other layers of a finer quality, mixed with sand. Above these were
+placed three layers of a composition of chalk and marble-dust, the upper
+one being laid on before the under one was dry; by which process the
+different layers were so bound together that the whole mass formed one
+beautiful and solid slab, resembling marble, and was capable of being
+detached from the wall and transported in a wooden frame to any
+distance. The colors were applied when the composition was still wet.
+The fresco wall, when painted, was covered with an encaustic varnish,
+both to heighten the color and to preserve it from the effects of the
+sun or the weather; but this process required so much care, and was
+attended with so much expense, that it was used only in the better
+houses and palaces." The later discoveries at Pompeii show the same
+correctness of design in painting as in sculpture, and also considerable
+perfection in coloring. The great artists of Greece--Phidias and
+Euphranor, Zeuxis and Protogenes, Polygnotus and Lysippus--were both
+sculptors and painters, like Michael Angelo; and the ancient writers
+praise the paintings of these great artists as much as their sculpture.
+The Aldobrandini Marriage, found on the Esquiline Mount during the
+pontificate of Clement VIII., and placed in the Vatican by Pius VII., is
+admired both for drawing and color. Polygnotus was praised by Aristotle
+for his designs, and by Lucian for his color.
+
+Dionysius and Mikon were the great contemporaries of Polygnotus, the
+former being celebrated for his portraits. His pictures were deficient
+in the ideal, but were remarkable for expression and elegant drawing.
+Mikon was particularly skilled in painting horses, and was the first who
+used for a color the light Attic ochre, and the black made from burnt
+vine-twigs. He painted three of the walls of the Temple of Theseus, and
+also the walls of the Temple of the Dioscuri.
+
+A greater painter still was Apollodorus of Athens. Through his labors,
+about 408 B.C., dramatic effect was added to the style of Polygnotus,
+without departing from his pictures as models. "The acuteness of his
+taste," says Fuseli, "led him to discover that as all men were connected
+by one general form, so they were separated each by some predominant
+power, which fixed character and bound them to a class. Thence he drew
+his line of imitation, and personified the central form of the class to
+which his object belonged, and to which the rest of its qualities
+administered without being absorbed. Agility was not suffered to destroy
+firmness, solidity, or weight; nor strength and weight, agility.
+Elegance did not degenerate into effeminacy, nor grandeur swell to
+hugeness." His aim was to deceive the eye of the spectator by the
+semblance of reality: he painted men and things as they really appeared.
+He also made a great advance in coloring: he invented chiaro-oscuro.
+Other painters had given attention to the proper gradation of light and
+shade; he heightened this effect by the gradation of tints, and thus
+obtained what the moderns call _tone_. He was the first who conferred
+due honor on the pencil,--_primusque gloriam penicillo jure contulit_.
+
+This great painter was succeeded by Zeuxis, who belonged to his school,
+but who surpassed him in the power to give ideal form to rich effects.
+He began his great career four hundred and twenty-four years before
+Christ, and was most remarkable for his female figures. His Helen,
+painted from five of the most beautiful women of Croton, was one of the
+most renowned productions of antiquity, to see which the painter
+demanded money. He gave away his pictures, because, with an artist's
+pride, he maintained that their price could not be estimated. There is
+a tradition that Zeuxis laughed himself to death over an old woman
+painted by him. He arrived at illusion of the senses, regarded as a high
+attainment in art,--as in the instance recorded of his grapes, at which
+the birds pecked. He belonged to the Asiatic school, whose headquarters
+were at Ephesus,--the peculiarities of which were accuracy of imitation,
+the exhibition of sensuous charms, and the gratification of sensual
+tastes. He went to Athens about the time that the sculpture of Phidias
+was completed, which modified his style. His marvellous powers were
+displayed in the contrast of light and shade, which he learned from
+Apollodorus. He gave ideal beauty to his figures, but it was in form
+rather than in expression. He taught the true method of grouping, by
+making each figure the perfect representation of the class to which it
+belonged. His works were deficient in those qualities which elevate the
+feelings and the character. He was the Euripides rather than the Homer
+of his art. He exactly imitated natural objects, which are incapable of
+ideal representation. His works were not so numerous as they were
+perfect in their way, in some of which, as in the Infant Hercules
+strangling the Serpent, he displayed great dramatic power. Lucian highly
+praises his Female Centaur as one of the most remarkable paintings of
+the world, in which he showed great ingenuity of contrasts. His Jupiter
+Enthroned is also extolled by Pliny, as one of his finest works. Zeuxis
+acquired a great fortune, and lived ostentatiously.
+
+Contemporaneous with Zeuxis, and equal in fame, was Parrhasius, a native
+of Ephesus, whose skill lay in accuracy of drawing and power of
+expression. He gave to painting true proportion, and attended to minute
+details of the countenance and the hair. In his gods and heroes, he did
+for painting what Phidias did in sculpture. His outlines were so perfect
+as to indicate those parts of the figure which they did not express. He
+established a rule of proportion which was followed by all succeeding
+artists. While many of his pieces were of a lofty character, some were
+demoralizing. Zeuxis yielded the palm to him, since Parrhasius painted a
+curtain which deceived his rival, whereas the grapes of Zeuxis had
+deceived only birds. Parrhasius was exceedingly arrogant and luxurious,
+and boasted of having reached the utmost limits of his art. He combined
+the magic tone of Apollodorus with the exquisite design of Zeuxis and
+the classic expression of Polygnotus.
+
+Many were the eminent painters that adorned the fifth century before
+Christ, not only in Athens, but in the Ionian cities of Asia. Timanthes
+of Sicyon was distinguished for invention, and Eupompus of the same
+city founded a school. His advice to Lysippus is memorable: "Let Nature,
+not an artist, be your model." Protogenes was celebrated for his high
+finish. His Talissus took him seven years to complete. Pamphilus was
+celebrated for composition, Antiphilus for facility, Theon of Samos for
+prolific fancy, Apelles for grace, Pausias for his chiaro-oscuro,
+Nicomachus for his bold and rapid pencil, Aristides for depth of
+expression.
+
+The art probably culminated in Apelles, who was at once a rich colorist
+and portrayer of sensuous charm and a scientific artist, while he added
+a peculiar grace of his own, which distinguished him above both his
+predecessors and contemporaries. He was contemporaneous with Alexander,
+and was alone allowed to paint the picture of the great conqueror.
+Apelles was a native of Ephesus, studied under Pamphilus of Amphipolis,
+and when he had gained reputation he went to Sicyon and took lessons
+from Melanthius. He spent the best part of his life at the court of
+Philip and Alexander, and painted many portraits of these great men and
+of their generals. He excelled in portraits, and labored so assiduously
+to perfect himself in drawing that he never spent a day without
+practising. He made great improvement in the mechanical part of his art,
+inventing some colors, and being the first to varnish pictures. By the
+general consent of ancient authors, Apelles stands at the head of all
+the painters of their world. His greatest work was his Venus Anadyomene,
+or Venus rising out of the sea, in which female grace was personified;
+the falling drops of water from her hair gave the appearance of a
+transparent silver veil over her form. This picture cost one hundred
+talents, was painted for the Temple of Aesculapius at Cos, and afterward
+placed by Augustus in the temple which he dedicated to Julius Caesar.
+The lower part of it becoming injured, no one could be found to repair
+it; nor was there an artist who could complete an unfinished picture
+which Apelles left. He feared no criticism, and was unenvious of the
+fame of rivals.
+
+After Apelles, the art of painting declined, although great painters
+occasionally appeared, especially from the school of Sicyon, which was
+renowned for nearly two hundred years. The destruction of Corinth by
+Mummius, 146 B.C., gave a severe blow to Grecian art. This general
+destroyed, or carried to Rome, more works than all his predecessors
+combined. Sulla, when he spoiled Athens, inflicted a still greater
+injury; and from that time artists resorted to Rome and Alexandria and
+other flourishing cities for patronage and remuneration. The
+masterpieces of famous artists brought enormous prices, and Greece and
+Asia were ransacked for old pictures. The paintings which Aemilius
+Paulus brought from Greece required two hundred and fifty wagons to
+carry them in the triumphal procession. With the spoliation of Greece,
+the migration of artists began; and this spoliation of Greece, Asia, and
+Sicily continued for two centuries. We have already said that such was
+the wealth of Rhodes in works of art that three thousand statues were
+found there by the conquerors; nor could there have been less at Athens,
+Olympia, and Delphi. Scaurus had all the public pictures of Sicyon
+transported to Rome. Verres plundered every temple and public building
+in Sicily.
+
+Thus Rome was possessed of the finest paintings in the world, without
+the slightest claim to the advancement of the art. And if the opinion of
+Sir Joshua Reynolds is correct, art could advance no higher in the realm
+of painting, as well as of statuary, than the Greeks had already borne
+it. Yet the Romans learned to place as high value on the works of
+Grecian genius as the English do on the paintings of the old masters of
+Italy and Flanders. And if they did not add to the art, they gave such
+encouragement that under the emperors it may be said to have been
+flourishing. Varro had a gallery of seven hundred portraits of eminent
+men. The portraits as well as the statues of the great were placed in
+the temples, libraries, and public buildings. The baths especially were
+filled with paintings.
+
+The great masterpieces of the Greeks were either historical or
+mythological. Paintings of gods and heroes, groups of men and women, in
+which character and passion could be delineated, were the most highly
+prized. It was in the expression given to the human figure--in beauty of
+form and countenance, in which all the emotions of the soul, as well as
+the graces of the body were portrayed--that the Greek artists sought to
+reach the ideal, and to gain immortality. And they painted for a people
+who had both a natural and a cultivated taste and sensibility.
+
+Among the Romans portrait, decorative, and scene painting engrossed the
+art, much to the regret of such critics as Pliny and Vitruvius. Nothing
+could be in more execrable taste than a colossal painting of Nero, one
+hundred and twenty feet high. From the time of Augustus landscape
+decorations were common, and were carried out with every species of
+license. Among the Greeks we do not read of landscape painting. This has
+been reserved for our age, and is much admired, as it was at Rome in the
+latter days of the empire. Mosaic work, of inlaid stones or composition
+of varying shades and colors, gradually superseded painting in Rome; it
+was first used for floors, and finally walls and ceilings were
+ornamented with it. It is true, the ancients could show no such
+exquisite perfection of colors, tints, and shades as may be seen to-day
+in the wonderful reproductions of world-renowned paintings on the walls
+of St. Peter's at Rome; but many ancient mosaics have been preserved
+which attest beauty of design of the highest character,--like the Battle
+of Issus, lately discovered at Pompeii; and this brilliant art had its
+origin and a splendid development at the hands of the old Romans.
+
+Thus in all those arts of which modern civilization is proudest, and in
+which the genius of man has soared to the loftiest heights, the ancients
+were not merely our equals,--they were our superiors. It is greater to
+originate than to copy. In architecture, in sculpture, and perhaps in
+painting, the Greeks attained absolute perfection. Any architect of our
+time, who should build an edifice in different proportions from those
+that were recognized in the great cities of antiquity, would make a
+mistake. Who can improve upon the Doric columns of the Parthenon, or
+upon the Corinthian capitals of the Temple of Jupiter? Indeed, it is in
+proportion as we accurately copy the faultless models of the age of
+Pericles that excellence with us is attained and recognized; when we
+differ from them we furnish grounds of just criticism. So in
+sculpture,--the finest modern works are inspired by antique models. It
+is only when the artist seeks to bring out the purest and loftiest
+sentiments of the soul, such as only Christianity can inspire, that he
+may hope to surpass the sculpture of antiquity in one department of that
+art alone,--in expression, rather than in beauty of form, on which no
+improvement can be made. And if we possessed the painted Venus of
+Apelles, as we can boast of having the sculptured Venus of Cleomenes, we
+should probably discover greater richness of coloring as well as grace
+of figure than appear in that famous picture of Titian which is one of
+the proudest ornaments of the galleries of Florence, and one of the
+greatest marvels of Italian art.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Winckelmann's History of Ancient Art; Müller's Ancient Art and its
+Remains; A.J. Guattani, Antiquités de la Grande Grèce; Mazois,
+Antiquités de Pompeii; Sir W. Gill, Pompeiana; Donaldson's Antiquities
+of Athens; Vitruvius, Stuart, Chandler, Clarke, Dodwell, Cleghorn, De
+Quincey, Fergusson, Schliemann,--these are some of the innumerable
+authorities on Architecture among the ancients.
+
+In Sculpture, Pliny and Cicero are the most noted critics. There is a
+fine article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica on this subject. In Smith's
+Dictionary are the Lives and works of the most noted masters. Müller's
+Ancient Art alludes to the leading masterpieces. Montfauçon's Antiquité
+Expliquée en Figures; Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, by the Society of
+Dilettanti, London, 1809; Ancient Marbles of the British Museum, by
+Taylor Combe; Millin, Introduction à l'Étude des Monuments Antiques;
+Monuments Inédits d'Antiquité figurée, recuellis et publiés par
+Raoul-Rochette; Gerhard's Archäologische Zeitung; David's Essai sur le
+Classement Chronologique des Sculpteurs Grecs les plus célèbres.
+
+In Painting, see Müller's Ancient Art; Fuseli's Lectures; Sir Joshua
+Reynolds's Lectures; Lanzi's History of Painting in Italy (translated by
+Roscoe); and the Article on "Painting," Encyclopaedia Britannica, and
+Article "Pictura," Smith's Dictionary, both of which last mentioned
+refer to numerous German, French, and other authorities, should the
+reader care to pursue the subject. Vitruvius (on Architecture,
+translated by Gwilt) writes at some length on ancient wall-paintings.
+The finest specimens of ancient paintings are found in catacombs, the
+baths, and the ruins of Pompeii. On this subject Winckelmann is the
+great authority.
+
+
+
+
+ANCIENT SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.
+
+
+ASTRONOMY, GEOGRAPHY, ETC.
+
+2000-100 B.C.
+
+
+It would be absurd to claim for the ancients any great attainments in
+science, such as they made in the field of letters or the realm of art.
+It is in science, especially when applied to practical life, that the
+moderns show their great superiority to the most enlightened nations of
+antiquity. In this great department of human inquiry modern genius
+shines with the lustre of the sun. It is this which most strikingly
+attests the advance of civilization. It is this which has distinguished
+and elevated the races of Europe, and carried them in the line of
+progress beyond the attainments of the Greeks and Romans. With the
+magnificent discoveries and inventions of the last three hundred years
+in almost every department of science, especially in the explorations of
+distant seas and continents, in the analysis of chemical compounds, in
+the wonders of steam and electricity, in mechanical appliances to
+abridge human labor, in astronomical researches, in the explanation of
+the phenomena of the heavens, in the miracles which inventive genius has
+wrought,--seen in our ships, our manufactories, our printing-presses,
+our observatories, our fortifications, our laboratories, our mills, our
+machines to cultivate the earth, to make our clothes, to build our
+houses, to multiply our means of offence and defence, to make weak
+children do the work of Titans, to measure our time with the accuracy of
+the planetary orbits, to use the sun itself in perpetuating our
+likenesses to distant generations, to cause a needle to guide the
+mariner with assurance on the darkest night, to propel a heavy ship
+against wind and tide without oars or sails, to make carriages ascend
+mountains without horses at the rate of thirty miles an hour, to convey
+intelligence with the speed of lightning from continent to continent and
+under oceans that ancient navigators never dared to cross,--these and
+other wonders attest an ingenuity and audacity of intellect which would
+have overwhelmed with amazement the most adventurous of Greeks and the
+most potent of Romans.
+
+But the great discoveries and inventions to which we owe this marked
+superiority are either accidental or the result of generations of
+experiment, assisted by an immense array of ascertained facts from which
+safe inductions can be made. It is not, probably, the superiority of
+the European races over the Greeks and Romans to which we may ascribe
+the wonderful advance of modern society, but the particular direction
+which genius was made to take. Had the Greeks given the energy of their
+minds to mechanical forces as they did to artistic creations, they might
+have made wonderful inventions. But it was not so ordered by Providence.
+At that time the world was not in the stage of development when this
+particular direction of intellect could have been favored. The
+development of the physical sciences, with their infinite multiplicity
+and complexity, required more centuries of observation, collection and
+collation of facts, deductions from known phenomena, than the ancients
+had had to work with; while the more ethereal realms of philosophy,
+ethics, aesthetics, and religion, though needing keen study of Nature
+and of man, depended more upon inner spiritual forces, and less upon
+accumulated detail of external knowledge. Yet as there were some
+subjects which the Greeks and Romans seemed to exhaust, some fields of
+labor and thought in which they never have been and perhaps never will
+be surpassed, so some future age may direct its energies into channels
+that are as unknown to us as clocks and steam-engines were to the
+Greeks. This is the age of mechanism and of science; and mechanism and
+science sweep everything before them, and will probably be carried to
+their utmost capacity and development. After that the human mind may
+seek some new department, some new scope for its energies, and an age of
+new wonders may arise,--perhaps after the present dominant races shall
+have become intoxicated with the greatness of their triumphs and have
+shared the fate of the old monarchies of the East. But I would not
+speculate on the destinies of the European nations, whether they are to
+make indefinite advances until they occupy and rule the whole world, or
+are destined to be succeeded by nations as yet undeveloped,--savages, as
+their fathers were when Rome was in the fulness of material wealth
+and grandeur.
+
+I have shown that in the field of artistic excellence, in literary
+composition, in the arts of government and legislation, and even in the
+realm of philosophical speculation, the ancients were our
+school-masters, and that among them were some men of most marvellous
+genius, who have had no superiors among us. But we do not see among them
+the exhibition of genius in what we call science, at least in its
+application to practical life. It would be difficult to show any
+department of science which the ancients carried to any considerable
+degree of perfection. Nevertheless, there were departments in which they
+made noble attempts, and in which they showed large capacity, even if
+they were unsuccessful in great practical results.
+
+Astronomy was one of these. In this science such men as Eratosthenes,
+Aristarchus, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy were great lights of whom humanity
+may be proud; and had they been assisted by our modern inventions, they
+might have earned a fame scarcely eclipsed by that of Kepler and Newton.
+The old astronomers did little to place this science on a true
+foundation, but they showed great ingenuity, and discovered some truths
+which no succeeding age has repudiated. They determined the
+circumference of the earth by a method identical with that which would
+be employed by modern astronomers; they ascertained the position of the
+stars by right ascension and declination; they knew the obliquity of the
+ecliptic, and determined the place of the sun's apogee as well as its
+mean motion. Their calculations on the eccentricity of the moon prove
+that they had a rectilinear trigonometry and tables of chords. They had
+an approximate knowledge of parallax; they could calculate eclipses of
+the moon, and use them for the correction of their lunar tables. They
+understood spherical trigonometry, and determined the motions of the sun
+and moon, involving an accurate definition of the year and a method of
+predicting eclipses; they ascertained that the earth was a sphere, and
+reduced the phenomena of the heavenly bodies to uniform movements of
+circular orbits. We have settled by physical geography the exact form
+of the earth, but the ancients arrived at their knowledge by
+astronomical reasoning. Says Whewell:--
+
+"The reduction of the motions of the sun, moon, and five planets to
+circular orbits, as was done by Hipparchus, implies deep concentrated
+thought and scientific abstraction. The theories of eccentrics and
+epicycles accomplished the end of explaining all the known phenomena.
+The resolution of the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies into an
+assemblage of circular motions was a great triumph of genius, and was
+equivalent to the most recent and improved processes by which modern
+astronomers deal with such motions."
+
+Astronomy was probably born in Chaldaea as early as the time of Abraham.
+The glories of the firmament were impressed upon the minds of the rude
+primitive races with an intensity which we do not feel, with all the
+triumphs of modern science. The Chaldaean shepherds, as they watched
+their flocks by night, noted the movements of the planets, and gave
+names to the more brilliant constellations. Before religious rituals
+were established, before great superstitions arose, before poetry was
+sung, before musical instruments were invented, before artists
+sculptured marble or melted bronze, before coins were stamped, before
+temples arose, before diseases were healed by the arts of medicine,
+before commerce was known, those Oriental shepherds counted the anxious
+hours by the position of certain constellations. Astronomy is therefore
+the oldest of the ancient sciences, although it remained imperfect for
+more than four thousand years. The old Assyrians, Egyptians, and Greeks
+made but few discoveries which are valued by modern astronomers, but
+they laid the foundation of the science, and ever regarded it as one of
+the noblest subjects that could stimulate the faculties of man. It was
+invested with all that was religious and poetical.
+
+The spacious level and unclouded horizon of Chaldaea afforded peculiar
+facilities of observation; and its pastoral and contemplative
+inhabitants, uncontaminated by the vices and superstitions of subsequent
+ages, active-minded and fresh, discovered after a long observation of
+eclipses--some say extending over nineteen centuries--the cycle of two
+hundred and twenty-three lunations, which brings back the eclipses in
+the same order. Having once established their cycle, they laid the
+foundation for the most sublime of all the sciences. Callisthenes
+transmitted from Babylon to Aristotle a collection of observations of
+all the eclipses that preceded the conquests of Alexander, together with
+the definite knowledge which the Chaldaeans had collected about the
+motions of the heavenly bodies. Such knowledge was rude and simple, and
+amounted to little beyond the fact that there were spherical
+revolutions about an inclined axis, and that the poles pointed always to
+particular stars. The Egyptians also recorded their observations, from
+which it would appear that they observed eclipses at least sixteen
+hundred years before the beginning of our era,--which is not improbable,
+if the speculations of modern philosophers respecting the age of the
+world are entitled to credit. The Egyptians discovered by the rising of
+Sirius that the year consists of three hundred and sixty-five and
+one-quarter days; and this was their sacred year, in distinction from
+the civil, which consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days. They
+also had observed the courses of the planets, and could explain the
+phenomena of the stations and retrogradations; and it is asserted too
+that they regarded Mercury and Venus as satellites of the sun. Some have
+maintained that the obelisks which the Egyptians erected served the
+purpose of gnomons for determining the obliquity of the ecliptic, the
+altitude of the pole, and the length of the tropical year. It is thought
+even that the Pyramids, by the position of their sides toward the
+cardinal points, attest Egyptian acquaintance with a meridional line.
+The Chinese boast of having noticed and recorded a series of eclipses
+extending over a period of thirty-eight hundred and fifty-eight years;
+and it is probable that they anticipated the Greeks two thousand years
+in the discovery of the Metonic cycle,--or the cycle of nineteen years,
+at the end of which time the new moons fall on the same days of the
+year. The Chinese also determined the obliquity of the ecliptic eleven
+hundred years before our era. The Hindus at a remote antiquity
+represented celestial phenomena with considerable exactness, and
+constructed tables by which the longitude of the sun and moon were
+determined, and dials to measure time. Bailly thinks that thirty-one
+hundred and two years before Christ astronomy was cultivated in Siam
+which hardly yields in accuracy to that which modern science has built
+on the theory of universal gravitation.
+
+But the Greeks after all were the only people of antiquity who elevated
+astronomy to the dignity of a science. They however confessed that they
+derived their earliest knowledge from the Babylonian and Egyptian
+priests, while the priests of Thebes claimed to be the originators of
+exact astronomical observations. Diodorus asserts that the Chaldaeans
+used the Temple of Belus, in the centre of Babylon, for their survey of
+the heavens. But whether the Babylonians or the Egyptians were the
+earliest astronomers is of little consequence, although the pedants make
+it a grave matter of investigation. All we know is that astronomy was
+cultivated by both Babylonians and Egyptians, and that they made but
+very limited attainments. They approximated to the truth in reference
+to the solar year, by observing the equinoxes and solstices and the
+heliacal rising of particular stars.
+
+The early Greek philosophers who visited Egypt and the East in search of
+knowledge, found very little to reward their curiosity or industry,--not
+much beyond preposterous claims to a high antiquity, and to an esoteric
+wisdom which has not yet been revealed. Plato and Eudoxus spent thirteen
+years in Heliopolis for the purpose of extracting the scientific
+knowledge of the Egyptian priests, yet they learned but little beyond
+the fact that the solar year was a trifle beyond three hundred and
+sixty-five days. No great names have come down to us from the priests of
+Babylon or Egypt; no one gained an individual reputation. The Chaldaean
+and Egyptian priests may have furnished the raw material of observation
+to the Greeks, but the latter alone possessed the scientific genius by
+which undigested facts were converted into a symmetrical system. The
+East never gave valuable knowledge to the West; it gave the tendency to
+religious mysticism, which in its turn tended to superstition. Instead
+of astronomy, it gave astrology; instead of science, it gave magic,
+incantations, and dreams. The Eastern astronomers connected their
+astronomy with divination from the stars, and made their antiquity reach
+back to two hundred and seventy thousand years. There were soothsayers
+in the time of Daniel, and magicians, exorcists, and interpreters of
+signs. They were not men of scientific research, seeking truth; it was
+power they sought, by perverting the intellect of the people. The
+astrology of the East was founded on the principle that a star or
+constellation presided over the birth of an individual, and that it
+either portended his fate, or shed a good or bad influence upon his
+future life. The star which looked upon a child at the hour of his birth
+was called the "horoscopus," and the peculiar influence of each planet
+was determined by the astrologers. The superstitions of Egypt and
+Chaldaea unfortunately spread among both the Greeks and Romans, and
+these were about all that the Western nations learned from the boastful
+priests of occult Oriental science. Whatever was known of real value
+among the ancients is due to the earnest inquiries of the Greeks.
+
+And yet their researches were very unsatisfactory until the time of
+Hipparchus. The primitive knowledge was almost nothing. The Homeric
+poems regarded the earth as a circular plain bounded by the heaven,
+which was a solid vault or hemisphere, with its concavity turned
+downward. This absurdity was believed until the time of Herodotus, five
+centuries after; nor was it exploded fully in the time of Aristotle. The
+sun, moon, and stars were supposed to move upon or with the inner
+surface of the heavenly hemisphere, and the ocean was thought to gird
+the earth around as a great belt, into which the heavenly bodies sank at
+night. Homer believed that the sun arose out of the ocean, ascended the
+heaven, and again plunged into the ocean, passing under the earth, and
+producing darkness. The Greeks even personified the sun as a divine
+charioteer driving his fiery steeds over the steep of heaven, until he
+bathed them at evening in the western waves. Apollo became the god of
+the sun, as Diana was the goddess of the moon. But the early Greek
+inquirers did not attempt to explain how the sun found his way from the
+west back again to the east; they merely took note of the diurnal
+course, the alternation of day and night, the number of the seasons, and
+their regular successions. They found the points of the compass by
+determining the recurrence of the equinoxes and solstices; but they had
+no conception of the ecliptic,--of that great circle in the heaven
+formed by the sun's annual course,--and of its obliquity when compared
+with our equator. Like the Egyptians and Babylonians, the Greeks
+ascertained the length of the year to be three hundred and sixty-five
+days; but perfect accuracy was lacking, for want of scientific
+instruments and of recorded observations of the heavenly bodies. The
+Greeks had not even a common chronological era for the designation of
+years. Herodotus informs us that the Trojan War preceded his time by
+eight hundred years: he merely states the interval between the event in
+question and his own time; he had certain data for distant periods. The
+Greeks reckoned dates from the Trojan War, and the Romans from the
+building of their city. The Greeks also divided the year into twelve
+months, and introduced the intercalary circle of eight years, although
+the Romans disused it afterward, until the calendar was reformed by
+Julius Caesar. Thus there was no scientific astronomical knowledge worth
+mentioning among the primitive Greeks.
+
+Immense research and learning have been expended by modern critics to
+show the state of scientific astronomy among the Greeks. I am amazed
+equally at the amount of research and its comparative worthlessness; for
+what addition to science can be made by an enumeration of the
+puerilities and errors of the Greeks, and how wasted and pedantic the
+learning which ransacks all antiquity to prove that the Greeks adopted
+this or that absurdity![1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The style of modern historical criticism is well
+exemplified in the discussions of the Germans whether the Arx on the
+Capitoline Hill occupied the northeastern or southwestern corner, which
+take up nearly one half of the learned article on the Capitoline in
+Smith's Dictionary.]
+
+The earliest historic name associated with astronomy in Greece was
+Thales, the founder of the Ionic school of philosophers. He is reported
+to have made a visit to Egypt, to have fixed the year at three hundred
+and sixty-five days, to have determined the course of the sun from
+solstice to solstice, and to have calculated eclipses. He attributed an
+eclipse of the moon to the interposition of the earth between the sun
+and moon, and an eclipse of the sun to the interposition of the moon
+between the sun and earth,--and thus taught the rotundity of the earth,
+sun, and moon. He also determined the ratio of the sun's diameter to its
+apparent orbit. As he first solved the problem of inscribing a
+right-angled triangle in a circle, he is the founder of geometrical
+science in Greece. He left, however, nothing to writing; hence all
+accounts of him are confused,--some doubting even if he made the
+discoveries attributed to him. His philosophical speculations, which
+science rejects,--such as that water is the principle of all
+things,--are irrelevant to a description of the progress of astronomy.
+That he was a great light no one questions, considering the ignorance
+with which he was surrounded.
+
+Anaximander, who followed Thales in philosophy, held to puerile
+doctrines concerning the motions and nature of the stars, which it is
+useless to repeat. His addition to science, if he made any, was in
+treating the magnitudes and distances of the planets. He constructed
+geographical charts, and attempted to delineate the celestial sphere,
+and to measure time with a gnomon, or time-pillar, by the motion of its
+shadow upon a dial.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: Dr. E.H. Knight, in his "American Mechanical Dictionary"
+(i. 692), cites the Scriptural account of the beautiful altar seen by
+King Ahaz of Jerusalem, in Damascus, when he went thither to greet
+Tiglath-Pileser, the Assyrian who had helped him against his Samarian
+enemy. Ahaz erected a similar altar at Jerusalem, and also a _sun-dial,_
+the same one mentioned in the account of the miraculous cure of his son
+Hezekiah. "This," says Dr. Knight, "was probably the first dial on
+record, and is one hundred and forty years before Thales, and nearly
+four hundred before Plato and Aristotle, and just a little previous to
+the lunar eclipses observed at Babylon, as recorded by Ptolemy.... The
+Hebrew word [for this dial] is said by Colonel White of the Bengal army
+to signify a _staircase_, which much strengthens the inference that it
+was like the equinoctial dial of the Indian nations and of Mesopotamia,
+from whence its pattern is assumed to have been derived."]
+
+Anaximenes of Miletus taught, like his predecessors, crude notions of
+the sun and stars, and speculated on the nature of the moon, but did
+nothing to advance his science on true grounds, except by the
+construction of sun-dials. The same may be said of Heraclitus,
+Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Anaxagoras: they were great men, but they
+gave to the world mere speculations, some of which are very puerile.
+They all held to the idea that the heavenly bodies revolved around the
+earth, and that the earth was a plain; but they explained eclipses, and
+supposed that the moon derived its light from the sun. Some of them
+knew the difference between the planets and the fixed stars. Anaxagoras
+scouted the notion that the sun was a god, and supposed it to be a mass
+of ignited stone,--for which he was called an atheist.
+
+Socrates, who belonged to another school, avoided all barren
+speculations concerning the universe, and confined himself to human
+actions and interests. He looked even upon geometry in a very practical
+way, valuing it only so far as it could be made serviceable to
+land-measuring. As for the stars and planets, he supposed it was
+impossible to arrive at a true knowledge of them, and regarded
+speculations upon them as useless.
+
+It must be admitted that the Greek astronomers, however barren were
+their general theories, laid the foundation of science. Pythagoras
+taught the obliquity of the ecliptic, probably learned in Egypt, and the
+identity of the morning and evening stars. It is supposed that he
+maintained that the sun was the centre of the universe, and that the
+earth revolved around it; but this he did not demonstrate, and his whole
+system was unscientific, assuming certain arbitrary principles, from
+which he reasoned deductively. "He assumed that fire is more worthy than
+earth; that the more worthy place must be given to the more worthy; that
+the extremity is more worthy than the intermediate parts,--and hence,
+as the centre is an extremity, the place of fire is at the centre of the
+universe, and that therefore the earth and other heavenly bodies move
+round the fiery centre." But this was no heliocentric system, since the
+sun moved, like the earth, in a circle around the central fire. This was
+merely the work of the imagination, utterly unscientific, though bold
+and original. Nor did this hypothesis gain credit, since it was the
+fixed opinion of philosophers that the earth was the centre of the
+universe, around which the sun, moon, and planets revolved. But the
+Pythagoreans were the first to teach that the motions of the sun, moon,
+and planets are circular and equable. Their idea that the celestial
+bodies emitted a sound, and were combined into a harmonious symphony,
+was exceedingly crude, however beautiful "The music of the spheres"
+belongs to poetry, as well as to the speculations of Plato.
+
+Eudoxus, in the fifth century before Christ, contributed to science by
+making a descriptive map of the heavens, which was used as a manual of
+sidereal astronomy to the sixth century of our era.
+
+The error of only one hundred and ninety days in the periodic time of
+Saturn shows that there had been for a long time close observations.
+Aristotle--whose comprehensive intellect, like that of Bacon, took in
+all forms of knowledge--condensed all that was known in his day into a
+treatise concerning the heavens. He regarded astronomy as more
+intimately connected with mathematics than any other branch of science.
+But even he did not soar far beyond the philosophers of his day, since
+he held to the immobility of the earth,--the grand error of the
+ancients. Some few speculators in science (like Heraclitus of Pontus,
+and Hicetas) conceived a motion of the earth itself upon its axis, so as
+to account for the apparent motion of the sun; but they also thought it
+was in the centre of the universe.
+
+The introduction of the gnomon (time-pillar) and dial into Greece
+advanced astronomical knowledge, since they were used to determine the
+equinoxes and solstices, as well as parts of the day. Meton set up a
+sun-dial at Athens in the year 433 B.C., but the length of the hour
+varied with the time of the year, since the Greeks divided the day into
+twelve equal parts. Dials were common at Rome in the time of Plautus,
+224 B.C.; but there was a difficulty in using them, since they failed at
+night and in cloudy weather, and could not be relied on. Hence the
+introduction of water-clocks instead.
+
+Aristarchus is said to have combated (280 B.C.) the geocentric theory so
+generally received by philosophers, and to have promulgated the
+hypothesis "that the fixed stars and the sun are immovable; that the
+earth is carried round the sun in the circumference of a circle of
+which the sun is the centre; and that the sphere of the fixed stars,
+having the same centre as the sun, is of such magnitude that the orbit
+of the earth is to the distance of the fixed stars as the centre of the
+sphere of the fixed stars is to its surface." Aristarchus also,
+according to Plutarch, explained the apparent annual motion of the sun
+in the ecliptic by supposing the orbit of the earth to be inclined to
+its axis. There is no evidence that this great astronomer supported his
+heliocentric theory with any geometrical proof, although Plutarch
+maintains that he demonstrated it. This theory gave great offence,
+especially to the Stoics; and Cleanthes, the head of the school at that
+time, maintained that the author of such an impious doctrine should be
+punished. Aristarchus left a treatise "On the Magnitudes and Distances
+of the Sun and Moon;" and his methods to measure the apparent diameters
+of the sun and moon are considered theoretically sound by modern
+astronomers, but practically inexact owing to defective instruments. He
+estimated the diameter of the sun at the seven hundred and twentieth
+part of the circumference of the circle which it describes in its
+diurnal revolution, which is not far from the truth; but in this
+treatise he does not allude to his heliocentric theory.
+
+Archimedes of Syracuse, born 287 B.C., is stated to have measured the
+distance of the sun, moon, and planets, and he constructed an orrery in
+which he exhibited their motions. But it was not in the Grecian colony
+of Syracuse, but of Alexandria, that the greatest light was shed on
+astronomical science. Here Aristarchus resided, and also Eratosthenes,
+who lived between the years 276 and 196 B.C. The latter was a native of
+Athens, but was invited by Ptolemy Euergetes to Alexandria, and placed
+at the head of the library. His great achievement was the determination
+of the circumference of the earth. This was done by measuring on the
+ground the distance between Syene, a city exactly under the tropic, and
+Alexandria, situated on the same meridian. The distance was found to be
+five thousand stadia. The meridional distance of the sun from the zenith
+of Alexandria he estimated to be 7° 12', or a fiftieth part of the
+circumference of the meridian. Hence the circumference of the earth was
+fixed at two hundred and fifty thousand stadia,--which is not very
+different from our modern computation. The circumference being known,
+the diameter of the earth was easily determined. The moderns have added
+nothing to this method. He also calculated the diameter of the sun to be
+twenty-seven times greater than that of the earth, and the distance of
+the sun from the earth to be eight hundred and four million stadia, and
+that of the moon seven hundred and eighty thousand stadia,--a close
+approximation to the truth.
+
+Astronomical science received a great impulse from the school of
+Alexandria, the greatest light of which was Hipparchus, who flourished
+early in the second century before Christ. He laid the foundation of
+astronomy upon a scientific basis. "He determined," says Delambre, "the
+position of the stars by right ascensions and declinations, and was
+acquainted with the obliquity of the ecliptic. He determined the
+inequality of the sun and the place of its apogee, as well as its mean
+motion; the mean motion of the moon, of its nodes and apogee; the
+equation of the moon's centre, and the inclination of its orbit. He
+calculated eclipses of the moon, and used them for the correction of his
+lunar tables, and he had an approximate knowledge of parallax." His
+determination of the motions of the sun and moon, and his method of
+predicting eclipses evince great mathematical genius. But he combined
+with this determination a theory of epicycles and eccentrics which
+modern astronomy discards. It was however a great thing to conceive of
+the earth as a solid sphere, and to reduce the phenomena of the heavenly
+bodies to uniform motions in circular orbits. "That Hipparchus should
+have succeeded in the first great steps of the resolution of the
+heavenly bodies into circular motions is a circumstance," says Whewell,
+"which gives him one of the most distinguished places in the roll of
+great astronomers." But he did even more than this: he discovered that
+apparent motion of the fixed stars round the axis of the ecliptic, which
+is called the Precession of the Equinoxes,--one of the greatest
+discoveries in astronomy. He maintained that the precession was not
+greater than fifty-nine seconds, and not less than thirty-six seconds.
+Hipparchus also framed a catalogue of the stars, and determined their
+places with reference to the ecliptic by their latitudes and longitudes.
+Altogether he seems to have been one of the greatest geniuses of
+antiquity, and his works imply a prodigious amount of calculation.
+
+Astronomy made no progress for three hundred years, although it was
+expounded by improved methods. Posidonius constructed an orrery, which
+exhibited the diurnal motions of the sun, moon, and five planets.
+Posidonius calculated the circumference of the earth to be two hundred
+and forty thousand stadia, by a different method from Eratosthenes. The
+barrenness of discovery from Hipparchus to Ptolemy,--the Alexandrian
+mathematician, astronomer, and geographer in the second century of the
+Christian era,--in spite of the patronage of the royal Ptolemies of
+Egypt, was owing to the want of instruments for the accurate measure of
+time (like our clocks), to the imperfection of astronomical tables, and
+to the want of telescopes. Hence the great Greek astronomers were unable
+to realize their theories. Their theories however were magnificent, and
+evinced great power of mathematical combination; but what could they do
+without that wondrous instrument by which the human eye indefinitely
+multiplies its power? Moreover, the ancients had no accurate almanacs,
+since the care of the calendar belonged not so much to the astronomers
+as to the priests, who tampered with the computation of time for
+sacerdotal objects. The calendars of different communities differed.
+Hence Julius Caesar rendered a great service to science by the reform of
+the Roman calendar, which was exclusively under the control of the
+college of pontiffs, or general religious overseers. The Roman year
+consisted of three hundred and fifty-five days; and in the time of
+Caesar the calendar was in great confusion, being ninety days in
+advance, so that January was an autumn month. He inserted the regular
+intercalary month of twenty-three days, and two additional ones of
+sixty-seven days. These, together with ninety days, were added to three
+hundred and sixty-five days, making a year of transition of four hundred
+and forty-five days, by which January was brought back to the first
+month in the year after the winter solstice; and to prevent the
+repetition of the error, he directed that in future the year should
+consist of three hundred and sixty-five and one-quarter days, which he
+effected by adding one day to the months of April, June, September, and
+November, and two days to the months of January, Sextilis, and
+December, making an addition of ten days to the old year of three
+hundred and fifty-five. And he provided for a uniform intercalation of
+one day in every fourth year, which accounted for the remaining
+quarter of a day.
+
+Caesar was a student of astronomy, and always found time for its
+contemplation. He is said even to have written a treatise on the motion
+of the stars. He was assisted in his reform of the calendar by
+Sosigines, an Alexandrian astronomer. He took it out of the hands of the
+priests, and made it a matter of pure civil regulation. The year was
+defined by the sun, and not as before by the moon.
+
+Thus the Romans were the first to bring the scientific knowledge of the
+Greeks into practical use; but while they measured the year with a great
+approximation to accuracy, they still used sun-dials and water-clocks to
+measure diurnal time. Yet even these were not constructed as they should
+have been. The hour-marks on the sun-dial were all made equal, instead
+of varying with the periods of the day,--so that the length of the hour
+varied with the length of the day. The illuminated interval was divided
+into twelve equal parts; so that if the sun rose at five A.M., and set
+at eight P.M., each hour was equal to eighty minutes. And this rude
+method of measurement of diurnal time remained in use till the sixth
+century. Clocks, with wheels and weights, were not invented till the
+twelfth century.
+
+The last great light among the ancients in astronomical science was
+Ptolemy, who lived from 100 to 170 A.D., in Alexandria. He was
+acquainted with the writings of all the previous astronomers, but
+accepted Hipparchus as his guide. He held that the heaven is spherical
+and revolves upon its axis; that the earth is a sphere, and is situated
+within the celestial sphere, and nearly at its centre; that it is a mere
+point in reference to the distance and magnitude of the fixed stars, and
+that it has no motion. He adopted the views of the ancient astronomers,
+who placed Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars next under the sphere of the fixed
+stars, then the sun above Venus and Mercury, and lastly the moon next to
+the earth. But he differed from Aristotle, who conceived that the earth
+revolves in an orbit around the centre of the planetary system, and
+turns upon its axis,--two ideas in common with the doctrines which
+Copernicus afterward unfolded. But even Ptolemy did not conceive the
+heliocentric theory,--the sun the centre of our system. Archimedes and
+Hipparchus both rejected this theory.
+
+In regard to the practical value of the speculations of the ancient
+astronomers, it may be said that had they possessed clocks and
+telescopes, their scientific methods would have sufficed for all
+practical purposes. The greatness of modern discoveries lies in the
+great stretch of the perceptive powers, and the magnificent field they
+afford for sublime contemplation. "But," as Sir G. Cornewall Lewis
+remarks, "modern astronomy is a science of pure curiosity, and is
+directed exclusively to the extension of knowledge in a field which
+human interests can never enter. The periodic time of Uranus, the nature
+of Saturn's ring, and the occultation of Jupiter's satellites are as far
+removed from the concerns of mankind as the heliacal rising of Sirius,
+or the northern position of the Great Bear." This may seem to be a
+utilitarian view, with which those philosophers who have cultivated
+science for its own sake, finding in the same a sufficient reward, can
+have no sympathy.
+
+The upshot of the scientific attainments of the ancients, in the
+magnificent realm of the heavenly bodies, would seem to be that they
+laid the foundation of all the definite knowledge which is useful to
+mankind; while in the field of abstract calculation they evinced
+reasoning and mathematical powers that have never been surpassed.
+Eratosthenes, Archimedes, and Hipparchus were geniuses worthy to be
+placed by the side of Kepler, Newton, and La Place, and all ages will
+reverence their efforts and their memory. It is truly surprising that
+with their imperfect instruments, and the absence of definite data,
+they reached a height so sublime and grand. They explained the doctrine
+of the sphere and the apparent motions of the planets, but they had no
+instruments capable of measuring angular distances. The ingenious
+epicycles of Ptolemy prepared the way for the elliptic orbits and laws
+of Kepler, which in turn conducted Newton to the discovery of the law of
+gravitation,--the grandest scientific discovery in the annals of
+our race.
+
+Closely connected with astronomical science was geometry, which was
+first taught in Egypt,--the nurse and cradle of ancient wisdom. It arose
+from the necessity of adjusting the landmarks disturbed by the
+inundations of the Nile. There is hardly any trace of geometry among the
+Hebrews. Among the Hindus there are some works on this science, of great
+antiquity. Their mathematicians knew the rule for finding the area of a
+triangle from its sides, and also the celebrated proposition concerning
+the squares on the sides of the right-angled triangle. The Chinese, it
+is said, also knew this proposition before it was known to the Greeks,
+among whom it was first propounded by Thales. He applied a circle to the
+measurement of angles. Anaximander made geographical charts, which
+required considerable geometrical knowledge. Anaxagoras employed
+himself in prison in attempting to square the circle. Thales, as has
+been said, discovered the important theorem that in a right-angled
+triangle the squares on the sides containing the right angle are
+together equal to the square on the opposite side of it. Pythagoras
+discovered that of all figures having the same boundary, the circle
+among plane figures and the sphere among solids are the most capacious.
+Hippocrates treated of the duplication of the cube, and wrote elements
+of geometry, and knew that the area of a circle was equal to a triangle
+whose base is equal to its circumference and altitude equal to its
+radius. The disciples of Plato invented conic sections, and discovered
+the geometrical foci.
+
+It was however reserved for Euclid to make his name almost synonymous
+with geometry. He was born 323 B.C., and belonged to the Platonic sect,
+which ever attached great importance to mathematics. His "Elements" are
+still in use, as nearly perfect as any human production can be. They
+consist of thirteen books. The first four are on plane geometry; the
+fifth is on the theory of proportion, and applies to magnitude in
+general; the seventh, eighth, and ninth are on arithmetic; the tenth on
+the arithmetical characteristics of the division of a straight line; the
+eleventh and twelfth on the elements of solid geometry; the thirteenth
+on the regular solids. These "Elements" soon became the universal study
+of geometers throughout the civilized world; they were translated into
+the Arabic, and through the Arabians were made known to mediaeval
+Europe. There can be no doubt that this work is one of the highest
+triumphs of human genius, and it has been valued more than any single
+monument of antiquity; it is still a text-book, in various English
+translations, in all our schools. Euclid also wrote various other works,
+showing great mathematical talent.
+
+Perhaps a greater even than Euclid was Archimedes, born 287 B.C. He
+wrote on the sphere and cylinder, terminating in the discovery that the
+solidity and surface of a sphere are two thirds respectively of the
+solidity and surface of the circumscribing cylinder. He also wrote on
+conoids and spheroids. "The properties of the spiral and the quadrature
+of the parabola were added to ancient geometry by Archimedes, the last
+being a great step in the progress of the science, since it was the
+first curvilineal space legitimately squared." Modern mathematicians may
+not have the patience to go through his investigations, since the
+conclusions he arrived at may now be reached by shorter methods; but the
+great conclusions of the old geometers were reached by only prodigious
+mathematical power. Archimedes is popularly better known as the inventor
+of engines of war and of various ingenious machines than as a
+mathematician, great as were his attainments in this direction. His
+theory of the lever was the foundation of statics till the discovery of
+the composition of forces in the time of Newton, and no essential
+addition was made to the principles of the equilibrium of fluids and
+floating bodies till the time of Stevin, in 1608. Archimedes detected
+the mixture of silver in a crown of gold which his patron, Hiero of
+Syracuse, ordered to be made; and he invented a water-screw for pumping
+water out of the hold of a great ship which he had built. He contrived
+also the combination of pulleys, and he constructed an orrery to
+represent the movement of the heavenly bodies. He had an extraordinary
+inventive genius for discovering new provinces of inquiry and new points
+of view for old and familiar objects. Like Newton, he had a habit of
+abstraction from outward things, and would forget to take his meals. He
+was killed by Roman soldiers when Syracuse was taken; and the Sicilians
+so soon forgot his greatness that in the time of Cicero they did not
+know where his tomb was.
+
+Eratosthenes was another of the famous geometers of antiquity, and did
+much to improve geometrical analysis. He was also a philosopher and
+geographer. He gave a solution of the problem of the duplication of the
+cube, and applied his geometrical knowledge to the measurement of the
+magnitude of the earth,--being one of the first who brought
+mathematical methods to the aid of astronomy, which in our day is almost
+exclusively the province of the mathematician.
+
+Apollonius of Perga, probably about forty years younger than Archimedes,
+and his equal in mathematical genius, was the most fertile and profound
+writer among the ancients who treated of geometry. He was called the
+Great Geometer. His most important work is a treatise on conic sections,
+which was regarded with unbounded admiration by contemporaries, and in
+some respects is unsurpassed by any thing produced by modern
+mathematicians. He however made use of the labors of his predecessors,
+so that it is difficult to tell how far he is original. But all men of
+science must necessarily be indebted to those who have preceded them.
+Even Homer, in the field of poetry, made use of the bards who had sung
+for a thousand years before him; and in the realms of philosophy the
+great men of all ages have built up new systems on the foundations which
+others have established. If Plato or Aristotle had been contemporaries
+with Thales, would they have matured so wonderful a system of
+dialectics? Yet if Thales had been contemporaneous with Plato, he might
+have added to the great Athenian's sublime science even more than did
+Aristotle. So of the great mathematicians of antiquity; they were all
+wonderful men, and worthy to be classed with the Newtons and Keplers of
+our times. Considering their means and the state of science, they made
+as _great_ though not as _fortunate_ discoveries,--discoveries which
+show patience, genius, and power of calculation. Apollonius was one of
+these,--one of the master intellects of antiquity, like Euclid and
+Archimedes; one of the master intellects of all ages, like Newton
+himself. I might mention the subjects of his various works, but they
+would not be understood except by those familiar with mathematics.
+
+Other famous geometers could also be named, but such men as Euclid,
+Archimedes, and Apollonius are enough to show that geometry was
+cultivated to a great extent by the philosophers of antiquity. It
+progressively advanced, like philosophy itself, from the time of Thales
+until it had reached the perfection of which it was capable, when it
+became merged into astronomical science. It was cultivated more
+particularly by the disciples of Plato, who placed over his school this
+inscription: "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here." He believed
+that the laws by which the universe is governed are in accordance with
+the doctrines of mathematics. The same opinion was shared by Pythagoras,
+the great founder of the science, whose main formula was that _number_
+is the essence or first principle of all things. No thinkers ever
+surpassed the Greeks in originality and profundity; and mathematics,
+being highly prized by them, were carried to the greatest perfection
+their method would allow. They did not understand algebra, by the
+application of which to geometry modern mathematicians have climbed to
+greater heights than the ancients; but then it is all the more
+remarkable that without the aid of algebraic analysis they were able to
+solve such difficult problems as occupied the minds of Archimedes and
+Apollonius. No positive science can boast of such rapid development as
+geometry for two or three hundred years before Christ, and never was the
+intellect of man more severely tasked than by the ancient
+mathematicians.
+
+No empirical science can be carried to perfection by any one nation or
+in any particular epoch; it can only expand with the progressive
+developments of the human race itself. Nevertheless, in that science
+which for three thousand years has been held in the greatest honor, and
+which is one of the three great liberal professions of our modern times,
+the ancients, especially the Greeks, made considerable advance. The
+science of medicine, having in view the amelioration of human misery and
+the prolongation of life itself, was very early cultivated. It was,
+indeed, in old times another word for _physics_,--the science of
+Nature,--and the _physician_ was the observer and expounder of physics.
+The physician was supposed to be acquainted with the secrets of
+Nature,--that is, the knowledge of drugs, of poisons, of antidotes to
+them, and the way to administer them. He was also supposed to know the
+process of preserving the body after death. Thus Joseph, seventeen
+hundred years before the birth of Christ, commanded his physician to
+embalm the body of his father; and the process of embalming was probably
+known to the Egyptians before the period when history begins. Helen, of
+Trojan fame, put into wine a drug that "frees man from grief and anger,
+and causes oblivion of all ills." Solomon was a great botanist,--a realm
+with which the science of medicine is indissolubly connected. The origin
+of Hindu medicine is lost in remote antiquity. The Ayur Veda, written
+nine hundred years before Hippocrates was born, sums up the knowledge of
+previous periods relating to obstetric surgery, to general pathology, to
+the treatment of insanity, to infantile diseases, to toxicology, to
+personal hygiene, and to diseases of the generative functions.
+
+Thus Hippocrates, the father of European medicine, must have derived his
+knowledge not merely from his own observations, but from the writings of
+men unknown to us and from systems practised for an indefinite period.
+The real founders of Greek medicine are fabled characters, like Hercules
+and Aesculapius,--that is, benefactors whose fictitious names alone
+have descended to us. They are mythical personages, like Hermes and
+Chiron. Twelve hundred years before Christ temples were erected to
+Aesculapius in Greece, the priests of which were really physicians, and
+the temples themselves hospitals. In them were practised rites
+apparently mysterious, but which modern science calls by the names of
+mesmerism, hydropathy, the use of mineral springs, and other essential
+elements of empirical science. And these temples were also medical
+schools. That of Cos gave birth to Hippocrates, and it was there that
+his writings were begun. Pythagoras--for those old Grecian philosophers
+were the fathers of all wisdom and knowledge, in mathematics and
+empirical sciences as well as philosophy itself--studied medicine in the
+schools of Egypt, Phoenicia, Chaldaea, and India, and came in conflict
+with sacerdotal power, which has ever been antagonistic to new ideas in
+science. He travelled from town to town as a teacher or lecturer,
+establishing communities in which _medicine_ as well as _numbers_
+was taught.
+
+The greatest name in medical science in ancient or in modern times, the
+man who did the most to advance it, the greatest medical genius of whom
+we have any early record, was Hippocrates, born on the island of Cos,
+460 B.C., of the great Aesculapian family. He received his instruction
+from his father. We know scarcely more of his life than we do of Homer
+himself, although he lived in the period of the highest splendor of
+Athens. Even his writings, like those of Homer, are thought by some to
+be the work of different men. They were translated into Arabic, and were
+no slight means of giving an impulse to the Saracenic schools of the
+Middle Ages in that science in which the Saracens especially excelled.
+The Hippocratic collection consists of more than sixty works, which were
+held in the highest estimation by the ancient physicians. Hippocrates
+introduced a new era in medicine, which before his time had been
+monopolized by the priests. He carried out a system of severe induction
+from the observation of facts, and is as truly the creator of the
+inductive method as Bacon himself. He abhorred theories which could not
+be established by facts; he was always open to conviction, and candidly
+confessed his mistakes; he was conscientious in the practice of his
+profession, and valued the success of his art more than silver and gold.
+The Athenians revered Hippocrates for his benevolence as well as genius.
+The great principle of his practice was _trust in Nature_; hence he was
+accused of allowing his patients to die. But this principle has many
+advocates among scientific men in our day; and some suppose that the
+whole successful practice of Homoeopathy rests on the primal principle
+which Hippocrates advanced, although the philosophy of it claims a
+distinctly scientific basis in the principle _similia similibus
+curantur_. Hippocrates had great skill in diagnosis, by which medical
+genius is most severely tested; his practice was cautious and timid in
+contrast with that of his contemporaries. He is the author of the
+celebrated maxim, "Life is short and art is long." He divides the causes
+of disease into two principal classes,--the one comprehending the
+influence of seasons, climates, and other external forces; the other
+including the effects of food and exercise. To the influence of climate
+he attributes the conformation of the body and the disposition of the
+mind; to a vicious system of diet he attributes innumerable forms of
+disease. For more than twenty centuries his pathology was the foundation
+of all the medical sects. He was well acquainted with the medicinal
+properties of drugs, and was the first to assign three periods to the
+course of a malady. He knew but little of surgery, although he was in
+the habit of bleeding, and often employed the knife; he was also
+acquainted with cupping, and used violent purgatives. He was not aware
+of the importance of the pulse, and confounded the veins with the
+arteries. Hippocrates wrote in the Ionic dialect, and some of his works
+have gone through three hundred editions, so highly have they been
+valued. His authority passed away, like that of Aristotle, on the
+revival of science in Europe. Yet who have been greater ornaments and
+lights than these two distinguished Greeks?
+
+The school of Alexandria produced eminent physicians, as well as
+mathematicians, after the glory of Greece had departed. So highly was it
+esteemed that Galen in the second century,--born in Greece, but famous
+in the service of Rome,--went there to study, five hundred years after
+its foundation. It was distinguished for inquiries into scientific
+anatomy and physiology, for which Aristotle had prepared the way. Galen
+was the Humboldt of his day, and gave great attention to physics. In
+eight books he developed the general principles of natural science known
+to the Greeks. On the basis of the Aristotelian researches, the
+Alexandrian physicians carried out extensive inquiries in physiology.
+Herophilus discovered the fundamental principles of neurology, and
+advanced the anatomy of the brain and spinal cord.
+
+Although the Romans had but little sympathy with science or philosophy,
+being essentially political and warlike in their turn of mind, yet when
+they had conquered the world, and had turned their attention to arts,
+medicine received a good share of their attention. The first physicians
+in Rome were Greek slaves. Of these was Asclepiades, who enjoyed the
+friendship of Cicero. It is from him that the popular medical theories
+as to the "pores" have descended. He was the inventor of the
+shower-bath. Celsus wrote a work on medicine which takes almost equal
+rank with the Hippocratic writings.
+
+Medical science at Rome culminated in Galen, as it did at Athens in
+Hippocrates. Galen was patronized by Marcus Aurelius, and availed
+himself of all the knowledge of preceding naturalists and physicians. He
+was born at Pergamos about the year 130 A.D., where he learned, under
+able masters, anatomy, pathology, and therapeutics. He finished his
+studies at Alexandria, and came to Rome at the invitation of the
+Emperor. Like his imperial patron, Galen was one of the brightest
+ornaments of the heathen world, and one of the most learned and
+accomplished men of any age. He left five hundred treatises, most of
+them relating to some branch of medical science, which give him the name
+of being one of the most voluminous of authors. His celebrity is founded
+chiefly on his anatomical and physiological works. He was familiar with
+practical anatomy, deriving his knowledge from dissection. His
+observations about health are practical and useful; he lays great stress
+on gymnastic exercises, and recommends the pleasures of the chase, the
+cold bath in hot weather, hot baths for old people, the use of wine, and
+three meals a day. The great principles of his practice were that
+disease is to be overcome by that which is contrary to the disease
+itself,--hence the name Allopathy, invented by the founder of
+Homoeopathy to designate the fundamental principle of the general
+practice,--and that nature is to be preserved by that which has relation
+with nature. His "Commentaries on Hippocrates" served as a treasure of
+medical criticism, from which succeeding annotators borrowed. No one
+ever set before the medical profession a higher standard than Galen
+advanced, and few have more nearly approached it. He did not attach
+himself to any particular school, but studied the doctrines of each. The
+works of Galen constituted the last production of ancient Roman
+medicine, and from his day the decline in medical science was rapid,
+until it was revived among the Arabs.
+
+The physical sciences, it must be confessed, were not carried by the
+ancients to any such length as geometry and astronomy. In physical
+geography they were particularly deficient. Yet even this branch of
+knowledge can boast of some eminent names. When men sailed timidly along
+the coasts, and dared not explore distant seas, the true position and
+characteristics of countries could not be ascertained with the
+definiteness that it is at present. But geography was not utterly
+neglected in those early times, nor was natural history.
+
+Herodotus gives us most valuable information respecting the manners and
+customs of Oriental and barbarous nations; and Pliny wrote a Natural
+History in thirty-seven books, which is compiled from upwards of two
+thousand volumes, and refers to twenty thousand matters of importance.
+He was born 23 A.D., and was fifty-six when the eruption of Vesuvius
+took place, which caused his death. Pliny cannot be called a scientific
+genius in the sense understood by modern savants; nor was he an original
+observer,--his materials being drawn up second-hand, like a modern
+encyclopaedia. Nor did he evince great judgment in his selection: he had
+a great love of the marvellous, and his work was often unintelligible;
+but it remains a wonderful monument of human industry. His Natural
+History treats of everything in the natural world,--of the heavenly
+bodies, of the elements, of thunder and lightning, of the winds and
+seasons, of the changes and phenomena of the earth, of countries and
+nations, of seas and rivers, of men, animals, birds, fishes, and plants,
+of minerals and medicines and precious stones, of commerce and the fine
+arts. He is full of errors, but his work is among the most valuable
+productions of antiquity. Buffon pronounced his Natural History to
+contain an infinity of knowledge in every department of human
+occupation, conveyed in a dress ornate and brilliant. It is a literary
+rather than a scientific monument, and as such it is wonderful. In
+strict scientific value, it is inferior to the works of modern research;
+but there are few minds, even in these times, who have directed
+inquiries to such a variety of subjects as are treated in Pliny's
+masterpiece.
+
+If we would compare the geographical knowledge of the ancients with that
+of the moderns, we confess to the immeasurable inferiority of
+the ancients.
+
+Eratosthenes, though more properly an astronomer, and the most
+distinguished among the ancients, was also a considerable writer on
+geography, indeed, the first who treated the subject systematically,
+although none of his writings have reached us. The improvements he
+pointed out were applied by Ptolemy himself. His work was a presentation
+of the geographical knowledge known in his day, so far as geography is
+the science of determining the position of places on the earth's
+surface. When Eratosthenes began his labors, in the third century before
+Christ, it was known that the surface of the earth was spherical; he
+established parallels of latitude and longitude, and attempted the
+difficult undertaking of measuring the circumference of the globe by the
+actual measurement of a segment of one of its great circles.
+
+Hipparchus (beginning of second century before Christ) introduced into
+geography a great improvement; namely, the relative situation of
+places, by the same process that he determined the positions of the
+heavenly bodies. He also pointed out how longitude might be determined
+by observing the eclipses of the sun and moon. This led to the
+construction of maps; but none have reached us except those that were
+used to illustrate the geography of Ptolemy. Hipparchus was the first
+who raised geography to the rank of a science. He starved himself to
+death, being tired of life.
+
+Posidonius, who was nearly a century later, determined the arc of a
+meridian between Rhodes and Alexandria to be a forty-eighth part of the
+whole circumference,--an enormous calculation, yet a remarkable one in
+the infancy of astronomical science. His writings on history and
+geography are preserved only in quotations by Cicero, Strabo,
+and others.
+
+Geographical knowledge however was most notably advanced by Strabo, who
+lived in the Augustan era; although his researches were chiefly confined
+to the Roman empire. Strabo was, like Herodotus, a great traveller, and
+much of his geographical information is the result of his own
+observations. It is probable he was much indebted to Eratosthenes, who
+preceded him by three centuries. The authorities of Strabo were chiefly
+Greek, but his work is defective from the imperfect notions which the
+ancients had of astronomy; so that the determination of the earth's
+figure by the measure of latitude and longitude, the essential
+foundation of geographical description, was unknown. The enormous
+strides which all forms of physical science have made since the
+discovery of America throw all ancient descriptions and investigations
+into the shade, and Strabo appears at as great disadvantage as Pliny or
+Ptolemy; yet the work of Strabo, considering his means, and the
+imperfect knowledge of the earth's surface and astronomical science in
+his day, was really a great achievement. He treats of the form and
+magnitude of the earth, and devotes eight books to Europe, six to Asia,
+and one to Africa. The description of places belongs to Strabo, whose
+work was accepted as the text-book of the science till the fifteenth
+century, for in his day the Roman empire had been well surveyed. He
+maintained that the earth is spherical, and established the terms
+_longitude_ and _latitude_, which Eratosthenes had introduced, and
+computed the earth to be one hundred and eighty thousand stadia in
+circumference, and a degree to be five hundred stadia in length, or
+sixty-two and a-half Roman miles. His estimates of the length of a
+degree of latitude were nearly correct; but he made great errors in the
+degrees of longitude, making the length of the world from east to west
+too great, which led to the belief in the practicability of a western
+passage to India. He also assigned too great length to the
+Mediterranean, arising from the difficulty of finding the longitude with
+accuracy. But it was impossible, with the scientific knowledge of his
+day, to avoid errors, and we are surprised that he made so few.
+
+Whatever may be said of the accuracy of the great geographer of
+antiquity, it cannot be denied that he was a man of immense research and
+learning. His work in seventeen books is one of the most valuable that
+have come down from antiquity, both from the discussions which run
+through it, and the curious facts which can be found nowhere else. It is
+scarcely fair to estimate the genius of Strabo by the correctness and
+extent of his geographical knowledge. All men are comparatively ignorant
+in science, because science is confessedly a progressive study. The
+great scientific lights of our day may be insignificant, compared with
+those who are to arise, if profundity and accuracy of knowledge be made
+the test. It is the genius of the ancients, their grasp and power of
+mind, their original labors, which we are to consider.
+
+Thus it would seem that among the ancients, in those departments of
+science which are inductive, there were not sufficient facts, well
+established, from which to make sound inductions; but in those
+departments which are deductive, like pure mathematics, and which
+require great reasoning powers, there were lofty attainments,--which
+indeed gave the foundation for the achievements of modern science.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+An exceedingly learned work (London, 1862) on the Astronomy of the
+Ancients, by Sir George Cornewall Lewis, though rather ostentatious in
+the parade of authorities, and minute on points which are not of much
+consequence, is worth consulting. Delambre's History of Ancient
+Astronomy has long been a classic, but is richer in materials for a
+history than a history itself. There is a valuable essay in the
+Encyclopaedia Britannica, which refers to a list of special authors.
+Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences may also be consulted with
+profit. Dunglison's History of Medicine is a standard, giving much
+detailed information, and Leclerc among the French and Speugel among the
+Germans are esteemed authorities. Strabo's Geography is the most
+valuable of antiquity; see also Polybius: both of these have been
+translated and edited for English readers.
+
+
+
+
+MATERIAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS.
+
+
+MECHANICAL AND USEFUL ARTS.
+
+4000-50 B.C.
+
+
+While the fine arts made great progress among the cultivated nations of
+antiquity, and with the Greeks reached a refinement that has never since
+been surpassed, the ancients were far behind modern nations in
+everything that has utility for its object. In implements of war, in
+agricultural instruments, in the variety of manufactures, in machinery,
+in chemical compounds, in domestic utensils, in grand engineering works,
+in the comfort of houses, in modes of land-travel and transportation, in
+navigation, in the multiplication of books, in triumphs over the forces
+of Nature, in those discoveries and inventions which abridge the labors
+of mankind and bring races into closer intercourse,--especially by such
+wonders as are wrought by steam, gas, electricity, gunpowder, the
+mariner's compass, and the art of printing,--the modern world feels its
+immense superiority to all the ages that have gone before. And yet,
+considering the infancy of science and the youth of nations, more was
+accomplished by the ancients for the comfort and convenience and luxury
+of man than we naturally might suppose.
+
+Egypt was the primeval seat of what may be called material civilization,
+and many arts and inventions were known there when the rest of the world
+was still in ignorance and barbarism. More than four thousand years ago
+the Egyptians had chariots of war and most of the military weapons known
+afterward to the Greeks,--especially the spear and bow, which were the
+most effective offensive weapons known to antiquity or the Middle Ages.
+Some of their warriors were clothed in coats of brass equal to the steel
+or iron cuirass worn by the Mediaeval knights of chivalry. They had the
+battle-axe, the shield, the sword, the javelin, the metal-headed arrow.
+One of the early Egyptian kings marched against his enemies with six
+hundred thousand infantry, twenty thousand cavalry, and twenty-three
+thousand chariots of war, each drawn by two horses. The saddles and
+bridles of their horses were nearly as perfect as ours are at the
+present time; the leather they used was dyed in various colors, and
+adorned with metal edges. The wheels of their chariots were bound with
+hoops of metal, and had six spokes. Umbrellas to protect from the rays
+of the sun were held over the heads of their women of rank when they
+rode in their highly-decorated chariots. Walls of solid masonry, thick
+and high, surrounded their principal cities, while an attacking or
+besieging army used movable towers. Their disciplined troops advanced to
+battle in true military precision, at the sound of the trumpet.
+
+The public works of Egyptian kings were on a grand scale. They united
+rivers with seas by canals which employed hundreds of thousands of
+workmen. They transported heavy blocks of stone, of immense weight and
+magnitude, for their temples, palaces, and tombs. They erected obelisks
+in single shafts nearly one hundred feet in height, and they engraved
+the sides of these obelisks from top to bottom with representations of
+warriors, priests, and captives. They ornamented their vast temples with
+sculptures which required the hardest metals. Rameses the Great, the
+Sesostris of the Greeks, had a fleet of four hundred vessels in the
+Arabian Gulf, and the rowers wore quilted helmets. His vessels had
+sails, which implies the weaving of flax and the twisting of heavy
+ropes; some of his war-galleys were propelled by forty-four oars, and
+were one hundred and twenty feet in length.
+
+Among their domestic utensils the Egyptians used the same kind of
+buckets for wells that we find to-day among the farmhouses of New
+England. Skilful gardeners were employed in ornamenting grounds and in
+raising fruits and vegetables. The leather cutters and dressers were
+famous for their skill, as well as workers in linen. Most products of
+the land, as well as domestic animals, were sold by weight in carefully
+adjusted scales. Instead of coins, money was in rings of gold, silver,
+and copper. The skill used by the Egyptians in rearing fowls, geese, and
+domestic animals greatly surpassed that known to modern farmers.
+According to Wilkinson, they caught fish in nets equal to the seines
+employed by modern fishermen. Their houses as well as their monuments
+were built of brick, and were sometimes four or five stories in height,
+and secured by bolts on the doors. Locks and keys were also in use, made
+of iron; and the doorways were ornamented. Some of the roofs of their
+public buildings were arched with stone. In their mills for grinding
+wheat circular stones were used, resembling in form those now employed,
+generally turned by women, but sometimes so large that asses and mules
+were employed in the work. The walls and ceilings of their buildings
+were richly painted, the devices being as elaborate as those of the
+Greeks. Besides town-houses, the rich had villas and gardens, where they
+amused themselves with angling and spearing fish in the ponds. The
+gardens were laid in walks shaded with trees, and were well watered from
+large tanks. Vines were trained on trellis-work supported by pillars,
+and sometimes in the form of bowers. For gathering fruit, baskets were
+used somewhat similar to those now employed. Their wine-presses showed
+considerable ingenuity, and after the necessary fermentation the wine
+was poured into large earthen jars, corresponding to the amphorae of the
+Romans, and covered with lids made air-tight by resin and bitumen. The
+Egyptians had several kinds of wine, highly praised by the ancients; and
+wine among them was cheap and abundant. Egypt was also renowned for
+drugs unknown to other nations, and for beer made of barley, as well as
+wine. As for fruits, they had the same variety as we have at the present
+day, their favorite fruit being dates. "So fond were the Egyptians of
+trees and flowers that they exacted a contribution from the nations
+tributary to them of their rarest plants, so that their gardens bloomed
+with flowers of every variety in all seasons of the year." Wreaths and
+chaplets were in common use from the earliest antiquity. It was in their
+gardens, abounding with vegetables as well as with fruits and flowers,
+that the Egyptians entertained their friends.
+
+In Egyptian houses were handsome chairs and fauteuils, stools and
+couches, the legs of which were carved in imitation of the feet of
+animals; and these were made of rare woods, inlaid with ivory, and
+covered with rich stuffs. Some of the Egyptian chairs were furnished
+with cushions and covered with the skins of leopards and lions; the
+seats were made of leather, painted with flowers. Footstools were
+sometimes made of elegant patterns, inlaid with ivory and precious
+woods. Mats were used in the sitting-rooms. The couches were of every
+variety of form, and utilized in some instances as beds. The tables were
+round, square, and oblong, and were sometimes made of stone and highly
+ornamented with carvings. Bronze bedsteads were used by the
+wealthy classes.
+
+In their entertainments nothing was omitted by the Egyptians which would
+produce festivity,--music, songs, dancing, and games of chance. The
+guests arrived in chariots or palanquins, borne by servants on foot, who
+also carried parasols over the heads of their masters. Previous to
+entering the festive chamber water was brought for the feet and hands,
+the ewers employed being made often of gold and silver, of beautiful
+form and workmanship. Servants in attendance anointed the head with
+sweet-scented ointment from alabaster vases, and put around the heads of
+the guests garlands and wreaths in which the lotus was conspicuous; they
+also perfumed the apartments with myrrh and frankincense, obtained
+chiefly from Syria. Then wine was brought, and emptied into
+drinking-cups of silver or bronze, and even of porcelain, beautifully
+engraved, one of which was exclusively reserved for the master of the
+house. While at dinner the party were enlivened with musical
+instruments, the chief of which were the harp, the lyre, the guitar, the
+tambourine, the pipe, the flute, and the cymbal. Music was looked upon
+by the Egyptians as an important science, and was diligently studied and
+highly prized; the song and the dance were united with the sounds of
+musical instruments. Many of the ornamented vases and other vessels used
+by the Egyptians in their banquets were not inferior in elegance of form
+and artistic finish to those made by the Greeks at a later day. The
+Pharaoh of the Jewish Exodus had drinking-vessels of gold and silver,
+exquisitely engraved and ornamented with precious stones.
+
+Some of the bronze vases found at Thebes and other parts of Egypt show
+great skill in the art of compounding metals, and were highly polished.
+Their bronze knives and daggers had an elastic spring, as if made of
+steel. Wilkinson expresses his surprise at the porcelain vessels
+recently discovered, as well as admiration of them, especially of their
+rich colors and beautiful shapes. There is a porcelain bowl of exquisite
+workmanship in the British Museum inscribed with the name of Rameses
+II., proving that the arts of pottery were carried to great perfection
+two thousand years before Christ. Boxes of elaborate workmanship, made
+of precious woods finely carved and inlaid with ivory, are also
+preserved in the different museums of Europe, all dating from a remote
+antiquity. These boxes are of every form, with admirably fitting lids,
+representing fishes, birds, and animals. The rings, bracelets, and other
+articles of jewelry that have been preserved show great facility on the
+part of the Egyptians in cutting the hardest stones. The skill displayed
+in the sculptures on the hard obelisks and granite monuments of Egypt
+was remarkable, since they were executed with hardened bronze.
+
+Glass-blowing was another art in which the Egyptians excelled. Fifteen
+hundred years before Christ they made ornaments of glass, and glass
+vessels of large size were used for holding wine. Such was their skill
+in the manufacture of glass that they counterfeited precious stones with
+a success unknown to the moderns. We read of a counterfeited emerald six
+feet in length. Counterfeited necklaces were sold at Thebes which
+deceived strangers. The uses to which glass was applied were in the
+manufacture of bottles, beads, mosaic work, and drinking-cups, and their
+different colors show considerable knowledge of chemistry. The art of
+cutting and engraving stones was doubtless learned by the Israelites in
+their sojourn in Egypt. So perfect were the Egyptians in the arts of
+cutting precious stones that they were sought by foreign merchants, and
+they furnished an important material in commerce.
+
+From the earliest times the Egyptians were celebrated for their
+manufacture of linen, which was one of the principal articles of
+commerce; and cotton and woollen cloths as well as linen were woven.
+Cotton was used not only for articles of dress, but for the covering of
+chairs and other kinds of furniture. The great mass of the mummy cloths
+is of coarse texture; but the "fine linen" spoken of in the Scripture
+was as fine as muslin, in some instances containing more than five
+hundred threads to an inch, while the finest productions of the looms of
+India have only one hundred threads to the inch. Not only were the
+threads of linen cloth of extraordinary fineness, but the dyes were
+equally remarkable, and were unaffected by strong alkalies. Spinning was
+principally the occupation of women, who also practised the art of
+embroidery, in which gold thread was used, supposed to be beaten out by
+the hammer; but in the arts of dyeing and embroidery the Egyptians were
+surpassed by the Babylonians, who were renowned for their cloths of
+various colors.
+
+The manufacture of paper was another art for which the Egyptians were
+famous, made from the papyrus, a plant growing in the marsh-land of the
+Nile. The papyrus was also applied to the manufacture of sails, baskets,
+canoes, and parts of sandals. Some of the papyri, on which is
+hieroglyphic writing dating from two thousand years before our era, are
+in good preservation. Sheep-skin parchment also was used for writing.
+
+The Egyptians were especially skilled in the preparation of leather for
+sandals, shields, and chairs. The curriers used the same semicircular
+knife which is now in use. The great consumption of leather created a
+demand far greater than could be satisfied by the produce of the
+country, and therefore skins from foreign countries were imported as
+part of the tribute laid on conquered nations or tribes.
+
+More numerous than the tanners in Egypt were the potters, among whom the
+pottery-wheel was known from a remote antiquity, previous to the arrival
+of Joseph from Canaan, and long before the foundation of the Greek
+Athens. Earthenware was used for holding wine, oils, and other liquids;
+but the finest production of the potter were the vases, covered with a
+vitreous glaze and modelled in every variety of forms, some of which
+were as elegant as those made later by the Greeks, who excelled in this
+department of art.
+
+Carpenters and cabinet-makers formed a large class of Egyptian workmen
+for making coffins, boxes, tables, chairs, doors, sofas, and other
+articles of furniture, frequently inlaid with ivory and rare woods.
+Veneering was known to these workmen, probably arising from the scarcity
+of wood. The tools used by the carpenters, as appear from the
+representations on the monuments, were the axe, the adze, the hand-saw,
+the chisel, the drill, and the plane. These tools were made of bronze,
+with handles of acacia, tamarisk, and other hard woods. The hatchet, by
+which trees were felled, was used by boat-builders. The boxes and other
+articles of furniture were highly ornamented with inlaid work.
+
+Boat-building in Egypt also employed many workmen. Boats were made of
+the papyrus plant, deal, cedar, and other woods, and were propelled both
+by sails and oars. One ship-of-war built for Ptolemy Philopater is said
+by ancient writers to have been 478 feet long, to have had forty banks
+of oars, and to have carried 400 sailors, 4,000 rowers, and 3,000
+soldiers. This is doubtless an exaggeration, but indicates great
+progress in naval architecture. The construction of boats varied
+according to the purpose for which they were intended. They were built
+with ribs as at the present day, with small keels, square sails, with
+spacious cabins in the centre, and ornamented sterns; there was usually
+but one mast, and the prows terminated in the heads of animals. The
+boats of burden were somewhat similar to our barges; the sails were
+generally painted with rich colors. The origin of boat-building was
+probably the raft, and improvement followed improvement until the
+ship-of-war rivalled in size our largest vessels, while Egyptian
+merchant vessels penetrated to distant seas, and probably doubled the
+Cape of Good Hope.
+
+In regard to agriculture the Egyptians were the most advanced of the
+nations of antiquity, since the fertility of their soil made the
+occupation one of primary importance. Irrigation was universally
+practised, the Nile furnishing water for innumerable canals. The soil
+was often turned up with the hoe rather than the plough. The grain was
+sown broadcast, and was trodden in by goats. Their plough was very
+simple, and was drawn by oxen; the yoke being attached to the horns.
+Although the soil was rich, manures were frequently used. The chief
+crops were those of wheat, barley, beans, peas, lentils, vetches,
+lupines, clover, rice, indigo, cotton, lettuce, flax, hemp, cumin,
+coriander, poppy, melons, cucumbers, onions, and leeks. We do not read
+of carrots, cabbages, beets, or potatoes, which enter so largely into
+modern husbandry. Oil was obtained from the olive, the castor-berry,
+simsin, and coleseed. Among the principal trees which were cultivated
+were the vine, olive, locust, acacia, date, sycamore, pomegranate, and
+tamarisk. Grain, after harvest, was trodden out by oxen, and the straw
+was used as provender. To protect the fields from inundation dykes
+were built.
+
+All classes in Egypt delighted in the sports of the field, especially in
+the hunting of wild animals, in which the arrow was most frequently
+used. Sometimes the animals were caught in nets, in enclosed places near
+water-brooks. The Egyptians also had numerous fish-ponds, since they
+were as fond of angling as they were of hunting. Hunting in Egypt was an
+amusement, not an occupation as among nomadic people. Not only was
+hunting for pleasure a great amusement among Egyptians, but also among
+Babylonians and Persians, who coursed the plains with dogs. They used
+the noose or lasso also to catch antelopes and wild cattle, which were
+hunted with lions; the bow used in the chase was similar to that
+employed in war. All the subjects of the chase were sculptured on the
+monuments with great spirit and fidelity, especially the stag, the ibex,
+the porcupine, the wolf, the hare, the lion, the fox, and the giraffe.
+The camel is not found among the Egyptian sculptures, nor the bear. Of
+the birds found in their sculptures were vultures, eagles, kites, hawks,
+owls, ravens, larks, swallows, turtle-doves, quails, ostriches, storks,
+plovers, snipes, geese, and ducks, many of which were taken in nets. The
+Nile and Lake Birket el Keroun furnished fish in great abundance. The
+profits of the fisheries were enormous, and were farmed out by the
+government.
+
+The Egyptians were very fond of ornaments in dress, especially the
+women. They paid great attention to their sandals; they wore their hair
+long and plaited, bound round with an ornamented fillet fastened by a
+lotus bud; they wore ear-rings and a profusion of rings on the fingers
+and bracelets for the arms, made of gold and set with precious stones.
+The scarabaeus, or sacred beetle, was the adornment of rings and
+necklaces; even the men wore necklaces and rings and chains. Both men
+and women stained the eyelids and brows. Pins and needles were among the
+articles of the toilet, usually made of bronze; also metallic mirrors
+finely polished. The men carried canes or walking-sticks,--the wands of
+Moses and Aaron.
+
+As the Egyptians paid great attention to health, physicians were held in
+great repute; and none were permitted to practise but in some particular
+branch, such as diseases of the eye, the ear, the head, the teeth, and
+the internal maladies. They were paid by government, and were skilled in
+the knowledge of drugs. The art of curing diseases originated, according
+to Pliny, in Egypt. Connected with the healing art was the practice of
+embalming dead bodies, which was carried to great perfection.
+
+In elegance of life the Greeks and Romans, however, far surpassed any
+of the nations of antiquity, if not in luxury itself, which was confined
+to the palaces of kings. In social refinements the Greeks were not
+behind any modern nation, as one infers from reading Becker's Charicles.
+Among the Greeks was the network of trades and professions, as in Paris
+and London, and a complicated social life in which all the amenities
+known to the modern world were seen, especially in Athens and Corinth
+and the Ionian capitals. What could be more polite and courteous than
+the intercourse carried on in Greece among cultivated and famous people?
+When were symposia more attractive than when the _élite_ of Athens, in
+the time of Pericles, feasted and communed together? When was art ever
+brought in support of luxury to greater perfection? We read of libraries
+and books and booksellers, of social games, of attractive gardens and
+villas, as well as of baths and spectacles, of markets and fora in
+Athens. The common life of a Pericles or a Cicero differed but little
+from that of modern men of rank and fortune.
+
+In describing the various arts which marked the nations of antiquity, we
+cannot but feel that in a material point of view the ancient
+civilization in its important features was as splendid as our own. In
+the decoration of houses, in social entertainments, in cookery, the
+Romans were our equals. The mosaics, the signet rings, cameos,
+bracelets, bronzes, vases, couches, banqueting-tables, lamps, colored
+glass, potteries, all attest great elegance and beauty. The tables of
+thuga root and Delian bronze were as expensive as modern sideboards;
+wood and ivory were carved in Rome as exquisitely as in Japan and China;
+mirrors were made of polished silver. Glass-cutters could imitate the
+colors of precious stones so well that the Portland vase, from the tomb
+of Alexander Severus, was long considered as a genuine sardonyx. The
+palace of Nero glittered with gold and jewels; perfumes and flowers were
+showered from ivory ceilings. The halls of Heliogabalus were hung with
+cloth of gold, enriched with jewels; his beds were silver, and his
+tables of gold. A banquet dish of Drusillus weighed five hundred pounds
+of silver. Tunics were embroidered with the figures of various animals;
+sandals were garnished with precious stones. Paulina wore jewels, when
+she paid visits, valued at $800,000. Drinking-cups were engraved with
+scenes from the poets; libraries were adorned with busts, and presses of
+rare woods; sofas were inlaid with tortoise-shell, and covered with
+gorgeous purple. The Roman grandees rode in gilded chariots, bathed in
+marble baths, dined from golden plate, drank from crystal cups, slept on
+beds of down, reclined on luxurious couches, wore embroidered robes,
+and were adorned with precious stones. They ransacked the earth and the
+seas for rare dishes for their banquets, and ornamented their houses
+with carpets from Babylon, onyx cups from Bithynia, marbles from
+Numidia, bronzes from Corinth, statues from Athens,--whatever, in short,
+was precious or rare or curious in the most distant countries.
+
+What a concentration of material wonders was to be seen in all the
+countries that bordered on the Mediterranean,--not merely in Italy and
+Greece, but in Sicily and Asia Minor, and even in Gaul and Spain! Every
+country was dotted with cities, villas, and farms. Every country was
+famous for oil, or fruit, or wine, or vegetables, or timber, or flocks,
+or pastures, or horses. More than two hundred and fifty cities or towns
+in Italy alone are historical, and some were famous.
+
+The excavations of Pompeii attest great luxury and elegance of life.
+Cortona, Clusium, Veii, Ancona, Ostia, Praeneste, Antium, Misenum,
+Baiae, Puteoli, Neapolis, Brundusium, Sybaris, were all celebrated.
+
+And still more remarkable were the old capitals of Greece, Asia Minor,
+and Africa. Syracuse was older than Rome, and had a fortress of a mile
+and a half in length. Carthage, under the emperors, nearly equalled its
+ancient magnificence. Athens was never more splendid than in the time of
+the Roman Antonines. In spite of successive conquests, there still
+towered upon the Acropolis the most wonderful temple of antiquity, built
+of Pentelic marble, and adorned with the sculptures of Phidias. Corinth
+was richer and more luxurious than Athens, and possessed the most
+valuable pictures of Greece, as well as the finest statues; a single
+street for three miles was adorned with costly edifices. And even the
+islands which were colonized by Greeks were seats of sculpture and
+painting, as well as of schools of learning. Still grander were the
+cities of Asia Minor. Antioch had a street four miles in length, with
+double colonnades; and its baths, theatres, museums, and temples excited
+universal admiration. At Ephesus was the grand temple of Diana, four
+times as large as the Parthenon at Athens, covering as much ground as
+Cologne Cathedral, with one hundred and twenty-eight columns sixty feet
+high. The Ephesian theatre was capable of seating sixty thousand
+spectators. Tarsus, the birthplace of Paul, was no mean city; and
+Damascus, the old capital of Syria, was both beautiful and rich.
+
+Laodicea was famous for tapestries, Hierapolis for its iron wares,
+Cybara for its dyes, Sardis for its wines, Smyrna for its beautiful
+monuments, Delos for its slave-trade, Cyrene for its horses, Paphos for
+its temple of Venus, in which were a hundred altars. Seleucia, on the
+Tigris, had a population of four hundred thousand. Caesarea in
+Palestine, founded by Herod the Great, and the principal seat of
+government to the Roman prefects, had a harbor equal in size to the
+renowned Piraeus, and was secured against the southwest winds by a mole
+of such massive construction that the blocks of stone, sunk under the
+water, were fifty feet in length, eighteen in width, and nine in
+thickness. The city itself was constructed of polished stone, with an
+agora, a theatre, a circus, a praetorium, and a temple to Caesar. Tyre,
+which had resisted for seven months the armies of Alexander, remained to
+the fall of the empire a great emporium of trade; it monopolized the
+manufacture of imperial purple. Sidon was equally celebrated for its
+glass and embroidered robes. The Sidonians cast glass mirrors, and
+imitated precious stones. But the glory of both Tyre and Sidon was in
+ships, which visited all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and even
+penetrated to Britain and India.
+
+But greater than Tyre or Antioch, or any eastern city, was Alexandria,
+the capital of Egypt. Egypt even in its decline was still a great
+monarchy; and when the sceptre of three hundred kings passed from
+Cleopatra the last of the Ptolemies, to Augustus Caesar the conqueror at
+Actium, the military force of Egypt is said to have amounted to seven
+hundred thousand men. The annual revenues of this State under the
+Ptolemies amounted to about seventeen million dollars in gold and
+silver, besides the produce of the earth. A single feast cost
+Philadelphus more than half a million of pounds sterling, and he had
+accumulated treasures to the amount of seven hundred and forty thousand
+talents, or about eight hundred and sixty million dollars. What European
+monarch ever possessed such a sum? The kings of Egypt, even when
+tributary to Rome, were richer in gold and silver than was Louis XIV. in
+the proudest hour of his life.
+
+The ground-plan of Alexandria was traced by Alexander himself, but it
+was not completed until the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Its
+circumference was about fifteen miles; the streets were regular, and
+crossed one another at right angles, being wide enough for free passage
+of both carriages and foot passengers. Its harbor could hold the largest
+fleet ever congregated; its walls and gates were constructed with all
+the skill and strength known to antiquity; its population numbered six
+hundred thousand, and all nations were represented in its crowded
+streets. The wealth of the city may be inferred from the fact that in
+one year sixty-two hundred and fifty talents, or more than six million
+dollars, were paid to the public treasury for port dues. The library was
+the largest in the world, numbering over seven hundred thousand
+volumes; and this was connected with a museum, a menagerie, a botanical
+garden, and various halls for lectures, altogether forming the most
+famous university in the Roman empire. The inhabitants were chiefly
+Greek, and had all the cultivated tastes and mercantile thrift of that
+quick-witted people. In a commercial point of view Alexandria was the
+most important city in the world, and its ships whitened every sea.
+Unlike most commercial cities, it was intellectual, and its schools of
+poetry, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, and theology were more
+renowned than even those of Athens during the third and fourth
+centuries. Alexandria, could it have been transported in its former
+splendor to our modern world, would be a great capital in these times.
+
+And all these cities were connected with one another and with Rome by
+magnificent roads, perfectly straight, and paved with large blocks of
+stone. They were originally constructed for military purposes, but were
+used by travellers, and on them posts were regularly established; they
+crossed valleys upon arches, and penetrated mountains; in Italy,
+especially, they were great works of art, and connected all the
+provinces. There was an uninterrupted communication from the wall of
+Antoninus through York, London, Sandwich, Boulogne, Rheims, Lyons,
+Milan, Rome, Brundusium, Dyrrachium, Byzantium, Ancyra, Tarsus,
+Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem,--a distance of thirty-seven hundred and forty
+miles; and these roads were divided by milestones, and houses for
+travellers erected upon them at points of every five or six miles.
+
+Commerce under the Roman emperors was not what it now is, but still was
+very considerable, and thus united the various provinces together. The
+most remote countries were ransacked to furnish luxuries for Rome; every
+year a fleet of one hundred and twenty vessels sailed from the Red Sea
+for the islands of the Indian Ocean. But the Mediterranean, with the
+rivers which flowed into it, was the great highway of the ancient
+navigator. Navigation by the ancients was even more rapid than in modern
+times before the invention of steam, since oars were employed as well as
+sails. In summer one hundred and sixty-two Roman miles were sailed over
+in twenty-four hours; this was the average speed, or about seven knots.
+From the mouth of the Tiber vessels could usually reach Africa in two
+days, Massilia in three, and the Pillars of Hercules in seven; from
+Puteoli the passage to Alexandria had been effected, with moderate
+winds, in nine days. These facts, however, apply only to the summer, and
+to favorable winds. The Romans did not navigate in the inclement
+seasons; but in summer the great inland sea was white with sails. Great
+fleets brought corn from Gaul, Spain, Sardinia, Africa, Sicily, and
+Egypt. This was the most important trade; but a considerable commerce
+was carried on also in ivory, tortoise-shell, cotton and silk fabrics,
+pearls and precious stones, gums, spices, wines, wool, and oil. Greek
+and Asiatic wines, especially the Chian and Lesbian, were in great
+demand at Rome. The transport of earthenware, made generally in the
+Grecian cities, of wild animals for the amphitheatre, of marble, of the
+spoils of eastern cities, of military engines and stores, and of horses,
+required very large fleets and thousands of mariners, which probably
+belonged chiefly to great maritime cities. These cities with their
+dependencies required even more vessels for communication with one
+another than for Rome herself,--the great central object of enterprise
+and cupidity.
+
+In this survey of ancient cities I have not yet spoken of the great
+central city,--the City of the Seven Hills, to which all the world was
+tributary. Whatever was costly or rare or beautiful, in Greece or Asia
+or Egypt, was appropriated by her citizen kings, since citizens were
+provincial governors. All the great highways, from the Atlantic to the
+Tigris, converged to the capital,--all roads led to Rome; all the ships
+of Alexandria and Carthage and Tarentum, and other commercial capitals,
+were employed in furnishing her with luxuries or necessities. Never was
+there so proud a city as this "Epitome of the Universe." London, Paris,
+Vienna, Constantinople, St. Petersburg, Berlin, are great centres of
+fashion and power; but they are rivals, and excel only in some great
+department of human enterprise and genius, as in letters, or fashions,
+or commerce, or manufactures,--centres of influence and power in the
+countries of which they are capitals, yet they do not monopolize the
+wealth and energies of the world. London may contain more people than
+did ancient Rome, and may possess more commercial wealth; but London
+represents only the British monarchy, not a universal empire. Rome,
+however, monopolized every thing, and controlled all nations and
+peoples; she could shut up the schools of Athens, or disperse the ships
+of Alexandria, or regulate the shops of Antioch. What Lyons and Bordeaux
+are to Paris, Corinth and Babylon were to Rome,--mere dependent cities.
+Paul, condemned at Jerusalem, stretched out his arms to Rome, and Rome
+protected him. The philosophers of Greece were the tutors of Roman
+nobility. The kings of the East resorted to the palaces of Mount
+Palatine for favors or safety; the governors of Syria and Egypt,
+reigning in the palaces of ancient kings, returned to Rome to squander
+the riches they had accumulated. Senators and nobles took their turn as
+sovereign rulers of all the known countries of the world. The halls in
+which Darius and Alexander and Pericles and Croesus and Solomon and
+Cleopatra had feasted, became the witness of the banquets of Roman
+proconsuls. Babylon, Thebes, and Athens were only what Delhi and
+Calcutta are to the English of our day,--cities to be ruled by the
+delegates of the imperial Senate. Rome was the only "home" of the proud
+governors who reigned on the banks of the Thames, of the Seine, of the
+Rhine, of the Nile, of the Tigris. After they had enriched themselves
+with the spoils of the ancient monarchies they returned to their estates
+in Italy, or to their palaces on the Aventine. What a concentration of
+works of art on the hills, and around the Forum, and in the Campus
+Martius, and other celebrated quarters! There were temples rivalling
+those of Athens and Ephesus; baths covering more ground than the
+Pyramids, surrounded with Corinthian columns, and filled with the
+choicest treasures ransacked from the cities of Greece and Asia; palaces
+in comparison with which the Tuileries and Versailles are small;
+theatres which seated a larger audience than any present public
+buildings in Europe; amphitheatres more extensive and costly than
+Cologne, Milan, and York Minster cathedrals combined, and seating eight
+times as many spectators as could be crowded into St. Peter's Church;
+circuses where, it is said, three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+persons could witness the games and chariot-races at a time; bridges,
+still standing, which have furnished models for the most beautiful at
+Paris and London; aqueducts carried over arches one hundred feet in
+height, through which flowed the surplus water of distant lakes; drains
+of solid masonry in which large boats could float; pillars more than one
+hundred feet in height, coated with precious marbles or plates of brass,
+and covered with bas-reliefs; obelisks brought from Egypt; fora and
+basilicas connected together, and extending more than three thousand
+feet in length, every part of which was filled with "animated busts" of
+conquerors, kings, statesmen, poets, publicists, and philosophers;
+mausoleums greater and more splendid than that Artemisia erected to the
+memory of her husband; triumphal arches under which marched in stately
+procession the victorious armies of the Eternal City, preceded by the
+spoils and trophies of conquered empires.
+
+Such was the proud capital,--a city of palaces, a residence of nobles
+who were virtually kings, enriched with the accumulated treasures of
+ancient civilization. Great were the capitals of Greece and Asia, but
+how pre-eminent was Rome, since all were subordinate to her! How
+bewildering and bewitching to a traveller must have been the varied
+wonders of the city! Go where he would, his eye rested on something
+which was both a study and a marvel. Let him drive or walk about the
+suburbs,--there were villas, tombs, aqueducts looking like our railroads
+on arches, sculptured monuments, and gardens of surpassing beauty and
+luxury. Let him approach the walls,--they were great fortifications
+extending twenty-one miles in circuit, according to the measurement of
+Ammon as adopted by Gibbon, and forty-five miles according to other
+authorities. Let him enter any of the various gates that opened into the
+city from the roads which radiated to all parts of Italy and the
+world,--they were of monumental brass covered with bas-reliefs, on which
+the victories of generals for a thousand years were commemorated. Let
+him pass through any of the crowded thoroughfares,--he saw houses
+towering scarcely ever less than seventy feet, as tall as those of
+Edinburgh in its oldest sections. Most of the houses in which this vast
+population lived, according to Strabo, possessed pipes which gave a
+never-failing supply of water from the rivers that flowed into the city
+through the aqueducts and out again through the sewers into the Tiber.
+Let the traveller walk up the Via Sacra,--that short street, scarcely
+half a mile in length,--and he passed the Flavian Amphitheatre, the
+Temple of Venus and Rome, the Arch of Titus, the Temples of Peace, of
+Vesta, and of Castor, the Forum Romanum, the Basilica Julia, the Arch
+of Severus, the Temple of Saturn, and stood before the majestic ascent
+to the Capitoline Jupiter, with its magnificent portico and ornamented
+pediment, surpassing the façade of any modern church. On his left, as he
+emerged from beneath the sculptured Arch of Titus, was the Palatine
+Mount, nearly covered by the palace of the Caesars, the magnificent
+residences of the higher nobility, and various temples, of which that of
+Apollo was the most magnificent, built by Augustus, of solid white
+marble from Luna. Here were the palaces of Vaccus, of Flaccus, of
+Cicero, of Catiline, of Scaurus, of Antoninus, of Clodius, of Agrippa,
+and of Hortensius. Still on his left, in the valley between the Palatine
+and the Capitoline, though he could not see it, concealed from view by
+the great Temples of Vesta and of Castor, and the still greater edifice
+known as the Basilica Julia, was the quarter called the Velabrum,
+extending to the river, where the Pons Aemilius crossed it,--a low
+quarter of narrow streets and tall houses where the rabble lived and
+died. On his right, concealed from view by the Aedes Divi Julii and the
+Forum Romanum, was that magnificent series of edifices extending from
+the Temple of Peace to the Temple of Trajan, including the Basilica
+Pauli, the Forum Julii, the Forum Augusti, the Forum Trajani, the
+Basilica Ulpia,--a space more than three thousand feet in length, and
+six hundred in breadth, almost entirely surrounded by porticos and
+colonnades, and filled with statues and pictures,--displaying on the
+whole probably the grandest series of public buildings clustered
+together ever erected, especially if we include the Forum Romanum and
+the various temples and basilicas which connected the whole,--a forest
+of marble pillars and statues. Ascending the steps which led from the
+Temple of Concord to the Temple of Juno Moneta upon the Arx, or Tarpeian
+Rock, on the southwestern summit of the hill, itself one of the most
+beautiful temples in Rome, erected by Camillus on the spot where the
+house of M. Manlius Capitolinus had stood, and one came upon the Roman
+mint. Near this was the temple erected by Augustus to Jupiter Tonans,
+and that built by Domitian to Jupiter Custos. But all the sacred
+edifices which crowned the Capitoline were subordinate to the Templum
+Jovis Capitolini, standing on a platform of eight thousand square feet,
+and built of the richest materials. The portico which faced the Via
+Sacra consisted of three rows of Doric columns, the pediment profusely
+ornamented with the choicest sculptures, the apex of the roof surmounted
+by the bronze horses of Lysippus, and the roof itself covered with
+gilded tiles. The temple had three separate cells, though covered with
+one roof; in front of each stood colossal statues of the three deities
+to whom it was consecrated. Here were preserved what was most sacred in
+the eyes of Romans, and it was itself the richest of all the temples
+of the city.
+
+What a beautiful panorama was presented to the view from the summit of
+this consecrated hill, only mounted by a steep ascent of one hundred
+steps! To the south was the Via Sacra extending to the Colosseum, and
+beyond it the Appia Via, lined with monuments as far as the eye could
+reach. A little beyond the fora to the east was the Carinae, a
+fashionable quarter of beautiful shops and houses, and still farther off
+were the Baths of Titus, extending from the Carinae to the Esquiline
+Mount. To the northeast were the Viminal and Quirinal hills, after the
+Palatine the most ancient part of the city, the seat of the Sabine
+population, abounding in fanes and temples, the most splendid of which
+was the Temple of Quirinus, erected originally to Romulus by Numa, but
+rebuilt by Augustus, with a double row of columns on each of its sides,
+seventy-six in number. Near by was the house of Atticus, and the gardens
+of Sallust in the valley between the Quirinal and Pincian, afterward the
+property of the Emperor. Far back on the Quirinal, near the wall of
+Servius, were the Baths of Diocletian, and still farther to the east the
+Pretorian Camp established by Tiberius, and included within the wall of
+Aurelian. To the northeast the eye lighted on the Pincian Hill covered
+with the gardens of Lucullus, to possess which Messalina caused the
+death of Valerius Asiaticus, into whose possession they had fallen. In
+the valley which lay between the fora and the Quirinal was the
+celebrated Subura, the quarter of shops, markets, and artificers,--a
+busy, noisy, vulgar section, not beautiful, but full of life and
+enterprise and wickedness. The eye then turned to the north, and the
+whole length of the Via Flamina was exposed to view, extending from the
+Capitoline to the Flaminian gate, perfectly straight, the finest street
+in Rome, and parallel to the modern Corso; it was the great highway to
+the north of Italy. Monuments and temples and palaces lined this
+celebrated street; it was spanned by the triumphal arches of Claudius
+and Marcus Aurelius. To the west of it was the Campus Martius, with its
+innumerable objects of interest,--the Baths of Agrippa, the Pantheon,
+the Thermae Alexandrinae, the Column of Marcus Aurelius, and the
+Mausoleum of Augustus. Beneath the Capitoline on the west, toward the
+river, was the Circus Flaminius, the Portico of Octavius, the Theatre of
+Balbus, and the Theatre of Pompey, where forty thousand spectators were
+accommodated. Stretching beyond the Thermae Alexandrinae, near the
+Pantheon, was the magnificent bridge which crossed the Tiber, built by
+Hadrian when he founded his Mausoleum, to which it led, still standing
+under the name of the Ponte S. Angelo. The eye took in eight or nine
+bridges over the Tiber, some of wood, but generally of stone, of
+beautiful masonry, and crowned with statues. In the valley between the
+Palatine and the Aventine, was the great Circus Maximus, founded by the
+early Tarquin; it was the largest open space, inclosed by walls and
+porticos, in the city; it seated three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+spectators. How vast a city, which could spare nearly four hundred
+thousand of its population to see the chariot-races! Beyond was the
+Aventine itself. This also was rich in legendary monuments and in the
+palaces of the great, though originally a plebeian quarter. Here dwelt
+Trajan before he was emperor, and Ennius the poet, and Paula the friend
+of Saint Jerome. Beneath the Aventine, and a little south of the Circus
+Maximus, were the great Baths of Caracalla, the ruins of which, next to
+those of the Colosseum, made on my mind the strongest impression of all
+I saw that pertains to antiquity, though these were not so large as
+those of Diocletian. The view south took in the Caelian Hill, the
+ancient residence of Tullus Hostilius. This hill was the residence of
+many distinguished Romans, among whose palaces was that of Claudius
+Centumalus, which towered ten or twelve stories into the air. But
+grander than any of these palaces was that of Plautius Lateranus, on
+whose site now stands the basilica of St. John Lateran,--the gift of
+Constantine to the bishop of Rome,--one of the most ancient of the
+Christian churches, in which, for fifteen hundred years, daily services
+have been performed.
+
+Such were the objects of interest and grandeur that met the eye as it
+was turned toward the various quarters of the city, which contained
+between three and four millions of people. Lipsius estimates four
+millions as the population, including slaves, women, children, and
+strangers. Though this estimate is regarded as too large by Merivale and
+others, yet how enormous must have been the number of the people when
+there were nine thousand and twenty-five baths, and when those of
+Diocletian could accommodate thirty-two hundred bathers at a time! The
+wooden theatre of Scaurus contained eighty thousand seats; that of
+Marcellus twenty thousand; the Colosseum would seat eighty-seven
+thousand persons, and give standing space for twenty-two thousand more.
+The Circus Maximus would hold three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+spectators. If only one person out of four of the free population
+witnessed the games and spectacles at a time, we thus must have four
+millions of people altogether in the city. The Aurelian walls are now
+only thirteen miles in circumference, but Lipsius estimates the
+original circumference at forty-five miles, and Vopiscus at nearly
+fifty. The diameter of the city must have been eleven miles, since
+Strabo tells us that the actual limit of Rome was at a place between the
+fifth and sixth milestone from the column of Trajan in the Forum,--the
+central and most conspicuous object in the city except the capitol.
+
+Modern writers, taking London and Paris for their measure of material
+civilization, seem unwilling to admit that Rome could have reached such
+a pitch of glory and wealth and power. To him who stands within the
+narrow limits of the Forum, as it now appears, it seems incredible that
+it could have been the centre of a much larger city than Europe can now
+boast of. Grave historians are loath to compromise their dignity and
+character for truth by admitting statements which seem, to men of
+limited views, to be fabulous, and which transcend modern experience.
+But we should remember that most of the monuments of ancient Rome have
+entirely disappeared. Nothing remains of the Palace of the Caesars,
+which nearly covered the Palatine Hill; little of the fora which,
+connected together, covered a space twice as large as that inclosed by
+the palaces of the Louvre and Tuileries, with all their galleries and
+courts; almost nothing of the glories of the Capitoline Hill; and little
+comparatively of those Thermae which were a mile in circuit. But what
+does remain attests an unparalleled grandeur,--the broken pillars of the
+Forum; the lofty columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius; the Pantheon,
+lifting its spacious dome two hundred feet into the air; the mere
+vestibule of the Baths of Agrippa; the triumphal arches of Titus and
+Trajan and Constantine; the bridges which span the Tiber; the aqueducts
+which cross the Campagna; the Cloaca Maxima, which drained the marshes
+and lakes of the infant city; and, above all, the Colosseum. What glory
+and shame are associated with that single edifice! That alone, if
+nothing else remained of Pagan antiquity, would indicate a grandeur and
+a folly such as cannot now be seen on earth. It reveals a wonderful
+skill in masonry and great architectural strength; it shows the wealth
+and resources of rulers who must have had the treasures of the world at
+their command; it shows the restless passions of the people for
+excitement, and the necessity on the part of government of yielding to
+this taste. What leisure and indolence marked a city which could afford
+to give up so much time to the demoralizing sports! What facilities for
+transportation were afforded, when so many wild beasts could be brought
+to the capitol from the central parts of Africa without calling out
+unusual comment! How imperious a populace that compels the government to
+provide such expensive pleasures! The games of Titus, on the dedication
+of the Colosseum, lasted one hundred days, and five thousand wild beasts
+were slaughtered in the arena. The number of the gladiators who fought
+surpasses belief. At the triumph of Trajan over the Dacians, ten
+thousand gladiators were exhibited, and the Emperor himself presided
+under a gilded canopy, surrounded by thousands of his lords. Underneath
+the arena, strewed with yellow sand and sawdust, was a solid pavement,
+so closely cemented that it could be turned into an artificial lake, on
+which naval battles were fought. But it was the conflict of gladiators
+which most deeply stimulated the passions of the people. The benches
+were crowded with eager spectators, and the voices of one hundred
+thousand were raised in triumph or rage as the miserable victims sank
+exhausted in the bloody sport.
+
+Yet it was not the gladiatorial sports of the amphitheatre which most
+strikingly attested the greatness and splendor of the city; nor the
+palaces, in which as many as four hundred slaves were sometimes
+maintained as domestic servants for a single establishment,--twelve
+hundred in number according to the lowest estimate, but probably five
+times as numerous, since every senator, every knight, and every rich man
+was proud to possess a residence which would attract attention; nor the
+temples, which numbered four hundred and twenty-four, most of which
+were of marble, filled with statues, the contributions of ages, and
+surrounded with groves; nor the fora and basilicas, with their porticos,
+statues, and pictures, covering more space than any cluster of public
+buildings in Europe, a mile and a half in circuit; nor the baths, nearly
+as large, still more completely filled with works of art; nor the Circus
+Maximus, where more people witnessed the chariot races at a time than
+are nightly assembled in all the places of public amusement in Paris,
+London, and New York combined,--more than could be seated in all the
+cathedrals of England and France. It is not these which most
+impressively make us feel the amazing grandeur of the old capital of the
+world. The triumphal processions of the conquering generals were still
+more exciting to behold, for these appealed more directly to the
+imagination, and excited those passions which urged the Romans to a
+career of conquest from generation to generation. No military review of
+modern times equalled those gorgeous triumphs, even as no scenic
+performance compares with the gladiatorial shows; the sun has never
+shone upon any human assemblage so magnificent and so grand, so imposing
+and yet so guilty. Not only were displayed the spoils of conquered
+kingdoms, and the triumphal cars of generals, but the whole military
+strength of the capital; an army of one hundred thousand men, flushed
+with victory, followed the gorgeous procession of nobles and princes.
+The triumph of Aurelian, on his return from the East, gives us some idea
+of the grandeur of that ovation to conquerors. "The pomp was opened by
+twenty elephants, four royal tigers, and two hundred of the most curious
+animals from every climate, north, south, east, and west. These were
+followed by sixteen hundred gladiators, devoted to the cruel amusement
+of the amphitheatre. Then were displayed the arms and ensigns of
+conquered nations, the plate and wardrobe of the Syrian queen. Then
+ambassadors from all parts of the earth, all remarkable in their rich
+dresses, with their crowns and offerings. Then the captives taken in the
+various wars,--Goths, Vandals, Samaritans, Alemanni, Franks, Gauls,
+Syrians, and Egyptians, each marked by their national costume. Then the
+Queen of the East, the beautiful Zenobia, confined by fetters of gold,
+and fainting under the weight of jewels, preceding the beautiful chariot
+in which she had hoped to enter the gates of Rome. Then the chariot of
+the Persian king. Then the triumphal car of Aurelian himself, drawn by
+elephants. Finally the most illustrious of the Senate and the army
+closed the solemn procession, amid the acclamations of the people, and
+the sound of musical instruments. It took from dawn of day until the
+ninth hour for the procession to pass to the capitol; and the festival
+was protracted by theatrical representations, the games of the circus,
+the hunting of wild beasts, combats of gladiators, and naval
+engagements."
+
+Such were the material wonders of the ancient civilizations, culminating
+in their latest and greatest representative, and displayed in its proud
+capital,--nearly all of which became later the spoil of barbarians, who
+ruthlessly marched over the classic world, having no regard for its
+choicest treasures. Those old glories are now indeed succeeded by a
+prouder civilization,--the work of nobler races after sixteen hundred
+years of new experiments. But why such an eclipse of the glory of man?
+The reason is apparent if we survey the internal state of the ancient
+empires, especially of society as it existed under the Roman emperors.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Titus Livius,
+Pausanias, on the geography and resources of the ancient nations. See an
+able chapter on Mediterranean prosperity in Louis Napoleon's History of
+Caesar. Smith's Dictionary of Ancient Geography is exhaustive. Wilkinson
+has revealed the civilization of ancient Egypt. Professor Becker's
+Handbook of Rome, as well as his Gallus and Charicles shed much light on
+manners and customs. Dyer's History of the City of Rome is the fullest
+description of its wonders that I have read. Niebuhr, Bunsen, and
+Platner, among the Germans, have written learnedly, but also have
+created much doubt about things supposed to be established. Mommsen,
+Curtius, and Merivale are also great authorities. Nor are the
+magnificent chapters of Gibbon to be disregarded by the student of Roman
+history, notwithstanding his elaborate and inflated style.
+
+
+
+
+THE MILITARY ART.
+
+
+WEAPONS, ENGINES, DISCIPLINE.
+
+1300-100 A.D.
+
+
+In surveying the nations of antiquity nothing impresses us more forcibly
+than the perpetual wars in which they were engaged, and the fact that
+military art and science seem to have been among the earliest things
+that occupied the thoughts of men. Personal strife and tribal warfare
+are coeval with the earliest movements of humanity.
+
+The first recorded act in the Hebraic history of the world after the
+expulsion of Adam from Paradise is a murder. In patriarchal times we
+read of contentions between the servants of Abraham and of Lot, and
+between the petty kings and chieftains of the countries where they
+journeyed. Long before Abraham was born, violence was the greatest evil
+with which the world was afflicted. Before his day mighty conquerors
+arose and founded kingdoms. Babylon and Egypt were powerful military
+States in pre-historic times. Wars more or less fierce were waged before
+nations were civilized. The earliest known art, therefore, was the art
+of destruction, growing out of the wicked and brutal passions of
+men,--envy and hatred, ambition and revenge; in a word, selfishness.
+Race fought with race, kingdom with kingdom, and city with city, in the
+very infancy of society. In secular history the greatest names are those
+of conquerors and heroes in every land under the sun; and it was by
+conquerors that those grand monuments were erected the ruins of which
+astonish every traveller, especially in Egypt and Assyria.
+
+But wars in the earliest ages were not carried on scientifically, or
+even as an art. There was little to mark them except brute force. Armies
+were scarcely more than great collections of armed men, led by kings,
+either to protect their States from hostile invaders, or to acquire new
+territory, or to exact tribute from weaker nations. We do not read of
+military discipline, or of skill in strategy and tactics. A battle was
+lost or won by individual prowess; it was generally a hand-to-hand
+encounter, in which the strongest and bravest gained the victory.
+
+One of the earliest descriptions of war is to be found in the Iliad of
+Homer, where individual heroes fought with one another, armed with the
+sword, the lance, and the javelin, protected by shields, helmets, and
+coats of mail. They fought on foot, or from chariots, which were in use
+before cavalry. The war-horse was driven before he was ridden in Egypt
+or Palestine; but the Aryan barbarians in their invasion rode their
+horses, and fought on horseback, like the modern Cossacks.
+
+Until the Greeks became familiar with war as an art, armies were usually
+very large, as if a great part of the population of a country followed
+the sovereign who commanded them. Rameses the Great, the Sesostris of
+the Greeks, according to Herodotus led nearly a million of men in his
+expeditions. He was the most noted of ancient warriors until Cyrus the
+Persian arose, and was nearly contemporaneous with Moses. The Trojan war
+is supposed to have taken place during the period when the Israelites
+were subject to the Ammonites; and about the time that the Philistines
+were defeated by David, the Greeks were forced by war to found colonies
+in Asia Minor.
+
+After authentic history begins, war is the main subject with which it
+has to deal; and for three thousand years history is simply the record
+of the feats of warriors and generals, of their conquests and defeats,
+of the rise and fall of kingdoms and cities, of the growth or decline of
+military virtues. No arts of civilization have preserved nations from
+the sword of the conqueror, and war has been both the amusement and the
+business of kings. From the earliest ages, the most valued laurels have
+been bestowed for success in war, and military fame has eclipsed all
+other glories. The cry of the mourner has been unheeded in the blaze of
+conquest; even the aspirations of the poet and the labors of the artist
+have been as nought, except to celebrate the achievements of heroes.
+
+It is interesting then to inquire how far the ancients advanced in the
+arts of war, which include military weapons, movements, the structure of
+camps, the discipline of armies, the construction of ships and of
+military engines, and the concentration and management of forces under a
+single man. What was that mighty machinery by which nations were
+subdued, or rose to greatness on the ruin of States and Empires? The
+conquests of Rameses, of David, of Nebuchadnezzar, of Cyrus, of
+Alexander, of Hannibal, of Caesar, and other heroes are still the
+subjects of contemplation among statesmen and schoolboys. The exploits
+of heroes are the pith of history.
+
+The art of war must have made great progress in the infancy of
+civilization, when bodily energies were most highly valued, when men
+were fierce, hardy, strong, and uncorrupted by luxury; when mere
+physical forces gave law alike to the rich and the poor, to the learned
+and the ignorant; and when the avenue to power led across the field
+of battle.
+
+We must go to Egypt for the earliest development of art and science in
+all departments; and so far as the art of war consists in the
+organization of physical forces for conquest or defence, under the
+direction of a single man, it was in Egypt that this was first
+accomplished, about seventeen hundred years before Christ, as
+chronologists think, by Rameses the Great.
+
+This monarch, according to Wilkinson, the greatest and most ambitious of
+the Egyptian kings, to whom the Greeks gave the name of Sesostris,
+showed great ability in collecting together large bodies of his
+subjects, and controlling them by a rigid military discipline. He
+accustomed them to heat and cold, hunger and thirst, fatigue, and
+exposure to danger. With bodies thus rendered vigorous by labor and
+discipline, they were fitted for distant expeditions. Rameses first
+subdued the Arabians and Libyans, and annexed them to the Egyptian
+monarchy. While he inured his subjects to fatigue and danger, he was
+careful to win their affections by acts of munificence and clemency. He
+then made his preparations for the conquest of the known world, and
+collected an army, according to Diodorus Siculus, of six hundred
+thousand infantry, twenty-four thousand cavalry, and twenty-seven
+thousand war-chariots. It is difficult to understand how a small country
+like Egypt could furnish such an immense force. If the account of the
+historian be not exaggerated, Rameses must have enrolled the conquered
+Libyans and Arabians and other nations among his soldiers. He subjected
+his army to a stern discipline and an uncomplaining obedience to
+orders,--the first principle in the science of war, which no successful
+general in the world's history has ever disregarded, from Alexander to
+Napoleon. With this powerful army his march was irresistible. Ethiopia
+was first subdued, and an exaction made from the conquered of a tribute
+of gold, ivory, and ebony. In those ancient times a conquering army did
+not resettle or colonize the territories it had subdued, but was
+contented with overrunning the country and exacting tribute from the
+people. Such was the nature of the Babylonian and Persian conquests.
+After overrunning Ethiopia and some other countries near the Straits of
+Babelmandeb, the conqueror proceeded to India, which he overran beyond
+the Ganges, and ascended the high table-land of Central Asia; then
+proceeding westward, he entered Europe, nor halted in his devastating
+career until he reached Thrace. From thence he marched to Asia Minor,
+conquering as he went, and invaded Assyria, seating himself on the
+throne of Ninus and Semiramis. Then, laden with booty from the Eastern
+world, he returned to Egypt after an absence of thirty years and
+consolidated his empire, building those vast structures at Thebes, which
+for magnitude have never been surpassed. Thus was Egypt enriched with
+the spoil of nations, and made formidable for a thousand years. Rameses
+was the last of the Pharaohs who pursued the phantom of military renown,
+or sought glory in distant expeditions.
+
+We are in ignorance as to the details of the conquests and the generals
+who served under Rameses. There is doubtless some exaggeration in the
+statements of the Greek historian, but there is no doubt that this
+monarch was among the first of the great conquerors to establish a
+regular army, and to provide a fleet to co-operate with his land forces.
+
+The strength of the Egyptian army consisted mainly in archers. They
+fought either on foot or in chariots; cavalry was not much relied upon,
+although mention is frequently made of horsemen as well as of chariots.
+The Egyptian infantry was divided into regiments, and Wilkinson tells us
+that they were named according to the arms they bore,--as "bowmen,
+spearmen, swordsmen, clubmen, slingers." These regiments were divided
+into battalions and companies, commanded by their captains. The
+infantry, heavily armed with spears and shields, formed a phalanx almost
+impenetrable of twelve men deep, who marched with great regularity. Each
+company had its standard-bearer, who was an officer of approved valor;
+the royal standards were carried by the royal princes or by persons of
+the royal household. The troops were summoned by the sound of trumpet,
+and also by the drum, both used from the earliest period. The offensive
+weapons were the bow, the spear, the javelin, the sword, the club, or
+mace, and the battle-axe. The chief defensive weapon was the shield,
+about three feet in length, covered with bull's hide, having the hair
+outward and studded with nails. The shape of the bow was not essentially
+different from that used in Europe in the Middle Ages, being about five
+feet and a half long, round, and tapering at the ends; the bowstring was
+of hide or catgut. The arrows of the archers averaged about thirty
+inches in length, and were made of wood or reeds, tipped with a metal
+point, or flint, and winged with feathers. Each bowman was furnished
+with a plentiful supply of arrows. When arrows were exhausted, the
+bowman fought with swords and battle-axes; his defensive armor was
+confined chiefly to the helmet and a sort of quilted coat. The spear was
+of wood, with a metal head, was about five or six feet in length, and
+used for thrusting. The javelin was lighter, for throwing. The sling was
+a thong of plaited leather, broad in the middle, with a loop at the end.
+The sword was straight and short, between two and three feet in length,
+with a double edge, tapering to a sharp point, and used for either cut
+or thrust; the handle was frequently inlaid with precious stones. The
+metal used in the manufacture of swords and spear-heads was bronze,
+hardened by a process unknown to us. The battle-axe had a handle about
+two-and a-half feet in length, and was less ornamented than other
+weapons. The cuirass, or coat of armor, was made of horizontal rows of
+metal plate, about an inch in breadth, well secured together by bronze
+pieces. The Egyptian chariot held two persons,--the charioteer, and the
+warrior armed with his bow-and-arrow and wearing a cuirass, or coat of
+mail. The warrior carried also other weapons for close encounter, when
+he should descend from his chariot to fight on foot. The chariot was of
+wood, the body of which was light, strengthened with metal; the pole was
+inserted in the axle; the two wheels usually had six spokes, but
+sometimes only four; the wheel revolved on the axle, and was secured by
+a lynch-pin. The leathern harness and housings were simple, and the
+bridles, or reins, were nearly the same as are now in use.
+
+"The Egyptian chariot corps, like the infantry," says Wilkinson, "were
+divided into light and heavy troops, both armed with bows,--the former
+chiefly employed in harassing the enemy with missiles; the latter called
+upon to break through opposing masses of infantry." The infantry, when
+employed in the assault of fortified towns, were provided with shields,
+under cover of which they made their approaches to the place to be
+attacked. In their attack they advanced under cover of the arrows of the
+bowmen, and instantly applied the scaling-ladder to the ramparts. The
+testudo, a wooden shelter, was also used, large enough to contain
+several men. The battering-ram and movable towers resembled those of the
+Romans a thousand years later.
+
+It would thus appear that the ancient Egyptians, in the discipline of
+armies, in military weapons offensive and defensive, in chariots and
+horses, and in military engines for the reduction of fortified towns,
+were scarcely improved upon by the Greeks and Romans, or by the
+Europeans in the Middle Ages. Yet the Egyptians were an ingenious rather
+than a warlike people, fond of peace, and devoted to agricultural
+pursuits.
+
+More warlike than they were the Assyrians and the Persians, although we
+fail to discover any essential difference in the organization of armies,
+or in military weapons. The great difference between the Persian and the
+Egyptian armies was in the use of cavalry. From their earliest
+settlements the Persians were skilful horsemen, and these formed the
+guard of their kings. Under Cyrus, the Persians became the masters of
+the world, but they rapidly degenerated, not being able to withstand the
+luxurious life of the conquered Babylonians; and when they were
+marshalled against the Greeks, and especially against the disciplined
+forces of Alexander, they were disgracefully routed in spite of their
+enormous armies, which could not be handled, and became mere mobs of
+armed men.
+
+The art of war made a great advance under the Greeks, although we do
+not notice any striking superiority of arms over the Eastern armies led
+by Sesostris or Cyrus. The Greeks were among the most warlike of all the
+races of men; they had a genius for war. The Grecian States were engaged
+in perpetual strifes with one another, and constant contention developed
+military strength; and yet the Greeks, until the time of Philip, had no
+standing armies. They relied for offence and defence on the volunteer
+militia, which was animated by intense patriotic ideas. All armies in
+the nature of things are more or less machines, moved by one commanding
+will; but the Greek armies owed much of their success to the individual
+bravery of their troops, who were citizens of States under
+constitutional forms of government.
+
+The most remarkable improvement in the art of war was made by the
+Spartans, who, in addition to their strict military discipline,
+introduced the _phalanx_,--files of picked soldiers, eight deep, heavily
+armed with spear, sword, and shield, placed in ranks of eight, at
+intervals of about six feet apart. This phalanx of eight files and eight
+ranks,--sixty-four men,--closely locked when the soldiers received or
+advanced to attack, proved nearly impregnable and irresistible. It
+combined solidity and the power of resistance with mobility. The picked
+men were placed in the front and rear; for in skilful evolutions the
+front often became the rear, and the rear became the front. Armed with
+spears projecting beyond the front, and with their shields locked
+together, the phalanx advanced to meet the enemy with regular step, and
+to the cadence of music; if beaten, it retired in perfect order. After
+battle, each soldier was obliged to produce his shield as a proof that
+he had fought or retired as a soldier should. The Athenian phalanx was
+less solid than that of Sparta,--Miltiades having decreased the depth to
+four ranks, in order to lengthen his front,--but was more efficient in a
+charge against the enemy. The Spartan phalanx was stronger in defence,
+the Athenian more agile in attack. The attack was nearly irresistible,
+as the soldiers advanced with accelerated motion, corresponding to the
+double-quick time of modern warfare. This was first introduced by
+Miltiades at Marathon.
+
+Philip of Macedon adopted the Spartan phalanx, but made it sixteen deep,
+which gave it greater solidity, and rendered it still more effective. He
+introduced the large oval buckler and a larger and heavier spear. When
+the phalanx was closed for action, each man occupied but three square
+feet of ground: as the pikes were twenty-four feet in length, and
+projected eighteen feet beyond the front, the formation presented an
+array of points such as had never been seen before. The greatest
+improvement effected by Philip, however, was the adoption of standing
+armies instead of the militia heretofore in use throughout the Grecian
+States. He also attached great importance to his cavalry, which was
+composed of the flower of the nobility, about twelve hundred in number,
+all covered with defensive armor; these he formed into eight squadrons,
+and constituted them his body-guard. The usual formation of the regular
+cavalry was in the form of a wedge, so as to penetrate and break the
+enemy's line,--a manoeuvre probably learned from Epaminondas of Thebes,
+a great master in the art of war, who defeated the Spartan phalanx by
+forming his columns upon a front less than their depth, thus enabling
+him to direct his whole force against a given point. By these tactics he
+gained the great victory at Leuctra, as Napoleon likewise prevailed over
+the Austrians in his Italian campaign. In like manner Philip's son
+Alexander, following the example of Epaminondas, concentrated his forces
+upon the enemy's centre, and easily defeated the Persian hosts by
+creating a panic. There was no resisting a phalanx sixteen files deep,
+with their projecting pikes, aided by the heavily armed cavalry, all
+under the strictest military discipline and animated by patriotic ardor.
+This terrible Macedonian phalanx was a great advance over the early
+armies of the Greeks, who fought without discipline in a hand to hand
+encounter, with swords and spears, after exhausting their arrows. They
+had learned two things of great importance,--a rigid discipline, and a
+concentration of forces which made an army a machine. Under Alexander,
+the grand phalanx consisted of 16,384 men, made up of four divisions and
+smaller phalanxes.
+
+In Roman armies we see a still further advance in the military art, as
+it existed in the time of Augustus, which required centuries to perfect.
+The hardy physique and stern nature of the Romans, exercised and
+controlled by their organizing genius, evolved the Roman legion, which
+learned to resist the impetuous assaults of the elephants of the East,
+the phalanx of the Greeks, and the Teutonic barbarians. The indomitable
+courage of the Romans, trained under severest discipline and directed by
+means of an organization divided and subdivided and officered almost as
+perfectly as our modern corps and divisions and brigades and regiments
+and companies and squads, marched over and subdued the world.
+
+The Roman soldier was trained to march twenty miles a day, under a
+burden of eighty pounds; to swim rivers, to climb mountains, to
+penetrate forests, and to encounter every kind of danger. He was taught
+that his destiny was to die in battle: death was at once his duty and
+his glory. He enlisted in the army with little hope of revisiting his
+home; he crossed seas and deserts and forests with the idea of spending
+his life in the service of his country. His pay was only a denarius
+daily, equal to about sixteen cents of our money. Marriage for him was
+discouraged or forbidden. However insignificant the legionary was as a
+man, he gained importance from the great body with which he was
+identified: he was both the servant and the master of the State. He had
+an intense _esprit de corps_; he was bound up in the glory of his
+legion. Both religion and honor bound him to his standards; the golden
+eagle which glittered in his front was the object of his fondest
+devotion. Nor was it possible to escape the penalty of cowardice or
+treachery or disobedience; he could be chastised with blows by his
+centurion, and his general could doom him to death. Never was the
+severity of military discipline relaxed; military exercises were
+incessant, in winter as in summer. In the midst of peace the Roman
+troops were familiarized with the practice of war.
+
+It was the spirit which animated the Roman legions, and the discipline
+to which they were inured that gave them their irresistible strength.
+When we remember that they had not our firearms, we can but be surprised
+at their efficiency, especially in taking strongly fortified cities.
+Jerusalem was defended by a triple wall, the most elaborate
+fortifications, and twenty-four thousand soldiers, besides the aid
+received from the citizens; and yet it fell in little more than four
+months before an army of eighty thousand under Titus. How great must
+have been the military science that could reduce a place of such
+strength, in so short a time, without the aid of other artillery than
+the ancient catapult and battering-ram! Whether the military science of
+the Romans was superior or inferior to our own, no one can question that
+it was as perfect as it could be, lacking any knowledge of gunpowder; we
+surpass them only in the application of this great invention, especially
+in artillery. There can be no doubt that a Roman army was superior to a
+feudal army in the brightest days of chivalry. The world has produced no
+generals greater than Caesar, Pompey, Sulla, and Marius. No armies ever
+won greater victories over superior numbers than the Roman, and no
+armies of their size ever retained in submission so vast an empire, and
+for so long a time. At no period in the history of the Roman empire were
+the armies so large as those sustained by France in time of peace. Two
+hundred thousand legionaries, and as many more auxiliaries, controlled
+diverse nations and powerful monarchies. The single province of Syria
+once boasted of a military force equal in the number of soldiers to that
+wielded by the Emperor Tiberius. Twenty-five Roman legions made the
+conquest of the world, and retained that conquest for five hundred
+years. The self-sustained energy of Caesar in Gaul puts to the blush
+the efforts of all modern generals, unless we except Frederic II.,
+Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Grant, Sherman, and a few other great
+geniuses whom warlike crises have developed; nor is there a better
+text-book on the art of war than that furnished by Caesar himself in his
+Commentaries. The great victories of the Romans over barbarians, over
+Gauls, over Carthaginians, over Greeks, over Syrians, over Persians,
+were not the result of a short-lived enthusiasm, like those of Attila
+and Tamerlane, but extended over a thousand years.
+
+The Romans were essentially military in all their tastes and habits.
+Luxurious senators and nobles showed the greatest courage and skill in
+the most difficult campaigns. Antony, Caesar, Pompey, and Lucullus at
+home were enervated and self-indulgent, but at the head of their legions
+they were capable of any privation and fatigue.
+
+The Roman legion was a most perfect organization, a great mechanical
+force, and could sustain furious attacks after vigor, patriotism, and
+public spirit had fled. For three hundred years a vast empire was
+sustained by mechanism alone. The legion is coeval with the foundation
+of Rome, but the number of the troops of which it was composed varied at
+different periods. It rarely exceeded six thousand men; Gibbon estimates
+the number at six thousand eight hundred and twenty-six men. For many
+centuries it was composed exclusively of Roman citizens. Up to the year
+B.C. 107, no one was permitted to serve among the regular troops except
+those who were regarded as possessing a strong personal interest in the
+stability of the republic. Marius admitted all orders of citizens; and
+after the close of the Social War, B.C. 87, the whole free population of
+Italy was allowed to serve in the regular army. Claudius incorporated
+with the legion the vanquished Goths, and after him the barbarians
+filled up the ranks on account of the degeneracy of the times. But
+during the period when the Romans were conquering the world every
+citizen was trained to arms, like the Germans of the present day, and
+was liable to be called upon to serve in the armies. In the early age of
+the republic the legion was disbanded as soon as the special service was
+performed, and was in all essential respects a militia. For three
+centuries we have no record of a Roman army wintering in the field; but
+when Southern Italy became the seat of war, and especially when Rome was
+menaced by foreign enemies, and still more when a protracted foreign
+service became inevitable, the same soldiers remained in activity for
+several years. Gradually the distinction between the soldier and the
+civilian was entirely obliterated. The distant wars of the
+republic--such as the prolonged operations of Caesar in Gaul, and the
+civil contests--made a standing army a necessity. During the civil wars
+between Caesar and Pompey the legions were forty in number; under
+Augustus, but twenty-five. Alexander Severus increased them to
+thirty-two. This was the standing force of the empire,--from one hundred
+and fifty thousand to two hundred and forty thousand men, stationed in
+the various provinces.
+
+The main dependence of the legion was on the infantry, which wore heavy
+armor consisting of helmet, breastplate, greaves on the right leg, and
+on the left arm a buckler, four feet in length and two and a half in
+width. The helmet was originally made of leather or untanned skin,
+strengthened and adorned by bronze or gold, and surmounted by a crest
+which was often of horse-hair, and so made as to give an imposing look.
+The crests served not only for ornament, but to distinguish the
+different centurions. The breastplate, or cuirass, was generally made of
+metal, and sometimes was highly ornamented. Chain-mail was also used.
+The greaves were of bronze or brass, with a lining of leather or felt,
+and reached above the knees. The shield worn by the heavy-armed infantry
+was not round, like that of the early Greeks, but oval or oblong,
+adapted to the shape of the body, such as was adopted by Philip and
+Alexander, and was made of wood or wicker-work. The weapons were a light
+spear, a pilum, or javelin, over six feet long, terminated by a steel
+point, and a short cut-and-thrust sword with a double edge. Besides the
+armor and weapons of the legionary, he usually carried on the marches
+provisions for two weeks, three or four stakes used in forming the
+palisade of the camp, besides various tools,--altogether a burden of
+sixty or eighty pounds per man. The legion was drawn up eight deep, and
+three feet intervened between rank and file, which disposition gave
+great activity, and made it superior to the Macedonian phalanx, the
+strength of which depended on sixteen ranks of long pikes wedged
+together. The general period of service for the infantry was twenty
+years, after which the soldier received a discharge, together with a
+bounty in money or land.
+
+The cavalry attached to each legion consisted of three hundred men, who
+originally were selected from the leading men in the State. They were
+mounted at the expense of the State, and formed a distinct order. The
+cavalry was divided into ten squadrons. To each legion was attached also
+a train of ten military engines of the largest size, and fifty-five of
+the smaller,--all of which discharged stones and darts with great
+effect. This train corresponded with our artillery.
+
+The Roman legion--whether it was composed of four thousand men, as in
+the early ages of the republic, or six thousand, as in the time of
+Augustus--was divided into ten cohorts, and each cohort was composed of
+Hastati (raw troops), Principes (trained troops), Triarii (veterans),
+and Velites (light troops, or skirmishers). The soldiers of the first
+line, called Hastati, consisted of youths in the bloom of manhood, who
+were distributed into fifteen companies, or maniples. Each company
+contained sixty privates, two centurions, and a standard-bearer. Two
+thirds were heavily armed, and bore the long shield; the remainder
+carried only a spear and light javelins. The second line, the Principes,
+was composed of men in the full vigor of life, divided also into fifteen
+companies, all heavily armed, and distinguished by the splendor of their
+equipments. The third body, the Triarii, was composed of tried veterans,
+in fifteen companies, the least trustworthy of which were placed in the
+rear; these formed three lines. The Velites were light-armed troops,
+employed on out-post duty, and mingled with the horsemen. The Hastati
+were so called because they were armed with the _hasta_, or spear; the
+Principes for being placed so near to the front; the Triarii, from
+having been arrayed behind the first two lines as a body of reserve. The
+Triarii were armed with the pilum, thicker and stronger than the Grecian
+lance, four and a half feet long, of wood, with a barbed head of
+iron,--so that the whole length of the weapon was six feet nine inches.
+It was used either to throw or thrust with, and when it pierced the
+enemy's shield the iron head was bent, and the spear, owing to the twist
+in the iron, still held to the shield. Each soldier carried two of these
+weapons, and threw the heavy pilum over the heads of their comrades in
+front, in order to break the enemy's line. In the time of the empire,
+when the legion was modified, the infantry wore cuirasses and helmets,
+and carried a sword and dagger. The select infantry were armed with a
+long spear and a shield; the rest, with a pilum. Each man carried a saw,
+a basket, a mattock, a hatchet, a leather strap, a hook, a chain, and
+provisions for three days. The Equites (cavalry) wore helmets and
+cuirasses, like the infantry, having a broadsword at the right side, and
+in the hand a long pole. A buckler swung at the horse's flank. They were
+also furnished with a quiver containing three or four javelins.
+
+The artillery were used both for hurling missiles in battle, and for the
+attack on fortresses. The _tormentum_, which was an elastic instrument,
+discharged stones and darts, and was held in general use until the
+discovery of gunpowder. In besieging a city, the ram was employed for
+destroying the lower part of a wall, and the _balista,_ which discharged
+stones, was used to overthrow the battlements. The balista would project
+a stone weighing from fifty to three hundred pounds. The _aries_, or
+battering-ram, consisted of a large beam made of the trunk of a tree,
+frequently one hundred feet in length, to one end of which was fastened
+a mace of iron or bronze resembling in form the head of a ram; it was
+often suspended by ropes from a beam fixed transversely over it, so that
+the soldiers were relieved from supporting its weight, and were able to
+give it a rapid and forcible swinging motion backward and forward. When
+this machine was further perfected by rigging it upon wheels, and
+constructing over it a roof, so as to form a _testudo_, which protected
+the besieging party from the assaults of the besieged, there was no
+tower so strong, no wall so thick, as to resist a long-continued attack,
+the great length of the beam enabling the soldiers to work across the
+defensive ditch, and as many as one hundred men being often employed
+upon it. The Romans learned from the Greeks the art of building this
+formidable engine, which was used with great effect by Alexander, but
+with still greater by Titus in the siege of Jerusalem; it was first used
+by the Romans in the siege of Syracuse. The _vinea_ was a sort of roof
+under which the soldiers protected themselves when they undermined
+walls. The _helepolis_, also used in the attack on cities, was a square
+tower furnished with all the means of assault. This also was a Greek
+invention; and the one used by Demetrius at the siege of Rhodes, B. C.
+306, was one hundred and thirty-five feet high and sixty-eight wide,
+divided into nine stories. The _turris_, a tower of the same class, was
+used both by Greeks and Romans, and even by Asiatics. Mithridates used
+one at the siege of Cyzicus one hundred and fifty feet in height. These
+most formidable engines were generally made of beams of wood covered on
+three sides with iron and sometimes with rawhides. They were higher than
+the walls and all the other fortifications of a besieged place, and
+divided into stories pierced with windows; in and upon them were
+stationed archers and slingers, and in the lower story was a
+battering-ram. The soldiers in the turris were also provided with
+scaling-ladders, sometimes on wheels; so that when the top of the wall
+was cleared by means of the turris, it might be scaled by means of the
+ladders. It was impossible to resist these powerful engines except by
+burning them, or by undermining the ground upon which they stood, or by
+overturning them with stones or iron-shod beams hung from a mast on the
+wall, or by increasing the height of the wall, or by erecting temporary
+towers on the wall beside them.
+
+Thus there was no ancient fortification capable of withstanding a long
+siege when the besieged city was short of defenders or provisions. With
+forces equal between the combatants an attack was generally a failure,
+for the defenders had always a great advantage; but when the number of
+defenders was reduced, or when famine pressed, the skill and courage of
+the assailants would ultimately triumph. Some ancient cities made a most
+obstinate resistance, like Tarentum; like Carthage, which stood a siege
+of four years; like Numantia in Spain, and like Jerusalem. When cities
+were of immense size, population, and resources, like Rome when besieged
+by Alaric, it was easier to take them by cutting off all ingress and
+egress, so as to produce famine. Tyre was taken by Alexander only by
+cutting off the harbor. Cyrus could not have taken Babylon by assault,
+since the walls were of such enormous height, and the ditch was too wide
+for the use of battering-rams; he resorted to an expedient of which the
+blinded inhabitants of that doomed city never dreamed, which rendered
+their impregnable fortifications useless. Nor probably would the Romans
+have prevailed against Jerusalem had not famine decimated and weakened
+its defenders. Fortified cities, though scarcely ever impregnable, were
+yet more in use in ancient than modern times, and greatly delayed the
+operations of advancing armies; and it was probably the fortified camp
+of the Romans, which protected an army against surprises and other
+misfortunes, that gave such permanent efficacy to the legions.
+
+The chief officers of the legion were the Tribunes; and originally
+there was one in each legion from the three tribes,--the Ramnes,
+Luceres, and Tities. In the time of Polybius the number in each legion
+was six. Their authority extended equally over the whole legion; but to
+prevent confusion, it was the custom for them to divide into three
+sections of two, and each pair undertook the routine duties for two
+months out of six; they nominated the centurions, and assigned each to
+the company to which he belonged. These tribunes at first were chosen
+the commanders-in-chief, by the kings and consuls; but during the palmy
+days of the republic, when the patrician power was pre-eminent, they
+were elected by the people, that is, the citizens. Later they were
+named, half by the Senate and half by the consuls. No one was eligible
+to this great office who had not served ten years in the infantry or
+five in the cavalry. The tribunes were distinguished by their dress from
+the common soldier. Next in rank to the tribunes, who corresponded to
+the rank of brigadiers and colonels in our times, were the Centurions,
+of whom there were sixty in each legion,--men who were more remarkable
+for calmness and sagacity than for courage and daring valor; men who
+would keep their posts at all hazards. It was their duty to drill the
+soldiers, to inspect arms, clothing, and food, to visit the sentinels
+and regulate the conduct of the men. They had the power of inflicting
+corporal punishment. They were chosen for merit solely, until the later
+ages of the empire, when their posts were bought, as is the case to some
+extent to-day in the English army. The centurions were of unequal
+rank,--those of the Triarii before those of the Principes, and those of
+the Principes before those of the Hastati. The first centurion of the
+first maniple of the Triarii stood next in rank to the tribunes, and had
+a seat in the military councils. His office was very lucrative. To his
+charge was intrusted the eagle of the legion. As the centurion might
+rise from the ranks by regular gradation through the different maniples
+of the Hastati, Principes, and Triarii, there was great inducement held
+out to the soldiers. It would, however, appear that the centurion
+received only twice the pay of the ordinary legionary. There was not
+therefore so much difference in rank between a private and a captain as
+there is in our day. There were no aristocratic distinctions in the
+ancient world so marked as those existing in the modern. In the Roman
+legion there was nevertheless a regular gradation of rank, although
+there were but few distinct offices. The gradation was determined not by
+length of service, but for merit alone, of which the tribunes were the
+sole judges; hence the tribune in a Roman legion had more power than
+that of a modern colonel. As the tribunes named the centurions, so the
+centurions appointed their lieutenants, who were called sub-centurions.
+Still below these were two sub-officers, or sergeants, and the
+_decanus_, or corporal, to every ten men.
+
+There was a change in the constitution and disposition of the legion
+after the time of Marius, until the fall of the republic. The legions
+were thrown open to men of all grades; they were all armed and equipped
+alike; the lines were reduced to two, with a space between every two
+cohorts, of which there were five in each line; the young soldiers were
+placed in the rear; the distinction between Hastati, Principes, and
+Triarii ceased; the Velites disappeared, their work being done by the
+foreign mercenaries; the cavalry ceased to be part of the legion, and
+became a distinct body; and the military was completely severed from the
+rest of the State. Formerly no one could aspire to office who had not
+completed ten years of military service, but in the time of Cicero a man
+could pass through all the great dignities of the State with a very
+limited experience of military life. Cicero himself did military service
+in but one campaign.
+
+Under the emperors there were still other changes. The regular army
+consisted of legions and supplementa,--the latter being subdivided into
+the imperial guards and the auxiliary troops.
+
+The Auxiliaries (_Socii_) consisted of troops from the States in
+alliance with Rome, or those compelled to furnish subsidies. The
+infantry of the allies was generally more numerous than that of the
+Romans, while the cavalry was three times as numerous. All the
+auxiliaries were paid by the State; their infantry received the same pay
+as the Roman infantry, but their cavalry received only two thirds of
+what was paid to the Roman cavalry. The common foot-soldier received in
+the time of Polybius three and a half asses a day, equal to about three
+cents; the horseman three times as much. The praetorian cohorts received
+twice as much as the legionaries. Julius Caesar allowed about six asses
+a day as the pay of the legionary, and under Augustus the daily pay was
+raised to ten asses,--little more than eight cents per day. Domitian
+raised the stipend still higher. The soldier, however, was fed and
+clothed by the government.
+
+The Praetorian Cohort was a select body of troops instituted by Augustus
+to protect his person, and consisted of ten cohorts, each of one
+thousand men, chosen from Italy. This number was increased by Vitellius
+to sixteen thousand, and they were assembled by Tiberius in a permanent
+camp, which was strongly fortified. They had peculiar privileges, and
+when they had served sixteen years received twenty thousand sesterces,
+or more than one hundred pounds sterling. Each praetorian had the rank
+of a centurion in the regular army. Like the body-guard of Louis XIV.
+they were all gentlemen, and formed gradually a great power, like the
+Janissaries at Constantinople, and frequently disposed of the
+purple itself.
+
+Our notice of the Roman legion would be incomplete without some
+description of the camp in which the soldier virtually lived. A Roman
+army never halted for a single night without forming a regular
+intrenchment capable of holding all the fighting men, the beasts of
+burden, and the baggage. During the winter months, when the army could
+not retire into some city, it was compelled to live in the camp, which
+was arranged and fortified according to a uniform plan, so that every
+company and individual had a place assigned. We cannot tell when this
+practice of intrenchment began; it was matured gradually, like all other
+things pertaining to all arts. The system was probably brought to
+perfection during the wars with Hannibal. Skill in the choice of ground,
+giving facilities for attack and defence, and for procuring water and
+other necessities, was of great account with the generals. An area of
+about five thousand square feet was allowed for a company of infantry,
+and ten thousand feet for a troop of thirty dragoons. The form of a camp
+was an exact square, the length of each side being two thousand and
+seventeen feet; there was a space of two hundred feet between the
+ramparts and the tents to facilitate the marching in and out of
+soldiers, and to guard the cattle and booty; the principal street was
+one hundred feet wide, and was called Principia. The defences of the
+camp consisted of a ditch, the earth from which was thrown inward, and
+of strong palisades of wooden stakes driven into the top of the
+earthwork so formed; the ditch was sometimes fifteen feet deep, and the
+_vallum_, or rampart, ten feet in height. When the army encamped for the
+first time the tribunes administered an oath to each individual,
+including slaves, to the effect that they would steal nothing out of the
+camp. Every morning at daybreak the centurions and the equites presented
+themselves before the tents of the tribunes, and the tribunes in like
+manner presented themselves before the praetorian, to learn the orders
+of the consuls, which through the centurions were communicated to the
+soldiers. Four companies took charge of the principal street, to see
+that it was properly cleaned and watered; one company took charge of the
+tent of the tribune; a strong guard attended to the horses, and another
+of fifty men stood beside the tent of the general, that he might be
+protected from open danger and secret treachery. The _velites_ mounted
+guard the whole night and day along the whole extent of the vallum, and
+each gate was guarded by ten men; the _equites_ were intrusted with the
+duty of acting as sentinels during the night, and most ingenious
+measures were adopted to secure their watchfulness and fidelity. The
+watchword for the night was given by the commander-in-chief. "On the
+first signal being given by the trumpet, the tents were all struck and
+the baggage packed; at the second signal, the baggage was placed upon
+the beasts of burden; and at the third, the whole army began to move.
+Then the herald, standing at the right hand of the general, demands
+thrice if they are ready for war, to which they all respond with loud
+and repeated cheers that they are ready, and for the most part, being
+filled with martial ardor, anticipate the question, 'and raise their
+right hands on high with a shout.'" [3]
+
+[Footnote 3: Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, article "Castra."]
+
+From what has come down to us of Roman military life, it appears to have
+been full of excitement, toil, danger, and hardship. The pecuniary
+rewards of the soldier were small; he was paid in glory. No profession
+brought so much honor as the military; and it was from the undivided
+attention of a great people to this profession, that it was carried to
+all the perfection which could be attained before the great invention of
+gunpowder changed the art of war. It was not the number of men employed
+in the Roman armies which particularly arrests attention, but the genius
+of organization which controlled and the spirit which animated them.
+The Romans loved war, but so reduced it to a science that it required
+comparatively small armies to conquer the world. Sulla defeated
+Mithridates with only thirty thousand men, while his adversary
+marshalled against him over one hundred thousand. Caesar had only ten
+legions to effect the conquest of Gaul, and none of these were of
+Italian origin. At the great decisive battle of Pharsalia, when most of
+the available forces of the empire were employed on one side or the
+other, Pompey commanded a legionary army of forty-five thousand men, and
+his cavalry amounted to seven thousand more, but among them were
+included the flower of the Roman nobility; the auxiliary force has not
+been computed, although it was probably numerous. In the same battle
+Caesar had under him only twenty-two thousand legionaries and one
+thousand cavalry. But every man in both armies was prepared to conquer
+or die. The forces were posted on the open plain, and the battle was
+really a hand-to-hand encounter, in which the soldiers, after hurling
+their lances, fought with their swords chiefly; and when the cavalry of
+Pompey rushed upon the legionaries of Caesar, no blows were wasted on
+the mailed panoply of the mounted Romans, but were aimed at the face
+alone, as that only was unprotected. The battle was decided by the
+coolness, bravery, and discipline of Caesar's veterans, inspired by the
+genius of the greatest general of antiquity. Less than one hundred
+thousand men, in all probability, were engaged in one of the most
+memorable conflicts which the world has seen.
+
+Thus it was by blended art and heroism that the Roman legions prevailed
+over the armies of the ancient world. But this military power was not
+gained in a say; it took nearly two hundred years, after the expulsion
+of the kings, to regain supremacy over the neighboring people, and
+another century to conquer Italy. The Romans did not contend with
+regular armies until they were brought in conflict with the king of
+Epirus and the phalanx of the Greeks, "which improved their military
+tactics, and introduced between the combatants those mutual regards of
+civilized nations which teach men to honor their adversaries, to spare
+the vanquished, and to lay aside wrath when the struggle is ended."
+
+After the consolidation of Roman power in Italy, it took but one hundred
+and fifty years more to complete the conquest of the world,--of Northern
+Africa, Spain, Gaul, Illyria, Epirus, Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor,
+Pontus, Syria, Egypt, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pergamus, and the islands of
+the Mediterranean. The conquest of Carthage left Rome without a rival in
+the Mediterranean, and promoted intercourse with the Greeks. The
+Illyrian wars opened to the Romans the road to Greece and Asia, and
+destroyed the pirates of the Adriatic. The invasion of Cisalpine Gaul,
+now that part of Italy which is north of the Apennines, protected Italy
+from the invasion of barbarians. The Macedonian War against Philip put
+Greece under the protection of Rome, and that against Antiochus laid
+Syria at her mercy; when these kingdoms were reduced to provinces, the
+way was opened to further conquests in the East, and the Mediterranean
+became a Roman lake.
+
+But these conquests introduced luxury, wealth, pride, and avarice, which
+degrade while they elevate. Successful war created great generals, and
+founded great families; increased slavery, and promoted inequalities.
+Meanwhile the great generals struggled for supremacy; civil wars
+followed in the train of foreign conquests; Marius, Sulla, Pompey,
+Caesar, Antony, Augustus, sacrificed the State to their own ambitions.
+Good men lamented and protested, and hid themselves; Cato, Cicero,
+Brutus, spoke in vain. Degenerate morals kept pace with civil contests.
+Rome revelled in the spoils of all kingdoms and countries, was
+intoxicated with power, became cruel and tyrannical, and after
+sacrificing the lives of citizens to fortunate generals, yielded at last
+her liberties, and imperial despotism began its reign. War had added
+empire, but undermined prosperity; it had created a great military
+monarchy, but destroyed liberty; it had brought wealth, but introduced
+inequalities; it had filled the city with spoils, but sown the vices of
+self-interest. The machinery remained perfect, but life had fled. It
+henceforth became the labor of Emperors to keep together their vast
+possessions with this machinery, which at last wore out, since there was
+neither genius to repair it nor patriotism to work it. It lasted three
+hundred years, but was broken to pieces by the barbarians.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Wilkinson is the best authority pertaining to Egyptian armies. The
+highest authority in relation to the construction of an army is
+Polybius, contemporary with Scipio, when Roman discipline was most
+perfect. The eighth chapter of Livy is also very much prized. Salmasius
+and Lepsius wrote learned treatises. Tacitus, Sallust, Livy, Dion
+Cassius, Pliny, and Caesar reveal incidentally much that we wish to
+know, the last giving us the liveliest idea of the military habits and
+tactics of the Romans. Gibbon gives some important facts. The subject of
+ancient machines is treated by Folard's Commentary attached to his
+translation of Polybius. Josephus describes with great vividness the
+siege of Jerusalem. Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities is full of details
+in everything pertaining to the weapons, the armor, the military
+engines, the rewards and punishments of the soldiers. The articles
+"Exercitus," in Smith's Dictionary, and "Army," in the Encyclopedia
+Britannica, give a practical summary of the best writers.
+
+
+
+
+CICERO.
+
+
+106-43 B.C.
+
+ROMAN LITERATURE.
+
+
+Marcus Tullius Cicero is one of the great lights of history, because his
+genius and influence were directed to the conservation of what was most
+precious in civilization among the cultivated nations of antiquity.
+
+He was not a warrior, like so many of the Roman Senators, but his
+excellence was higher than that of a conqueror. "He was doomed, by his
+literary genius, to an immortality," and was confessedly the most
+prominent figure in the political history of his time, next to Caesar
+and Pompey. His influence was greater than his power, reaching down to
+our time; and if his character had faults, let us remember that he was
+stained by no crimes and vices, in an age of violence and wickedness.
+Until lately he has received almost unmixed praise. The Fathers of the
+Church revered him. To Erasmus, as well as to Jerome and Augustine, he
+was an oracle.
+
+In presenting this immortal benefactor, I have no novelties to show.
+Novelties are for those who seek to upturn the verdicts of past ages by
+offering something new, rather than what is true.
+
+Cicero was born B.C. 106, in the little suburban town of Arpinum, about
+fifty miles from Rome,--the town which produced Marius. The period of
+his birth was one of marked national prosperity. Great military roads
+were built, which were a marvel of engineering skill; canals were dug;
+sails whitened the sea; commerce was prosperous; the arts of Greece were
+introduced, and its literature also; elegant villas lined the shores of
+the Mediterranean; pictures and statues were indefinitely
+multiplied,--everything indicated an increase of wealth and culture.
+With these triumphs of art and science and literature, we are compelled
+to notice likewise a decline in morals. Money had become the god which
+everybody worshipped. Religious life faded away; there was a general
+eclipse of faith. An Epicurean life produced an Epicurean philosophy.
+Pleasure-seeking was universal, and even revolting in the sports of the
+Amphitheatre. Sensualism became the convertible word for utilities. The
+Romans were thus rapidly "advancing" to a materialistic millennium,--an
+outward progress of wealth and industries, but an inward decline in
+"those virtues on which the strength of man is based," accompanied with
+seditions among the people, luxury and pride among the nobles, and
+usurpations on the part of successful generals,--when Cicero began his
+memorable career.
+
+He was well-born, but not of noble ancestors. The great peculiarity of
+his youth was his precocity. He was an intellectual prodigy,--like Pitt,
+Macaulay, and Mill. Like them, he had a wonderful memory. He early
+mastered the Greek language; he wrote poetry, studied under eminent
+professors, frequented the Forum, listened to the speeches of different
+orators, watched the posture and gestures of actors, and plunged into
+the mazes of literature and philosophy. He was conscious of his
+marvellous gifts, and was, of course, ambitious of distinction.
+
+There were only three ways at Rome in which a man could rise to eminence
+and power. One was by making money, like army contractors and merchants,
+such as the Equites, to whose ranks he belonged; the second was by
+military service; and the third by the law,--an honorable profession.
+Like Caesar, a few years younger than he, Cicero selected the law. But
+he was a _new man_,--not a patrician, as Caesar was,--and had few
+powerful friends. Hence his progress was not rapid in the way of
+clients. He was twenty-five years of age before he had a case. He was
+twenty-seven when he defended Roscius, which seems to have brought him
+into notice,--even as the fortune of Erskine was made in the Greenwich
+Hospital case and that of Daniel Webster in the case of Dartmouth
+College. To have defended Roscius against all the influence of Sulla,
+then the most powerful man in Rome, was considered bold and audacious.
+His fame for great logical power rests on his defence of Milo,--the
+admiration of all lawyers.
+
+Cicero was not naturally robust. His figure was tall and spare, his neck
+long and slender, and his mouth anything but sensual. He looked more
+like an elegant scholar than a popular public speaker. Yet he was
+impetuous, ardent, and fiery, like Demosthenes, resorting to violent
+gesticulations. The health of such a young man could not stand the
+strain on his nervous system, and he was obliged to leave Rome for
+recreation; he therefore made the tour of Greece and Asia Minor, which
+every fashionable and cultivated man was supposed to do. Yet he did not
+abandon himself to the pleasures of cities more fascinating than Rome
+itself, but pursued his studies in rhetoric and philosophy under eminent
+masters, or "professors" as we should now call them. He remained abroad
+two years, returning when he was thirty years of age and settling down
+in his profession, taking at first but little part in politics. He
+married Terentia, with whom he lived happily for thirty years.
+
+But the Roman lawyer was essentially a politician, looking ultimately to
+political office, since only through the great public offices could he
+enter the Senate,--the object of ambition to all distinguished Romans,
+as a seat in Parliament is the goal of an Englishman. The Roman lawyer
+did not receive fees, like modern lawyers, but derived his support from
+presents and legacies. When he became a political leader, a man of
+influence with the great, his presents were enormous. Cicero
+acknowledged, late in life, to have received what would now be equal to
+more than a million of dollars from legacies alone. The great political
+leaders and orators were the stipendiaries of Eastern princes and nobles
+who wanted favors from the Senate, and who knew as well how to reward
+such services as do the railway kings in our times.
+
+Before Cicero, then, could be a Senator, he must pass through those
+great public offices which were in the gift of the people. The first
+step on the ladder of advancement was the office of quaestor, which
+entailed the duty of collecting revenues in one of the provinces. This
+office he was sufficiently influential to secure, being sent to Sicily,
+where he distinguished himself for his activity and integrity. At the
+end of a year he renewed his practice in the courts at Rome,--being
+hardly anything more than a mere lawyer for five years, when he was
+elected an Aedile, to whom the care of the public buildings was
+intrusted.
+
+It was while he was aedile-elect that Cicero appeared as the public
+prosecutor of Verres. This was one of the great cases of antiquity, and
+the one from which the orator's public career fairly dates. His
+residence in Sicily had prepared him for this duty; and he secured the
+conviction of this great criminal, whose peculations and corruptions
+would amaze our modern New Yorkers and all the "rings" of our great
+cities combined. But the Praetor of Sicily was a provincial
+governor,--more like Warren Hastings than Tweed. For this public service
+Cicero gained more _éclat_ than Burke did for his prosecution of
+Hastings; since Hastings, though a corrupt man, laid, after Clive, the
+foundation of the English empire in India, and was a man of immense
+talents,--greater than those of any who has since filled his place.
+Hence the nation screened Hastings. But Verres had no virtues and no
+great abilities; he was an outrageous public robber, and hoped, from his
+wealth and powerful connections, to purchase immunity for his crimes. In
+the hands of such an orator as Cicero he could not escape the penalty of
+the law, powerful as he was, even at Rome. This case placed Cicero above
+Hortensius, hitherto the leader of the Roman bar.
+
+It was at this period that the extant correspondence of Cicero began,
+which is the best picture we have of the manners and habits of the Roman
+aristocracy at the time. History could scarcely spare those famous
+letters, especially to Atticus, in which also the private life and
+character of Cicero shine to the most advantage, revealing no vices, no
+treacheries,--only egotism, vanity, and vacillation, and a way that some
+have of speaking about people in private very differently from what they
+say in public, which looks like insincerity. In these letters Cicero
+appears as a very frank man, genial, hospitable, domestic, witty, whose
+society and conversation must have been delightful. In no modern
+correspondence do we see a higher perfection in the polished courtesies
+and urbanities of social life, with the alloy of vanity, irony, and
+discontent. But in these letters he also evinces a friendship which is
+immortal; and what is nobler than the capacity of friendship? In these
+he not only shines as a cultivated scholar, but as a great statesman and
+patriot, living for the good of his country, though not unmindful of the
+luxuries of home and the charms of country retirement, and those
+enjoyments which are ever associated with refined and favored life. We
+read here of pictures, books, medals, statues, curiosities of every
+kind, all of which adorned his various villas, as well as his
+magnificent palace on Mount Palatine, which cost him what would be equal
+in our money to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. To keep up this
+town house, and some fifteen villas in different parts of Italy, and to
+feast the greatest nobles, like Pompey and Caesar, would imply that his
+income was enormous, much greater than that of any modern professional
+man. And yet he seems to have lived, like Bacon and our Webster, beyond
+his income, and was in debt the greater part of his life,--another flaw
+in his character; for I do not wish to paint him without faults, but
+only as a good as well as a great man, for his times. His private
+character was as lofty as that of Chatham or Canning,--if we could
+forget his vanity, which after all is not so offensive as the
+intellectual pride of Burke and Pitt, and of sundry other great lights
+who might be mentioned, conscious of their gifts and attainments. There
+is something very different in the egotism of a silly and self-seeking
+aristocrat from that of a great benefactor who has something to be proud
+of, and with whose private experiences the greatest national deeds are
+connected. I speak of this fault because it has been handled too
+severely by modern critics. What were the faults of Cicero, compared
+with those of Theodosius or Constantine, to say nothing of his
+contemporaries, like Caesar, before whom so much incense has
+been burned?
+
+At the age of forty Cicero became Praetor, or Supreme Judge. This
+office, when it expired, entitled him to a provincial government,--the
+great ultimate ambition of a senator; since the administration of a
+province, even for a single year, usually secured an enormous fortune.
+But this tempting offer he resigned, since he felt he could not be
+spared from Rome in such a crisis of public affairs, when the fortunate
+generals were grasping power and the demagogues were almost preparing
+the way for despotism. Some might say he was a far-sighted and ambitious
+statesman, who could not afford to weaken his chances of being made
+Consul by absence from the capital.
+
+This great office, the consulship, the highest in the gift of the
+people,--which gave supreme executive control,--was rarely conferred,
+although elective, upon any but senators of ancient family and enormous
+wealth. It was as difficult for a "new man" to reach this dignity, under
+an aristocratic Constitution, as for a commoner a hundred years ago to
+become prime minister of England. Transcendent talents and services
+scarcely sufficed. Only generals who had won great military fame, or the
+highest of the nobles, stood much chance. For a lawyer to aim at the
+highest office in the State, without a great family to back him, would
+have been deemed as audacious as for such a man as Burke to aspire to a
+seat in the cabinet during the reign of George III. A lawyer at Rome,
+like a lawyer in London, might become a lord chancellor or praetor, but
+not easily a prime minister: he would be defeated by aristocratic
+influence and jealousies. Although the people had the right of election,
+they voted at the dictation of those who had money and power. Yet Cicero
+obtained the consulship, probably with the aid of senators, which he
+justly regarded as a great triumph. It was a very unusual thing. It was
+more marvellous than for a Jew to reign in Great Britain, or, like
+Mordecai, in the court of a Persian king.
+
+The most distinguished service of Cicero as consul was to ferret out the
+conspiracy of Catiline. Now, this traitor belonged to the very highest
+rank in a Senate of nobles; he was like an ancient duke in the British
+House of Peers. It was no easy thing for a plebeian consul to bring to
+justice so great a culprit. He was more formidable than Essex in the
+reign of Elizabeth, or Bassompierre in the time of Richelieu. He was a
+man of profligate life, but of marked ability and boundless ambition. He
+had a band of numerous and faithful followers, armed and desperate. He
+was also one of those oily and aristocratic demagogues who bewitch the
+people,--not, as in our times, by sophistries, but by flatteries. He was
+as debauched as Mirabeau, but without his patriotism, though like him he
+aimed to overturn the Constitution by allying himself with the
+democracy. The people, whom he despised, he gained by his money and
+promises; and he had powerful confederates of his own rank, so that he
+was on the point of deluging Rome with blood, his aim being nothing less
+than the extermination of the Senate and the magistrates by
+assassination, and a general division of the public treasure, with
+personal assumption of public power.
+
+But all his schemes were foiled by Cicero, who added unwearied activity
+to extraordinary penetration. For this great and signal service Cicero
+received the highest tribute the State could render. He was called the
+savior of his country; and he succeeded in staving off for a time the
+fall of his country's liberties. It was a mournful sight to him to see
+the ascendency which demagogues had already gained, since it betokened
+the approaching destruction of the Constitution, which, good or bad, was
+dear to him, and which as an aristocrat he sought to conserve.
+
+Cicero's evil star was not Catiline, but Clodius,--another aristocratic
+demagogue whose crimes he exposed, although he failed to bring him to
+justice. Clodius was shielded by his powerful connections; and he was,
+besides, a popular favorite, as well as a petted scion of one of the
+greatest families. Clodius showed his hostility to Cicero, and sought
+revenge by artfully causing the people to pass or revive a law that
+whoever had inflicted capital punishment on a citizen without a trial
+should be banished. This seemed to the people to be a protection to
+their liberties. Now Cicero, when consul, had executed some of the
+conspirators associated with Catiline, for which he was called the
+savior of his country. But by the law which was now passed or revived by
+the influence of Clodius, Cicero was himself a culprit, and it would
+seem that all the influence of the Senate and his friends could not
+prevent his exile. He appealed to his friend Pompey, but Pompey turned a
+deaf ear; and also to Caesar, but Caesar was then outside the walls of
+the city in command of an army. In fact, both these generals wished him
+out of the way, although they equally admired and feared him; for each
+of them was bent on being the supreme ruler of Rome.
+
+So it was permitted for the most illustrious patriot which Rome then
+held to go into exile. What a comment on the demoralization of the
+times! Here was the best, the most gifted, and the most accomplished man
+of the Republic,--a man who had rendered invaluable and acknowledged
+services, that man of consular dignity and one of the leaders of the
+Senate,--sent into inglorious banishment, on a mere technicality and for
+an act which saved the State. And the "magnanimous" Caesar and the
+"illustrious" Pompey allowed him to go! Where was salvation to a
+Republic which banished its savior, and for having saved it? The heart
+sickens over such a fact, although it occurred two thousand years ago.
+When the citizens of Rome saw that great man depart mournfully from
+among them, and to all appearance forever, for having rescued them from
+violence and slaughter, and by their own act,--they ought to have known
+that the days of the Republic were numbered. But this only a few
+far-seeing patriots felt. And not only was Cicero banished, but his
+palace was burned and his villas confiscated. He was not only disgraced,
+but ruined; he was an exile and a pauper. What a fall! What an unmerited
+treatment!
+
+Very few people conceive what a dreadful punishment it was in Greece and
+Rome to be banished; or, as the formula went, "to be interdicted from
+fire and water,"--the sacred fire of the hearth, the lustral water which
+served for sacrifices. The exile was deprived of these by being forced
+to extinguish the hearth-fire,--the elemental, fundamental religion of a
+Greek and Roman. "He could not, deprived of this, hold property; having
+no longer a worship, he had no longer a family. He ceased to be a
+husband and father; his sons were no longer in his power, his wife was
+no longer his wife, and when he died he had not the right to be buried
+in the tombs of his ancestors." [4]
+
+[Footnote 4: Coulanges: Ancient City.]
+
+Is it to be wondered at that even so good and great a man as Cicero
+should bitterly feel his disgrace and misfortunes? Is it surprising
+that, philosopher as he was, he should have given way to grief and
+despondency. He would have been more than human not to have lost his
+spirits and his hopes. How natural were grief and despair, in such
+complicated miseries, especially to a religious man! Chrysostom could
+support _his_ exile with dignity; for Christianity had abolished the
+superstitions of Greece and Rome as to household gods. Cicero could not:
+he was not great enough for such a martyrdom. It is true we should have
+esteemed him higher, had he accepted his fate with resignation: no man
+should yield to despair. Had he been as old as Socrates, and had he
+accomplished his mission, possibly he would have shown more equanimity.
+But his work was not yet done. He was cut off in his prime and in the
+midst of usefulness from his home, his religion, his family, his honor,
+and his influence; he was utterly ruined. I think the critics make too
+much of the grief and misery of Cicero in his banishment. We may be
+disappointed that Cicero was not equal to his circumstances; but we need
+not be hard on him. My surprise is, not that he was overwhelmed with
+grief, but that he did not attempt to drown his grief in books and
+literature. His sole relief was in pathetic and unmanly letters.
+
+The great injustice of this punishment naturally produced a reaction.
+Nor could the Romans afford to lose the services of their greatest
+orator. They also craved the excitement of his speeches, more thrilling
+and delightful than the performance of any actor. So he was recalled.
+Cicero ought to have anticipated this; it seems, however, he had that
+unfortunate temperament which favors alternate depression and
+exhilaration of spirits, without measure or reason.
+
+His return was a triumph,--a grand ovation, an unbounded tribute to his
+vanity. His palace was rebuilt at the expense of the State, and his
+property was restored. His popularity was regained. In fact, his
+influence was never lost; and, because it was so great, his enemies
+wished him out of the way. He was one of the few who retain influence
+after they have lost power.
+
+The excess of his joy on his restoration to home and friends and
+property and fame and position, was as great as the excess of his grief
+in his short exile. But this is a defect in temperament, in his mental
+constitution, rather than a flaw in his character. We could have wished
+more placidity and equanimity; but to condemn him because he was not
+great in everything is unjust.
+
+On his return to Rome Cicero resumed his practice in the courts with
+greater devotion than ever. He was now past fifty years of age, in the
+prime of his strength and in the height of his forensic fame. But,
+notwithstanding his success and honors, his life was saddened by the
+growing dissensions between Caesar and Pompey, the decline of public
+spirit, and the approaching fall of the institutions in which he
+gloried. It was clear that one or the other of these fortunate generals
+would soon become the master of the Roman world, and that liberty was
+about to perish. His eloquence now became sad; he sings the death-song
+of departing glories; he wails his Jeremiads over the demoralization
+which was sweeping away not merely liberty, but religion, and
+extinguishing faith in the world. To console himself he retired to one
+of his beautiful villas and wrote that immortal essay, "De Oratore,"
+which has come down to us entire. His literary genius now blazed equally
+with his public speeches in the Forum and in the Senate. Literature was
+his solace and amusement, not a source of profit, or probably of
+contemporary fame. He wrote treatises on the same principles that he
+talked with friends, or that Fra Angelico painted pictures. He renewed
+his attempts in poetry, but failed. His poetry is in the transcendent
+rhythm of his prose compositions, like that of Madame de Staël, and
+Macaulay, and Rousseau.
+
+But he was dragged from his literary and forensic life to accept the
+office of a governor of a province. It was forced upon him,--an honor to
+him without a charm. Had he been venal and unscrupulous, he would have
+seized it with avidity. He was too conscientious to enrich himself by
+public corruption, as other Senators did, and unless he could accumulate
+a fortune the command of a distant province was an honorable exile. He
+was fifty-six years of age when he became Proconsul of Cilicia, an
+Eastern province; and all historians have united in praising his
+proconsulate for its justice, its integrity, and its ability. He
+committed no extortions, and returned home, when his term of office
+expired, as poor as when he went. One of the highest praises which can
+be given to a public man who has chances of enriching himself is, that
+he remains poor. When a member of Congress, known not to be worth ten
+thousand dollars, returns to his home worth one hundred thousand
+dollars, the public have an instinct that he has, somehow or other, been
+untrue to himself and his country. When a great man returns home from
+Washington poorer than when he went, his influence is apt to survive his
+power; and this perpetuated influence is the highest glory of a public
+man,--the glory of Jefferson, of Hamilton, of Washington, like the voice
+of Gladstone during his retirement. Now Cicero had pre-eminently this
+influence as long as he lived; and it was ever exerted for the good of
+his country. Had his country been free, he would have died in honor. But
+his country was enslaved, and his voice was drowned, and he had to pay
+the penalty of speaking the truth about those unscrupulous men who
+usurped authority.
+
+On his return to Rome the state of public affairs was most alarming.
+Caesar and Pompey were in antagonism. He must choose between them, and
+he distrusted both. Caesar was the more able, accomplished, and
+magnanimous, but he was the more unscrupulous and dangerous. He had
+ventured to cross the Rubicon,--the first general who ever dared thus
+openly to assail his country's liberties. Pompey was pompous, overrated,
+and proud, and had been fortunate in the East. But then he sided with
+the Constitutional authorities,--that is, with the Senate,--so far as
+his ambition allowed. So Cicero took his side feebly, reluctantly, as
+the least of the evils he had to choose, but not without vacillation,
+which is one of the popular charges against him. "His distraction almost
+took the form of insanity." "His inconsistency was an incoherence."
+Never did a more wretched man than Cicero resort to Pompey's camp, where
+he remained until his cause was lost. He returned, after the battle of
+Pharsalia, a suppliant at the feet of Caesar, the conqueror. This, to
+me, is one of his weakest acts. It would have been more lofty and heroic
+to have perished in the camp of Pompey's sons.
+
+In the midst of these public misfortunes which saddened his soul, his
+private miseries began. He was now prematurely an old man, under sixty
+years of age, almost broken down with grief. His beloved daughter
+Tullia, with whom his life was bound up, died; and he was divorced from
+his wife Terentia,--a proceeding the cause of which remains a mystery.
+Neither in his most confidential letters, nor in his conversations with
+most intimate friends, does it appear that he ever unbosomed himself,
+although he was the frankest and most social of men. In his impressive
+silence he has set one of the noblest examples of a man afflicted with
+domestic infelicities. He buries his conjugal troubles in eternal
+silence; although he is forced to give vent to sorrows, so plaintive and
+bitter that both friend and foe were constrained to pity. He expects no
+sympathy, even at Rome, for the sundering of conjugal relations, and he
+communicates no secrets. In his grief and sadness he does, however, a
+most foolish thing: he marries a young lady one-third his age. She
+accepted him for his name and rank; he sought her for her beauty, her
+youth, and her fortune. This union of May with December was of course a
+failure. Both parties were soon disenchanted and disappointed. Neither
+party found happiness, only discontent and chagrin. The everlasting
+incongruities of such a relation--he sixty and she nineteen--soon led to
+another divorce. _He_ expected his young wife to mourn with him the loss
+of his daughter Tullia. _She_ expected that her society and charms
+would be a compensation for all that he had lost; yea, more, enough to
+make him the most fortunate and happy of mortals. In truth, he was too
+old a man to have married a young woman whatever were the inducements.
+It was the great folly of his life; an illustration of the fact that, as
+a general thing, the older a man grows the greater fool he becomes, so
+far as women are concerned; a folly that disgraced and humiliated the
+two wisest and greatest men who ever sat on the Jewish throne.
+
+In his accumulated sorrows Cicero now plunged for relief into literary
+labors. It was thus that his private sorrows were the means which
+Providence employed to transmit his precious thoughts and experiences to
+future ages, as the most valued inheritance he could bestow on
+posterity. What a precious legacy to the mind of the world was the book
+of "Ecclesiastes," yet by what bitter experiences was its wisdom earned!
+
+It was in the short period when Caesar rejoiced in the mighty power
+which he transmitted to the Roman Emperors that Cicero wrote, in
+comparative retirement, his history of "Roman Eloquence," his inquiry as
+to the "Greatest Good and Evil," his "Cato," his "Orator," his "Nature
+of the Gods," and his treatises on "Glory," on "Fate," on "Friendship,"
+on "Old Age," and his grandest work of all, the "Offices."--the best
+manual in ethics which has come down to us from heathen antiquity. In
+his studious retirement he reminds us of Bacon after his fall, when on
+his estate, surrounded with friends, and in the enjoyment of elegant
+leisure, he penned the most valued of his immortal compositions. And in
+those degenerate days at Rome, when liberty was crushed under foot
+forever, it is beautiful to see the greatest of Roman statesmen and
+lawyers consoling himself and instructing posterity by his exhaustive
+treatises on the fundamental principles of law, of morality, and of
+philosophy.
+
+The assassination of Caesar by Roman senators, which Cicero seems to
+have foreseen, and in which he rejoiced, at this time shocked and
+disturbed the world. For nearly two thousand years the verdict of the
+civilized world respecting this great conqueror has been unanimous. But
+Mr. Froude has attempted to reverse this verdict, as he has in reference
+to Henry VIII., and as Carlyle--another idolater of force--has attempted
+in the cases of Oliver Cromwell and Frederick II. This remarkable
+word-painter, in his Life of Caesar,--which is, however, interesting
+from first to last, as everything he writes is interesting,--has
+presented him as an object of unbounded admiration, as I have already
+noticed in my lecture on Caesar. Whether in his eagerness to say
+something new, or from an ill-concealed hostility to aristocratic and
+religious institutions, or from an admiration of imperialism, or disdain
+of the people in their efforts at self-government, this able special
+pleader seems to hail the Roman conqueror as a benefactor to the cause
+of civilization. But imperialism crushed all alike,--the people, no
+longer able to send their best men to the Senate through the higher
+offices perchance to represent their interests, and the nobles, shorn of
+the administration of the Empire. Soldiers, not civilians, henceforth
+were to rule the world,--a dreary thought to a great lawyer like Cicero,
+or a landed proprietor like Brutus. Even if such a terrible revolution
+as occurred in Rome under Caesar may have been ordered wisely by a
+Superintending Power for those degenerate times, and as a preservation
+of the peace of the world, that Christianity might take root and spread
+in countries where all religions were dead,--still, the prostration of
+what was dearest to the hearts of all true citizens by the sword was a
+crime; and men are not to be commended for crime, even if those crimes
+may be palliated. "It must need be that offences come, but woe to those
+by whom they come."
+
+Cicero was now sixty-three, prematurely old, discouraged, and
+heart-broken. And yet he braced himself up for one more grand
+effort,--for a life and death struggle with Antony, one of the ablest
+of Caesar's generals; a demagogue, eloquent and popular, but
+outrageously cruel and unscrupulous, and with unbridled passions. Had it
+not been for his infatuated love of Cleopatra, he probably would have
+succeeded to the imperial sceptre, for it was by the sword that he too
+sought to suppress the liberties of the Senate and people. Against him,
+as the enemy of his country, Cicero did not scruple to launch forth the
+most terrible of his invectives. In thirteen immortal philippics--some
+of which, however, were merely written and never delivered, after the
+fashion of Demosthenes, with whom as an orator and a patriot he can
+alone be compared--he denounced the unprincipled demagogue and general
+with every offensive epithet the language afforded,--unveiling his
+designs, exposing his forgeries, and proving his crimes. Nobler
+eloquence was never uttered, and wasted, than that with which Cicero
+pursued, in passionate vengeance, the most powerful and the most
+unscrupulous man in the Roman Empire. And Cicero must have anticipated
+the fate which impended over him if Antony were not decreed a public
+enemy. But the protests of the orator were in vain. He lived to utter
+them, as a witness of truth; and nothing was left to him but to die.
+
+Of course Antony, when he became Triumvir,--when he made a bargain that
+he never meant to keep with Octavius and Lepidus for a division of the
+Empire between them,--would not spare such an enemy as Cicero. The
+broken-hearted patriot fled mechanically, with a vacillating mind, when
+his proscription became known to him,--now more ready to die than live,
+since all hope in his country's liberties was utterly crushed. Perhaps
+he might have escaped to some remote corner of the Empire. But he did
+not wish for life, any more than did Socrates when summoned before his
+judges. Desponding, uncertain, pursued, he met his fate with the heroism
+of an ancient philosopher. He surrendered his wearied and exhausted body
+to the hand of the executioner, and his lofty soul to the keeping of
+that personal and supreme God in whom he believed as firmly as any man,
+perhaps, of Pagan antiquity. And surely of him, more than of any other
+Roman, could it be said,--as Sir Walter Scott said of Pitt, and as
+Gladstone quoted, and applied to Sir Robert Peel,--
+
+     "Now is the stately column broke,
+     The _beacon light_ is quenched in smoke;
+     The trumpet's silver voice is still,
+     The warder silent on the hill."
+
+With the death--so sad--of the most illustrious of the Romans whose fame
+was not earned on the battlefield, I should perhaps close my lecture.
+Yet it would be incomplete without a short notice of those services
+which--as statesman, orator, and essayist--he rendered to his country
+and to future ages and nations.
+
+In regard to his services as a statesman, they were rendered chiefly to
+his day and generation, for he elaborated no system of political wisdom
+like Burke, which bears (except casually and indirectly) on modern
+governments and institutions. It was his aim, as a statesman, to
+continue the Roman Constitution and keep the people from civil war. Nor
+does he seem to have held, like Rousseau, the _vox populi_ as the voice
+of God. He could find no language sufficiently strong to express his
+abhorrence of those who led the people for their own individual
+advancement. He was equally severe on corrupt governors and venal
+judges. He upheld morality and justice as the only guides in public
+affairs. He loved popularity, but he loved his country better. He hated
+anarchy as much as did Burke. Like Bright, he looked upon civil war as
+the greatest of national calamities. He advocated the most enlightened
+views, based on the principles of immutable justice. He wished to
+preserve his country equally from unscrupulous generals and unprincipled
+politicians.
+
+As for his orations, they also were chiefly designed for his own
+contemporaries. They are not particularly valuable to us, except as
+models of rhetorical composition and transcendent beauty and grace of
+style. They are not so luminous with fundamental principles as they are
+vivid with invective, sarcasm, wit, and telling exaggeration,--sometimes
+persuasive and working on the sensibilities, and at other times full of
+withering scorn. They are more like the pleadings of an advocate than an
+appeal to universal reason. He lays down no laws of political
+philosophy, nor does he soar into the region of abstract truth, evolving
+great deductions in morals. But as an orator he was transcendently
+effective, like Demosthenes, though not equal to the Greek in force. His
+sentences are perhaps too involved for our taste; yet he always swayed
+an audience, whether the people from the rostrum, or the judges at the
+bar, or the senators in the Curia. He seldom lost a case; no one could
+contend with him successfully. He called out the admiration of critics,
+and even of actors. He had a wonderful electrical influence; his very
+tones and gestures carried everything before him; his action was superb;
+and his whole frame quivered from real (or affected) emotion, like
+Edward Everett in his happiest efforts. He was vehement in gesture, like
+Brougham and Mirabeau. He was intensely earnest and impressive, like
+Savonarola. He had exceeding tact, and was master of the passions of his
+audience. There was an irresistible music in his tones of voice, like
+that of St. Bernard when he fanned crusades. He was withering in his
+denunciations, like Wendell Phillips, whom in person he somewhat
+resembled. He was a fascination like Pericles, and the people could not
+long spare him from the excitement he produced. It was their desire to
+hear him speak which had no small share in producing his recall from
+banishment. They crowded around him as the people did around Chrysostom
+in Antioch. He amused like an actor, and instructed like a sage. His
+sentences are not short, terse, epigrammatic, and direct, but elaborate
+and artificial. Yet with all his arts of eloquence his soul, fired with
+great sentiments, rose in its inspired fervor above even the melody of
+voice, the rhythm of language, and the vehemence of action. A listener,
+who was not a critic, might fancy it was gesture, voice, and language
+combined; but, after all, it was the _man_ communicating his soul to
+those who hung upon his lips, and securing conviction by his sincerity
+and appeals to conscience. He must have had a natural gift for oratory,
+aside from his learning and accomplishments and rhetorical arts,--a
+talent very rare and approaching to creative genius. But to his natural
+gifts--like Luther, or Henry Clay, born an orator--he added marvellous
+attainments. He had a most retentive memory. He was versed in the whole
+history of the world. He was always ready with apt illustrations, which
+gave interest and finish to his discourses. He was the most industrious
+and studious man of his age. His attainments were prodigious. He was
+master of all the knowledge then known, like Gladstone of our day. He
+was not so learned a man as Varro; but Varro's works have perished, as
+the great monuments of German scholars are perhaps destined to perish,
+for lack of style. Cicero's style embalmed his thoughts and made them
+imperishable. No writer is immortal who is not an artist; Cicero was a
+consummate artist, and studied the arrangement of sentences, like the
+historian Tacitus and the Grecian Thucydides.
+
+But greater than as an artist was he in the loftiness of his mind. He
+appealed to what is noblest in the soul. Transcendent eloquence ever
+"raises mortals to the skies" and never "pulls angels down." Love of
+country, love of home, love of friends, love of nature, love of law,
+love of God, is brought out in all his discourses, exalting the noblest
+sentiments which move the human soul. He was the first to give to the
+Latin language beauty and artistic finish. He added to its richness,
+copiousness, and strength; he gave it music. For style alone he would be
+valued as one of the immortal classics. All men of culture have admired
+it, from Augustine to Bossuet, and acknowledged their obligations to
+him. We accord to the great poets the formation of languages,--Homer,
+Dante, Chaucer, Shakspeare; but I doubt if either Virgil or Horace
+contributed to the formation of the Latin language more than Cicero.
+Certainly they have not been more studied and admired. In every
+succeeding age the Orations of Cicero have been one of the first books
+which have been used as textbooks in colleges. Is it not something to
+have been one of the acknowledged masters of human composition? What a
+great service did Cicero render to the education of the Teutonic races!
+Whatever the Latin language has done for the modern world, Cicero comes
+in for a large share of the glory. More is preserved of his writings
+than of any other writer of antiquity.
+
+But not for style alone--seen equally in his essays and in his
+orations--is he admirable. His most enduring claim on the gratitude of
+the world is the noble tribute he rendered to those truths which save
+the world. His testimony, considering he was a pagan, is remarkable in
+reference to what is sound in philosophy and morals. His learning, too,
+is seen to most advantage in his ethical and philosophical writings. It
+is true he did not originate, like Socrates and Plato; but he condensed
+and sifted the writings of the Greeks, and is the best expounder of
+their philosophy. Who has added substantially to what the Greeks worked
+out of their creative brain? I know that no Roman ever added to the
+domain of speculative thought, yet what Roman ever showed such a
+comprehension and appreciation of Greek philosophy as did Cicero? He was
+profoundly versed in all the learning the Grecians ever taught. Like
+Socrates, he had a contempt for physical science, because science in his
+day was based on imperfect inductions. There were not facts enough known
+of the material world to construct sound theories. Physical science at
+that time was the most uncertain of all knowledge, although there were
+great pretenders then, as now, who maintained it was the only certainty.
+But the speculations of scientists disgusted him, for he saw nothing in
+them upon which to base incontrovertible truth. They were mere dreams
+and baseless theories on the origin of the universe. They were even
+puerile; and they were then, as now, atheistic in their tendency. They
+mocked the consciousness of mankind. They annihilated faith and
+Providence. At best, they made all things subject to necessity, to an
+immutable fate, not to an intelligent and ever-present Creator. But
+Cicero, like Socrates, believed in God and in providential
+interference,--in striking contrast with Caesar, who believed nothing.
+He taught moral obligation, on the basis of accountability to God. He
+repudiated expediency as the guide in life, and fell back on the
+principles of eternal right. As an ethical writer he was profounder and
+more enlightened than Paley. He did not seek to overturn the popular
+religion, like Grecian Sophists, only (like Socrates) to overturn
+ignorance, before a sound foundation could be laid for any system of
+truth. Nor did he ridicule religion, as Lucian did in after-times, but
+soared to comprehend it, like the esoteric priests of Egypt in the time
+of Moses or Pythagoras. He cherished as lofty views of God and his moral
+government as any moralist of antiquity. And all these lofty views he
+taught in matchless language,--principles of government, principles of
+law, of ethics, of theology, giving consolation not only to the men of
+his day, but to Christian sages in after-times. And there is nothing
+puerile or dreamy or demoralizing in his teachings; they all are
+luminous for learning as well as genius. He rivalled Bacon in the
+variety and profundity of his attainments. He gloried in the certitudes
+which consciousness reveals, as well as in the facts which experience
+and history demonstrate. With these he consoled himself in trouble; on
+these he reposed in the hour of danger. Like Pascal he meditated on the
+highest truths which task the intellect of man, but, unlike him, did not
+disdain those weapons which _reason_ forged, and which no one used more
+triumphantly than Pascal himself. And these great meditations he
+transmitted for all ages to ponder, as among the most precious of the
+legacies of antiquity.
+
+Thus did he live, a shining light in a corrupt and godless age, in spite
+of all the faults which modern critics have enlarged upon in their
+ambitious desire for novelties, or in their thoughtless or malignant
+desire? to show up human frailties. He was a patriot, taking the side of
+his country's highest interests; a statesman, seeking to conserve the
+wisdom of his ancestors; an orator, exposing vices and defending the
+innocent; a philosopher, unfolding the wisdom of the Greeks; a moralist,
+laying down the principles of immutable justice; a sage, pondering the
+mysteries of life; ever active, studious, dignified; the charm and
+fascination of cultivated circles; as courteous and polished as the
+ornaments of modern society; revered by friends, feared by enemies,
+adored by all good people; a kind father, an indulgent husband, a
+generous friend; hospitable, witty, magnificent,--a most accomplished
+gentleman, one of the best men of all antiquity. What if he was vain and
+egotistical and vacillating, and occasionally weak? Can you expect
+perfection in him who "is born of a woman"? We palliate the backslidings
+of Christians; we excuse the crimes of a Constantine, a Theodosius, a
+Cromwell: shall we have no toleration for the frailties of a Pagan, in
+one of the worst periods of history? I have no patience with those
+critics who would hurl him from the pedestal on which he has stood for
+two thousand years. Contrast him with other illustrious men. How few
+Romans or Greeks were better than he! How few have rendered such exalted
+services! And even if he has not perpetuated a faultless character, he
+has yet bequeathed a noble example; and, more, has transmitted a legacy
+in the richness of which we forget the faults of the testator,--a legacy
+of imperishable thought, clothed in the language of imperishable art,--a
+legacy so valuable that it is the treasured inheritance of all civilized
+nations, and one which no nation can afford to lose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Plutarch's Life of Cicero, Appian, Dion Cassius, Villeius Paterculus,
+are the original authorities,--next to the writings of Cicero himself,
+especially his Letters and Orations. Middleton's Life is full, but
+one-sided. Forsyth takes the opposite side in his Life. The last work in
+English is that of Anthony Trollope. In Smith's Biographical Dictionary
+is an able article. Dr. Vaughan has written an interesting lecture.
+Merivale has elaborately treated this great man in his valuable History
+of the Romans. Colley Cibber's Character and Conduct of Cicero,
+Drumann's Roman History, Rollin's Ancient History, Biographic
+Universelle. Mr. Froude alludes to Cicero in his Life of Caesar, taking
+nearly the same view as Forsyth.
+
+
+
+
+CLEOPATRA.
+
+
+69-30 B.C.
+
+THE WOMAN OF PAGANISM.
+
+
+It is my object in this lecture to present the condition of woman under
+the influences of Paganism, before Christianity enfranchised and
+elevated her. As a type of the Pagan woman I select Cleopatra, partly
+because she was famous, and partly because she possessed traits and
+accomplishments which made her interesting in spite of the vices which
+degraded her. She was a queen, the heir of a long line of kings, and
+ruled over an ancient and highly civilized country. She was
+intellectual, accomplished, beautiful, and fascinating. She lived in one
+of the most interesting capitals of the ancient world, and by birth she
+was more Greek than she was African or Oriental. She lived, too, in a
+great age, when Rome had nearly conquered the world; when Roman senators
+and generals had more power than kings; when Grecian arts and literature
+were copied by the imperial Romans; when the rich and fortunate were
+luxurious and ostentatious beyond all precedent; when life had reached
+the highest point of material splendor, and yet when luxury had not
+destroyed military virtues or undermined the strength of the empire. The
+"eternal city" then numbered millions of people, and was the grandest
+capital ever seen on this earth, since everything was there
+concentrated,--the spoils of the world, riches immeasurable, literature
+and art, palaces and temples, power unlimited,--the proudest centre of
+civilization which then existed, and a civilization which in its
+material aspects has not since been surpassed. The civilized world was
+then most emphatically Pagan, in both spirit and forms. Religion as a
+controlling influence was dead. Only a very few among speculative
+philosophers believed in any god, except in a degrading sense,--as a
+blind inexorable fate, or an impersonation of the powers of Nature. The
+future state was a most perplexing uncertainty. Epicurean
+self-indulgence and material prosperity were regarded as the greatest
+good; and as doubt of the darkest kind hung over the future, the body
+was necessarily regarded as of more value than the soul. In fact, it was
+only the body which Paganism recognized as a reality; the soul, God, and
+immortality were virtually everywhere ignored.
+
+It was in this godless, yet brilliant, age that Cleopatra appears upon
+the stage, having been born sixty-nine years before Christ,--about a
+century before the new revolutionary religion was proclaimed in Judea.
+Her father was a Ptolemy, and she succeeded him on the throne of Egypt
+when quite young,--the last of a famous dynasty that had reigned nearly
+three hundred years. The Ptolemies, descended from one of Alexander's
+generals, reigned in great magnificence at Alexandria, which was the
+commercial centre of the world, whose ships whitened the
+Mediterranean,--that great inland lake, as it were, in the centre of the
+Roman Empire, around whose shores were countless cities and villas and
+works of art. Alexandria was a city of schools, of libraries and
+museums, of temples and of palaces, as well as a mart of commerce. Its
+famous library was the largest in the world, and was the pride of the
+age and of the empire. Learned men from all countries came to this
+capital to study science, philosophy, and art. It was virtually a
+Grecian city, and the language of the leading people was Greek. It was
+rivalled in provincial magnificence only by Antioch, the seat of the old
+Syrian civilization, also a Greek capital, so far as the governing
+classes could make it one. Greece, politically ruined, still sent forth
+those influences which made her civilization potent in every land.
+
+Cleopatra, the last of the line of Grecian sovereigns in Egypt, was
+essentially Greek in her features, her language, and her manners. There
+was nothing African about her, as we understand the term African, except
+that her complexion may have been darkened by the intermarriage of the
+Ptolemies; and I have often wondered why so learned and classical a man
+as Story should have given to this queen, in his famous statue, such
+thick lips and African features, which no more marked her than Indian
+features mark the family of the Braganzas on the throne of Brazil. She
+was not even Coptic, like Athanasius and Saint Augustine. On the ancient
+coins and medals her features are severely classical.
+
+Nor is it probable that any of the peculiarities of the ancient Egyptian
+kings marked the dynasty of the Ptolemies. No purely Egyptian customs
+lingered in the palaces of Alexandria. The old deities of Isis and
+Osiris gave place to the worship of Jupiter, Minerva, and Venus. The
+wonders of pristine Egypt were confined to Memphis and Thebes and the
+dilapidated cities of the Nile. The mysteries of the antique Egyptian
+temples were no more known to the learned and mercantile citizen of
+Alexandria than they are to us. The pyramids were as much a wonder then
+as now. The priests and jugglers alike mingled in the crowd of Jews,
+Syrians, Romans, Greeks, Parthians, Arabs, who congregated in this
+learned and mercantile city.
+
+So we have a right to presume that Cleopatra, when she first appeared
+upon the stage of history as a girl of fourteen, was simply a very
+beautiful and accomplished Greek princess, who could speak several
+languages with fluency, as precocious as Elizabeth of England, skilled
+in music, conversant with history, and surrounded with eminent masters.
+She was only twenty-one when she was an object of attraction to Caesar,
+then in the midst of his triumphs. How remarkable must have been her
+fascinations if at that age she could have diverted, even for a time,
+the great captain from his conquests, and chained him to her side! That
+refined, intellectual old veteran of fifty, with the whole world at his
+feet, loaded down with the cares of government, as temperate as he was
+ambitious, and bent on new conquests, would not have been chained and
+enthralled by a girl of twenty-one, however beautiful, had she not been
+as remarkable for intellect and culture as she was for beauty. Nor is it
+likely that Cleopatra would have devoted herself to this weather-beaten
+old general, had she not hoped to gain something from him besides
+caresses,--namely, the confirmation of her authority as queen. She also
+may have had some patriotic motives touching the political independence
+of her country. Left by her father's will at the age of eighteen joint
+heir of the Egyptian throne with her brother Ptolemy, she soon found
+herself expelled from the capital by him and the leading generals of the
+army, because they did not relish her precocious activity in
+government. Her gathered adherents had made but little advance towards
+regaining her rights when, in August, 48, Caesar landed in pursuit of
+Pompey, whom he had defeated at Pharsalia. Pompey's assassination left
+Caesar free, and he proceeded to Alexandria to establish himself for the
+winter. Here the wily and beautiful young exile sought him, and won his
+interest and his affection. After some months of revelry and luxury,
+Caesar left Egypt in 47 to chastise an Eastern rebel, and was in 46
+followed to Rome by Cleopatra, who remained there in splendid state
+until the assassination of Caesar drove her back to Egypt. Her whole
+subsequent life showed her to be as cunning and politic as she was
+luxurious and pleasure-seeking. Possibly she may have loved so
+interesting and brilliant a man as the great Caesar, aside from the
+admiration of his position; but he never became her slave, although it
+was believed, a hundred years after his death, that she was actually
+living in his house when he was assassinated, and was the mother of his
+son Caesarion. But Froude doubts this; and the probabilities are that he
+is correct, for, like Macaulay, he is not apt to be wrong in facts, but
+only in the way he puts them.
+
+Cleopatra was twenty-eight years of age when she first met Antony,--"a
+period of life," says Plutarch, "when woman's beauty is most splendid,
+and her intellect is in full maturity." We have no account of the style
+of her beauty, except that it was transcendent,--absolutely
+irresistible, with such a variety of expression as to be called
+infinite. As already remarked, from the long residence of her family in
+Egypt and intermarriages with foreigners, her complexion may have been
+darker than that of either Persians or Greeks. It probably resembled
+that of Queen Esther more than that of Aspasia, in that dark richness
+and voluptuousness which to some have such attractions; but in grace and
+vivacity she was purely Grecian,--not like a "blooming Eastern bride,"
+languid and passive and effeminate, but bright, witty, and intellectual.
+Shakspeare paints her as full of lively sallies, with the power of
+adapting herself to circumstances with tact and good nature, like a
+Madame Récamier or a Maintenon, rather than like a Montespan or a
+Pompadour, although her nature was passionate, her manner enticing, and
+her habits luxurious. She did not weary or satiate, like a mere
+sensual beauty.
+
+     "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
+      Her infinite variety."
+
+She certainly had the power of retaining the conquests she had
+won,--which rarely happens except with those who are gifted with
+intellectual radiance and freshness. She held her hold on Antony for
+eleven years, when he was burdened with great public cares and duties,
+and when he was forty-two years of age. Such a superior man as he was
+intellectually, and, after Caesar, the leading man of the empire,--a
+statesman as well as soldier,--would not have been enslaved so long by
+Cleopatra had she not possessed remarkable gifts and attainments, like
+those famous women who reigned in the courts of the Bourbons in the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and who, by their wit and social
+fascinations, gathered around their thrones the most distinguished men
+of France, and made them friends as well as admirers. The Pompadours of
+the world have only a brief reign, and at last become repulsive. But
+Cleopatra, like Maintenon, was always attractive, although she, could
+not lay claim to the virtues of the latter. She was as politic as the
+French beauty, and as full of expedients to please her lord. She may
+have revelled in the banquets she prepared for Antony, as Esther did in
+those she prepared for Xerxes; but with the same intent, to please him
+rather than herself, and win, from his weakness, those political favors
+which in his calmer hours he might have shrunk from granting. Cleopatra
+was a politician as well as a luxurious beauty, and it may have been her
+supreme aim to secure the independence of Egypt. She wished to beguile
+Antony as she had sought to beguile Caesar, since they were the masters
+of the world, and had it in their power to crush her sovereignty and
+reduce her realm to a mere province of the empire. Nor is there
+evidence that in the magnificent banquets she gave to the Roman general
+she ever lost her self-control. She drank, and made him drink, but
+retained her wits, "laughing him out of patience and laughing him into
+patience," ascendant over him by raillery, irony, and wit.
+
+And Antony, again, although fond of banquets and ostentation, like other
+Roman nobles, and utterly unscrupulous and unprincipled, as Roman
+libertines were, was also general, statesman, and orator. He grew up
+amid the dangers and toils and privations of Caesar's camp. He was as
+greedy of honors as was his imperial master. He was a sunburnt and
+experienced commander, obliged to be on his guard, and ready for
+emergencies. No such man feels that he can afford to indulge his
+appetites, except on rare occasions. One of the leading peculiarities of
+all great generals has been their temperance. It marked Caesar,
+Charlemagne, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederic the Great, Cromwell, and
+Napoleon. When Alexander gave himself up to banquets, his conquests
+ended. Even such a self-indulgent, pleasure-seeking man as Louis XIV.
+always maintained the decencies of society amid his dissipated
+courtiers. We feel that a man who could discourse so eloquently as
+Antony did over the dead body of Caesar was something more than a
+sensualist or a demagogue. He was also the finest-looking man in Rome,
+reminding the people, it is said, of the busts of Hercules. He was
+lavish, like Caesar, but, like him, sought popularity, and cared but
+little what it cost. It is probable that Cicero painted him, in his
+famous philippics, in darker colors than he deserved, because he aimed
+to be Caesar's successor, as he probably would have been but for his
+infatuation for Cleopatra. Caesar sent him to Rome as master of the
+horse,--a position next in power to that of dictator. When Caesar was
+assassinated, Antony was the most powerful man of the empire. He was
+greater than any existing king; he was almost supreme. And after
+Caesar's death, when he divided his sovereignty of the world with
+Octavius and Lepidus, he had the fairest chance of becoming imperator.
+He had great military experience, the broad Orient as his domain, and
+half the legions of Rome under his control.
+
+It was when this great man was Triumvir, sharing with only two others
+the empire of the world, and likely to overpower them, when he was in
+Asia consolidating and arranging the affairs of his vast department,
+that he met the woman who was the cause of all his calamities. He was
+then in Cilicia, and, with all the arrogance of a Roman general, had
+sent for the Queen of Egypt to appear before him and answer to an
+accusation of having rendered assistance to Cassius before the fatal
+battle of Philippi. He had already known and admired Cleopatra in Rome,
+and it is not improbable that she divined the secret of his judicial
+summons. His envoy, struck with her beauty and intelligence, advised her
+to appear in her best attire. Such a woman scarcely needed such a hint.
+So, making every preparation for her journey,--money, ornaments,
+gifts,--a kind of Queen of Sheba, a Zenobia in her pride and glory, a
+Queen Esther when she had invited the king and his minister to a
+banquet,--she came to the Cydnus, and ascended the river in a
+magnificent barge, such as had never been seen before, and prepared to
+meet her judge, not as a criminal, but as a conqueror, armed with those
+weapons that few mortals can resist.
+
+     "The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
+     Burn'd on the water; the poop was beaten gold;
+     Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
+     The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver,
+     Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
+     The water, which they beat, to follow faster,
+     As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
+     It beggar'd all description: she did lie
+     In her pavilion (cloth-of-gold of tissue)
+     O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see
+     The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
+     Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
+     With diverse-color'd fans....
+     Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
+     So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes.
+     ... At the helm
+     A seeming mermaid steers....
+     ... From the barge
+     A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
+     Of the adjacent wharves. The city cast
+     Her people out upon her; and Antony,
+     Enthroned i' the market-place, did sit alone,
+     Whistling to th' air; which, but for vacancy,
+     Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
+     And made a gap in nature."
+
+On the arrival of this siren queen, Antony had invited her to
+supper,--the dinner of the Romans,--but she, with woman's instinct, had
+declined, till he should come to her; and he, with the urbanity of a
+polished noble,--for such he probably was,--complied, and found a
+banquet which astonished even him, accustomed as he was to senatorial
+magnificence, and which, with all the treasures of the East, he could
+not rival. From that fatal hour he was enslaved. She conquered him, not
+merely by her display and her dazzling beauty, but by her wit. Her very
+tones were music. So accomplished was she in languages, that without
+interpreters she conversed not only with Greeks and Latins, but with
+Ethiopians, Jews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes, and Parthians. So dazzled
+and bewitched was Antony, that, instead of continuing the duties of his
+great position, he returned with Cleopatra to Alexandria, there to keep
+holiday and squander riches, and, still worse, his precious time, to the
+shame and scandal of Rome, inglorious and without excuse,--a Samson at
+the feet of Delilah, or a Hercules throwing away his club to seize the
+distaff of Omphale, confessing to the potency of that mysterious charm
+which the sage at the court of an Eastern prince pronounced the
+strongest power on earth. Never was a strong man more enthralled than
+was Antony by this bewitching woman, who exhausted every art to please
+him. She played at dice with him, drank with him, hunted with him,
+rambled with him, jested with him, angled with him, flattering and
+reproving him by turn, always having some new device of pleasure to
+gratify his senses or stimulate his curiosity. Thus passed the winter of
+41-40, and in the spring he was recalled to Borne by political
+dissensions there.
+
+At this stage, however, it would seem that ambition was paramount with
+him, not love; for his wife Fulvia having died, he did not marry
+Cleopatra, but Octavia, sister of Octavius, his fellow-triumvir and
+general rival. It was evidently from political considerations that he
+married Octavia, who was a stately and noble woman, but tedious in her
+dignity, and unattractive in her person. And what a commentary on Roman
+rank! The sister of a Roman grandee seemed to the ambitious general a
+greater match than the Queen of Egypt. How this must have piqued the
+proud daughter of the Ptolemies,--that she, a queen, with all her
+charms, was not the equal in the eyes of Antony to the sister of
+Caesar's heir! But she knew her power, and stifled her resentment, and
+waited for her time. She, too, had a political end to gain, and was too
+politic to give way to anger and reproaches. She was anything but the
+impulsive woman that some suppose,--but a great actress and artist, as
+some women are when they would conquer, even in their loves, which, if
+they do not feign, at least they know how to make appear greater than
+they are. For about three years Antony cut loose from Cleopatra, and
+pursued his military career in the East, as the rival of Octavius might,
+having in view the sovereignty that Caesar had bequeathed to the
+strongest man.
+
+But his passion for Cleopatra could not long be suppressed, neither from
+reasons of state nor from the respect he must have felt for the
+admirable conduct of Octavia, who was devoted to him, and who was one of
+the most magnanimous and reproachless women of antiquity. And surely he
+must have had some great qualities to call out the love of the noblest
+and proudest woman of the age, in spite of his many vices and his
+abandonment to a mad passion, forgetful alike both of fame and duty. He
+had not been two years in Athens, the headquarters of his Eastern
+Department, before he was called upon to chastise the Parthians, who had
+thrown off the Roman yoke and invaded other Roman provinces. But hardly
+had he left Octavia, and set foot again in Asia, before he sent for his
+Egyptian mistress, and loaded her with presents; not gold, and silver,
+and precious stones, and silks, and curious works of art merely, but
+whole provinces even,--Phoenicia, Syria, Cilicia, and a part of Judea
+and Arabia,--provinces which belonged not to him, but to the Roman
+Empire. How indignant must have been the Roman people when they heard of
+such lavish presents, and presents which he had no right to give! And
+when the artful Cleopatra feigned illness on the approach of Octavia,
+pretending to be dying of love, and wasting her body by fasting and
+weeping by turns, and perhaps tearing her hair in a seeming paroxysm of
+grief,--for an actress can do even this,--Antony was totally disarmed,
+and gave up his Parthian expedition altogether, which was treason to the
+State, and returned to Alexandria more submissive than ever. This
+abandonment of duty and official trust disgusted and incensed the
+Romans, so that his cause was weakened. Octavius became stronger every
+day, and now resolved on reigning alone. This meant another civil war.
+How strong the party of Antony must have been to keep together and
+sustain him amid such scandals, treasons, and disgrace!
+
+Antony, perceiving a desperate contest before him, ending in his
+supremacy or ruin, put forth all his energies, assisted by the
+contributions of Cleopatra, who furnished two hundred ships and twenty
+thousand talents,--about twenty million dollars. He had five hundred
+war-vessels, beside galleys, one hundred thousand foot and twelve
+thousand horse,--one of the largest armies that any Roman general had
+ever commanded,--and he was attended by vassal kings from the East. The
+forces of Octavius were not so large, though better disciplined; nor was
+he a match for Antony in military experience. Antony with his superior
+forces wished to fight upon the land, but against his better judgment
+was overruled by Cleopatra, who, having reinforced him with sixty
+galleys, urged him to contend upon the sea. The rivals met at Actium,
+where was fought one of the great decisive battles of the world. For a
+while the fortunes of the day were doubtful, when Cleopatra, from some
+unexplained motive, or from panic, or possibly from a calculating
+policy, was seen sailing away with her ships for Egypt. And what was
+still more extraordinary, Antony abandoned his fleet and followed her.
+Had he been defeated on the sea, he still had superior forces on the
+land, and was a match for Octavius. His infatuation ended in a weakness
+difficult to comprehend in a successful Roman general. And never was
+infatuation followed by more tragic consequences. Was this madness sent
+upon him by that awful Power who controls the fate of war and the
+destinies of nations? Who sent madness upon Nebuchadnezzar? Who blinded
+Napoleon at the very summit of his greatness? May not that memorable
+defeat have been ordered by Providence to give consolidation and peace
+and prosperity to the Roman Empire, so long groaning under the
+complicated miseries of anarchy and civil war? If an imperial government
+was necessary for the existing political and social condition of the
+Roman world,--and this is maintained by most historians,--how fortunate
+it was that the empire fell into the hands of a man whose subsequent
+policy was peace, the development of resources of nations, and a
+vigorous administration of government!
+
+It is generally conceded that the reign of Octavius--or, as he is more
+generally known, Augustus Caesar--was able, enlightened, and efficient.
+He laid down the policy which succeeding emperors pursued, and which
+resulted in the peace and prosperity of the Roman world until vices
+prepared the way for violence. Augustus was a great organizer, and the
+machinery of government which he and his ministers perfected kept the
+empire together until it was overrun by the New Germanic races. Had
+Antony conquered at Actium, the destinies of the empire might have been
+far different. But for two hundred years the world never saw a more
+efficient central power than that exercised by the Roman emperors or by
+their ministers. Imperialism at last proved fatal to genius and the
+higher interests of mankind; but imperialism was the creation of Julius
+Caesar, as a real or supposed necessity; it was efficiently and
+beneficently continued by his grand-nephew Augustus; and its
+consolidated strength became an established institution which the
+civilized world quietly accepted.
+
+The battle of Actium virtually settled the civil war and the fortunes of
+Antony, although he afterwards fought bravely and energetically; but all
+to no purpose. And then, at last, his eyes were opened, and Shakspeare
+makes him bitterly exclaim,--
+
+         "All is lost!
+     This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me.
+         ... Betray'd I am:
+     O this false soul of Egypt!"
+
+And with his ruin the ruin of his paramour was also settled; yet her
+resources were not utterly exhausted. She retired into a castle or
+mausoleum she had prepared for herself in case of necessity, with her
+most valuable treasures, and sent messengers to Antony, who reported to
+him that she was dead,--that she had killed herself in despair. He
+believed it all. His wrath now vanished in his grief. He could not live,
+or did not wish to live, without her; and he fell upon his own sword.
+The wound was mortal, but death did not immediately follow. He lived to
+learn that Cleopatra had again deceived him,--that she was still alive.
+Even amid the agonies of the shadow of death, and in view of this last
+fatal lie of hers, he did not upbraid her, but ordered his servants to
+bear him to her retreat. Covered with blood, the dying general was
+drawn up by ropes and through a window--the only entrance to the queen's
+retreat that was left unbarred--into her presence, and soon expired.
+Shakspeare has Antony greet Cleopatra with the words, "I am dying,
+Egypt, dying!" This suggestive theme has been enlarged in a modern song
+of pathetic eloquence:--
+
+     I am dying, Egypt, dying,
+       Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast,
+     And the dark Plutonian shadows
+       Gather on the evening blast;
+     Let thine arms, O Queen, enfold me,
+       Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear,
+     Listen to the great heart-secrets
+       _Thou_, and thou _alone_, must hear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Should the base plebeian rabble
+       Dare assail my name at Rome,
+     Where my noble spouse Octavia
+       Weeps within her widow'd home,
+     Seek her; say the gods bear witness--
+       Altars, augurs, circling wings--
+     That her blood, with mine commingled,
+       Yet shall mount the throne of kings.
+
+     As for thee, star-ey'd Egyptian!
+       Glorious sorceress of the Nile!
+     Light the path to Stygian horrors
+       With the splendors of thy smile
+     I can scorn the Senate's triumphs,
+       Triumphing in love like thine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Ah! no more amid the battle
+       Shall my heart exulting swell:
+     Isis and Osiris guard thee!
+       Cleopatra--Rome--farewell!
+
+Thus perished the great Triumvir, dying like a Roman, whose blinded but
+persistent love, whatever were its elements, ever shall make his name
+memorable. All the ages will point to him as a man who gave the world
+away for the caresses of a woman, and a woman who deceived and
+ruined him.
+
+As for her,--this selfish, heartless sorceress, gifted and beautiful as
+she was,--what does she do when she sees her lover dead,--dying for her?
+Does she share his fate? Not she. What selfish woman ever killed
+herself for love?
+
+     "Some natural tears she shed, but wiped them soon."
+
+She may have torn her clothes, and beaten her breast, and disfigured her
+face, and given vent to mourning and lamentations. But she does not seek
+death, nor surrender herself to grief, nor court despair. She renews her
+strength. She reserves her arts for another victim. She hopes to win
+Octavius as she had won Julius and Antony; for she was only thirty-nine,
+and still a queen. And for what? That she might retain her own
+sovereignty, or the independence of Egypt,--still the most fertile of
+countries, rich, splendid, and with grand traditions which went back
+thousands of years; the oldest, and once the most powerful of
+monarchies. _Her_ love was ever subservient to her interests. Antony
+gave up ambition for love,--whatever that love was. It took possession
+of his whole being, not pure and tender, but powerful, strange;
+doubtless a mad infatuation, and perhaps something more, since it never
+passed away,--admiration allied with desire, the worship of dazzling
+gifts, though not of moral virtues. Would such a love have been
+permanent? Probably not, since the object of it did not shine in the
+beauty of the soul, but rather in the graces and adornments of the body,
+intensified indeed by the lustre of bewitching social qualities and the
+brightness of a cultivated intellect. It is hard to analyze a passionate
+love between highly gifted people who have an intense development of
+both the higher and the lower natures, and still more difficult when the
+idol is a Venus Polyhymnia rather than a Venus Urania. But the love of
+Antony, whether unwise, or mysterious, or unfortunate, was not feigned
+or forced: it was real, and it was irresistible; he could not help it.
+He was enslaved, bound hand and foot. His reason may have rallied to his
+support, but his will was fettered. He may have had at times dark and
+gloomy suspicions,--that he was played with, that he was cheated, that
+he would be deserted, that Cleopatra was false and treacherous. And yet
+she reigned over him; he could not live without her. She was all in all
+to him, so long as the infatuation lasted; and it had lasted fourteen
+years, with increasing force, in spite of duty and pressing labors, the
+calls of ambition and the lust of power. In this consuming and abandoned
+passion, for fourteen years,--so strange and inglorious, and for a woman
+so unworthy, even if he were no better than she,--we see one of the
+great mysteries of our complex nature, not uncommon, but insoluble.
+
+I have no respect for Antony, and but little admiration. I speak of such
+mad infatuation as a humiliating exhibition of human weakness. Any one
+under its fearful spell is an object of pity. But I have more sympathy
+for him than for Cleopatra, although she was doubtless a very gifted
+woman. He was her victim; she was not his. If extravagant and reckless
+and sensual, he was frank, generous, eloquent, brave, and true to her.
+She was artful, designing, and selfish, and used him for her own ends,
+although we do not know that she was perfidious and false to him. But
+for her he would have ruled the world. He showed himself capable of an
+enormous sacrifice. She made no sacrifices for him. She could even have
+transferred her affections, since she afterwards sought to play her
+blandishments upon his rival. Conceive of Antony, if you can, as loving
+any one else than her who led him on to ruin. In the very degradation
+of love we see its sacredness. In his fidelity we find some palliation.
+Nor does it seem that Octavia, the slighted wife of Antony, gave way to
+vengeance. Her sense of injury was overshadowed by her pity. This lofty
+and dignified matron even took his six surviving children, three of whom
+were Cleopatra's, and brought them up in her own house as her own. Can
+Paganism show a greater magnanimity?
+
+The fate of Cleopatra was tragic also. She too destroyed herself, not
+probably by the bite of asps, as is the popular opinion, but by some
+potent and subtile poison that she ever carried with her, and which had
+the effect of benumbing the body and making her insensible to pain. Yet
+she does not kill herself because she cannot survive the death of
+Antony, but because she is too proud to be carried to Rome to grace the
+triumph of the new Caesar. She will not be led a captive princess up the
+Capitoline Hill. She has an overbearing pride. "Know, sir," says she to
+Proculeius, "that I
+
+     "Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court,
+     Nor once be chastis'd with the sober eye
+     Of dull Octavia....
+      ... Rather a ditch in Egypt
+     Be gentle grave to me!"
+
+But whether pride or whether shame was the more powerful motive in
+committing suicide, I do not read that she was a victim of remorse. She
+had no moral sense. Nor did she give way to sentimental grief on the
+death of Antony. Her grief was blended with disappointment and rage. Nor
+did she hide her head, but wore a face of brass. She used all her arts
+to win Octavius. Her resources did not fail her; but she expended them
+on one of the coldest, most politic, and most astute men that ever
+lived. And the disappointment that followed her defeat--that she could
+not enslave another conqueror--was greater than the grief for Antony.
+Nor during her whole career do we see any signs of that sorrow and
+humility which, it would seem, should mark a woman who has made so great
+and fatal a mistake,--cut off hopelessly from the respect of the world
+and the peace of her own soul. We see grief, rage, despair, in her
+miserable end, as we see pride and shamefacedness in her gilded life,
+but not remorse or shame. And when she dies by her own hand, it is not
+in madness, but to escape humiliation. Suicide was one of the worst
+features of Pagan antiquity. It was a base and cowardly reluctance to
+meet the evils of life, as much as indifference to the future and a
+blunted moral sense.
+
+So much for the woman herself, her selfish spirit, her vile career; but
+as Cleopatra is one of the best known and most striking examples of a
+Pagan woman, with qualities and in circumstances peculiarly
+characteristic of Paganism, I must make a few remarks on these points.
+
+One of the most noticeable of these is that immorality seems to have
+been no bar to social position. Some of those who were most attractive
+and sought after were notoriously immoral. Aspasia, whom Socrates and
+Pericles equally admired, and whose house was the resort of poets,
+philosophers, statesmen, and artists, and who is said to have been one
+of the most cultivated women of antiquity, bore a sullied name. Sappho,
+who was ever exalted by Grecian poets for the sweetness of her verses,
+attempted to reconcile a life of pleasure with a life of letters, and
+threw herself into the sea because of a disappointed passion. Lais, a
+professional courtesan, was the associate of kings and sages as well as
+the idol of poets and priests. Agrippina, whose very name is infamy, was
+the admiration of courtiers and statesmen. Lucilla, who armed her
+assassins against her own brother, seems to have ruled the court of
+Marcus Aurelius.
+
+And all these women, and more who could be mentioned, were--like
+Cleopatra--cultivated, intellectual, and brilliant. They seem to have
+reigned for their social fascinations as much as by their physical
+beauty. Hence, that class of women who with us are shunned and excluded
+from society were not only flattered and honored, but the class itself
+seems to have been recruited by those who were the most attractive for
+their intellectual gifts as well as for physical beauty. No woman, if
+bright, witty, and beautiful, was avoided because she was immoral. It
+was the immoral women who often aspired to the highest culture. They
+sought to reign by making their homes attractive to distinguished men.
+Their houses seem to have been what the _salons_ of noble and
+fascinating duchesses were in France in the last two centuries. The
+homes of virtuous and domestic women were dull and wearisome. In fact,
+the modest wives and daughters of most men were confined to monotonous
+domestic duties; they were household slaves; they saw but little of what
+we now call society. I do not say that virtue was not held in honor. I
+know of no age, however corrupt, when it was not prized by husbands and
+fathers. I know of no age when virtuous women did not shine at home, and
+exert a healthful influence upon men, and secure the proud regard of
+their husbands. But these were not the women whose society was most
+sought. The drudgeries and slaveries of domestic life among the ancients
+made women unattractive to the world. The women who were most attractive
+were those who gave or attended sumptuous banquets, and indulged in
+pleasures that were demoralizing. Not domestic women, but bright women,
+carried away those prizes which turned the brain. Those who shone were
+those that attached themselves to men through their senses, and
+possibly through their intellects, and who were themselves strong in
+proportion as men were weak. For a woman to appear in public assemblies
+with braided and decorated hair and ostentatious dress, and especially
+if she displayed any gifts of eloquence or culture, was to proclaim
+herself one of the immoral, leisurely, educated, dissolute class. This
+gives point to Saint Paul's strict injunctions to the women of Corinth
+to dress soberly, to keep silence in the assemblies, etc. The modest
+woman was to "be in subjection." Those Pagan converts to the "New Way"
+were to avoid even the appearance of evil.
+
+Thus under Paganism the general influence of women was to pull men down
+rather than to elevate them, especially those who were attractive in
+society. Virtuous and domestic women were not sufficiently educated to
+have much influence except in a narrow circle. Even they, in a social
+point of view, were slaves. They could be given in marriage without
+their consent; they were restricted in their intercourse with men; they
+were confined to their homes; they had but few privileges; they had no
+books; they led a life of terror from the caprices of their lords and
+masters, and hence inspired no veneration. The wives and daughters of
+the rich tyrannized over their servants, decked themselves with costly
+ornaments, and were merely gilded toys, whose society was vapid and
+uninteresting. The wives and daughters of the poor were drudges and
+menials, without attraction or influence; noisy, quarrelsome, garrulous
+women, who said the least when they talked the most.
+
+Hence under Paganism home had none of those attractions which, in
+Christian countries, invest it with such charms. The home of the poor
+was squalid and repulsive; the home of the rich was gaudy and tinselled
+enough, but was dull and uninspiring. What is home when women are
+ignorant, stupid, and slavish? What glitter or artistic splendor can
+make home attractive when women are mere butterflies or slaves with
+gilded fetters? Deprive women of education, and especially of that
+respect which Christian chivalry inspires, and they cannot rise to be
+the equal companions of men. They are simply their victims or their
+slaves. What is a home where women are treated as inferiors? Paganism
+never recognized their equality with men; and if they ever ruled men, it
+was by appealing to their lower qualities, or resorting to arts and
+devices which are subversive of all dignity of character. When their
+personal beauty fled, their power also departed. A faded or homely
+woman, without intelligence or wit, was a forlorn object in a Pagan
+home,--to be avoided, derided, despised,--a melancholy object of pity or
+neglect, so far as companionship goes. She may have been valued as a
+cook or drudge, but she was only a menial. Of all those sins of omission
+of which Paganism is accused, the worst was that it gave to women no
+mental resources to assist them in poverty, or neglect, or isolation,
+when beauty or fortune deserted them. No home can be attractive where
+women have no resources; and women can have no resources outside of
+domestic duties, unless educated to some art or something calculated to
+draw out their energies and higher faculties by which they win the
+respect and admiration, not of men only, but of their own sex.
+
+It was this lack of education which Paganism withheld from women which
+not only destroyed the radiance of home, but which really made women
+inferior to men. All writers, poets, and satirists alike speak of the
+inferiority of women to men,--not physically only, but even
+intellectually; and some authors made them more vicious than men in
+natural inclination. And when the mind was both neglected and
+undervalued, how could respect and admiration be kindled, or continue
+after sensual charms had passed away? Paganism taught the inequality of
+the sexes, and produced it; and when this inequality is taught, or
+believed in, or insisted upon, then farewell to the glory of homes, to
+all unbought charms, to the graces of domestic life, to everything that
+gilds our brief existence with the radiance of imperishable joy.
+
+Nor did Paganism offer any consolations to the down-trodden, injured,
+neglected, uninteresting woman of antiquity. She could not rise above
+the condition in which she was born. No sympathetic priest directed her
+thoughts to another and higher and endless life. Nobody wiped away her
+tears; nobody gave encouragement to those visions of beauty and serenity
+for which the burdened spirit will, under any oppressions, sometimes
+aspire to enjoy. No one told her of immortality and a God of
+forgiveness, who binds up the bleeding heart and promises a future peace
+and bliss. Paganism was merciful only in this,--that it did not open
+wounds it could not heal; that it did not hold out hopes and promises it
+could not fulfil; that it did not remind the afflicted of miseries from
+which they could not rise; that it did not let in a vision of glories
+which could never be enjoyed; that it did not provoke the soul to
+indulge in a bitterness in view of evils for which there was no remedy;
+that it did not educate the mind for enjoyments which could never be
+reached; that it did not kindle a discontent with a condition from which
+there is no escape. If one cannot rise above debasement or misery, there
+is no use in pointing it out. If the Pagan woman was not seemingly aware
+of the degradation which kept her down, and from which it was impossible
+to rise, Paganism did not add stings to her misery by presenting it as
+an accident which it was easy to surmount. There would be no
+contentment or submission among animals if they were endowed with the
+reason of men. Give to a healthy, but ignorant, coarse, uncultivated
+country girl, surrounded only with pigs and chickens, almost without
+neighbors, a glimpse of the glories of cities, the wonders of art, the
+charms of social life, the triumphs of mind, the capacities of the soul,
+and would she be any happier, if obliged to remain for life in her
+rustic obscurity and labor, and with no possible chance of improving her
+condition? Such was woman under Paganism. She could rise only so far as
+men lifted her up; and they lifted her up only further to consummate her
+degradation.
+
+But there was another thing which kept women in degradation. Paganism
+did not recognize the immaterial and immortal soul: it only had regard
+to the wants of the body. Of course there were exceptions. There were
+sages and philosophers among the men who speculated on the grandest
+subjects which can elevate the mind to the regions of immortal
+truth,--like Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius,--even as there
+were women who rose above all the vile temptations which surrounded
+them, and were poets, heroines, and benefactors,--like Telessa, who
+saved Argos by her courage; and Volumnia, who screened Rome from the
+vengeance of her angry son; and Lucretia, who destroyed herself rather
+than survive the dishonor of her house. There are some people who rise
+and triumph over every kind of oppression and injury. Under Paganism
+there was the possibility of the emancipation of the soul, but not the
+probability. Its genius was directed to the welfare of the body,--to
+utilitarian ends of life, to ornaments and riches, to luxury and
+voluptuousness, to the pleasures which are brief, to the charms of
+physical beauty and grace. It could stimulate ambition and inculcate
+patriotism and sing of love, if it coupled the praises of Venus with the
+praises of wine. But everything it praised or honored had reference to
+this life and to the mortal body. It may have recognized the mind, but
+not the soul, which is greater than the mind. It had no aspirations for
+future happiness; it had no fears of future misery. Hence the frequency
+of suicide under disappointment, or ennui, or satiated desire, or fear
+of poverty, or disgrace, or pain.
+
+And thus, as Paganism did not take cognizance of the soul in its future
+existence, it disregarded man's highest aspirations. It did not
+cultivate his graces; it set but a slight value on moral beauty; it
+thought little of affections; it spurned gentleness and passive virtues;
+it saw no lustre in the tender eye; it heard no music in the tones of
+sympathy; it was hard and cold. That which constitutes the richest
+beatitudes of love it could not see, and did not care for. Ethereal
+blessedness it despised. That which raises woman highest, it was
+indifferent to. The cold atmosphere of Paganism froze her soul, and made
+her callous to wrongs and sufferings. It destroyed enthusiasm and poetic
+ardor and the graces which shine in misfortune. Woman was not kindled by
+lofty sentiments, since no one believed in them. The harmonies of home
+had no poetry and no inspiration, and they disappeared. The face of
+woman was not lighted by supernatural smiles. Her caresses had no
+spiritual fervor, and her benedictions were unmeaning platitudes. Take
+away the soul of woman, and what is she? Rob her of her divine
+enthusiasm, and how vapid and commonplace she becomes! Destroy her
+yearnings to be a spiritual solace, and how limited is her sphere! Take
+away the holy dignity of the soul, and how impossible is a lofty
+friendship! Without the amenities of the soul there can be no real
+society. Crush the soul of a woman, and you extinguish her life, and
+shed darkness on all who surround her. She cannot rally from pain, or
+labor, or misfortune, if her higher nature is ignored. Paganism ignored
+what is grandest and truest in a woman, and she withered like a stricken
+tree. She succumbed before the cold blasts that froze her noblest
+impulses, and sunk sullenly into obscurity. Oh, what a fool a man is to
+make woman a slave! He forgets that though he may succeed in keeping her
+down, chained and fettered by drudgeries, she will be revenged; that
+though powerless, she will instinctively learn to hate him; and if she
+cannot defy him she will scorn him,--for not even a brute animal will
+patiently submit to cruelty, still less a human soul become reconciled
+to injustice. And what is the possession of a human body without the
+sympathy of a living soul?
+
+And hence women, under Paganism,--having no hopes of future joy, no
+recognition of their diviner attributes, no true scope for energies, no
+field of usefulness but in a dreary home, no ennobling friendships, no
+high encouragements, no education, no lofty companionship; utterly
+unappreciated in what most distinguishes them, and valued only as
+household slaves or victims of guilty pleasure; adorned and bedecked
+with trinkets, all to show off the graces of the body alone, and with
+nothing to show their proud equality with men in influence, if not in
+power, in mind as well as heart,--took no interest in what truly
+elevates society. What schools did they teach or even visit? What
+hospitals did they enrich? What miseries did they relieve? What
+charities did they contribute to? What churches did they attend? What
+social gatherings did they enliven? What missions of benevolence did
+they embark in? What were these to women who did not know what was the
+most precious thing they had, or when this precious thing was allowed to
+run to waste? What was there for a woman to do with an unrecognized
+soul but gird herself with ornaments, and curiously braid her hair, and
+ransack shops for new cosmetics, and hunt for new perfumes, and recline
+on luxurious couches, and issue orders to attendant slaves, and join in
+seductive dances, and indulge in frivolous gossip, and entice by the
+display of sensual charms? Her highest aspiration was to adorn a
+perishable body, and vanity became the spring of life.
+
+And the men,--without the true sanctities and beatitudes of married
+life, without the tender companionship which cultivated women give,
+without the hallowed friendships which the soul alone can keep alive,
+despising women who were either toys or slaves,--fled from their dull,
+monotonous, and dreary homes to the circus and the theatre and the
+banqueting hall for excitement or self-forgetfulness. They did not seek
+society, for there can be no high society where women do not preside and
+inspire and guide. Society is a Christian institution. It was born among
+our German ancestors, amid the inspiring glories of chivalry. It was
+made for women as well as men of social cravings and aspirations, which
+have their seat in what Paganism ignored. Society, under Paganism, was
+confined to men, at banquets or symposia, where women seldom entered,
+unless for the amusement of men,--never for their improvement, and still
+less for their restraint.
+
+It was not until Christianity permeated the old Pagan civilization and
+destroyed its idols, that the noble Paulas and Marcellas and Fabiolas
+arose to dignify human friendships, and give fascination to reunions of
+cultivated women and gifted men; that the seeds of society were sown. It
+was not until the natural veneration which the Gothic nations seem to
+have had for women, even in their native forests, had ripened into
+devotion and gallantry under the teachings of Christian priests, that
+the true position of women was understood. And after their equality was
+recognized in the feudal castles of the Middle Ages, the _salons_ of the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries established their claims as the
+inspiring geniuses of what we call society. Then, and not till then, did
+physical beauty pale before the brilliancy of the mind and the radiance
+of the soul,--at last recognized as the highest charm of woman. The
+leaders of society became, not the ornamented and painted _heterae_
+which had attracted Grecian generals and statesmen and men of letters,
+but the witty and the genial and the dignified matrons who were capable
+of instructing and inspiring men superior to themselves, with eyes
+beaming with intellectual radiance, and features changing with perpetual
+variety. Modern society, created by Christianity,--since only
+Christianity recognizes what is most truly attractive and ennobling
+among women--is a great advance over the banquets of imperial Romans
+and the symposia of gifted Greeks.
+
+But even this does not satisfy woman in her loftiest aspirations. The
+soul which animates and inspires her is boundless. Its wants cannot be
+fully met even in an assemblage of wits and beauties. The soul of Madame
+de Staël pined amid all her social triumphs. The soul craves
+friendships, intellectual banquetings, and religious aspirations. And
+unless the emancipated soul of woman can have these wants gratified, she
+droops even amid the glories of society. She is killed, not as a hero
+perishes on a battle-field; but she dies, as Madame de Maintenon said
+that she died, amid the imposing splendors of Versailles. It is only the
+teachings and influences of that divine religion which made Bethany the
+centre of true social banquetings to the wandering and isolated Man of
+Sorrows, which can keep the soul alive amid the cares, the burdens, and
+the duties which bend down every son and daughter of Adam, however
+gilded may be the outward life. How grateful, then, should women be to
+that influence which has snatched them from the pollutions and heartless
+slaveries of Paganism, and given dignity to their higher nature! It is
+to them that it has brought the greatest boon, and made them triumphant
+over the evils of life. And how thoughtless, how misguided, how
+ungrateful is that woman who would exchange the priceless blessings
+which Christianity has brought to her for those ornaments, those
+excitements, and those pleasures which ancient Paganism gave as the only
+solace fox the loss and degradation of her immortal soul!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Plutarch's Lives; Froude's Caesar; Shakspeare's Antony and Cleopatra;
+Plato's Dialogues; Horace, Martial, and Juvenal, especially among the
+poets; Lord's Old Roman World; Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars; Dion
+Cassius; Rollin's Ancient History; Merivale's History of the Romans;
+Biographic Universelle; Rees's Encyclopedia has a good article.
+
+
+
+
+PAGAN SOCIETY.
+
+
+GLORY AND SHAME.
+
+50 B.C.
+
+
+We have now surveyed what was most glorious in the States of antiquity.
+We have seen a civilization which in many respects rivals all that
+modern nations have to show. In art, in literature, in philosophy, in
+laws, in the mechanism of government, in the cultivated face of Nature,
+in military strength, in aesthetic culture, the Greeks and Romans were
+our equals. And this high civilization was reached by the native and
+unaided strength of man; by the power of will, by courage, by
+perseverance, by genius, by fortunate circumstances. We are filled with
+admiration by all these trophies of genius, and cannot but feel that
+only superior races could have accomplished such mighty triumphs.
+
+Yet all this splendid exterior was deceptive; for the deeper we
+penetrate the social condition of the people, the more we feel disgust
+and pity supplanting all feelings of admiration and wonder. The Roman
+empire especially, which had gathered into its strong embrace the whole
+world, and was the natural inheritor of all the achievements of all the
+nations, in its shame and degradation suggests melancholy feelings in
+reference to the destiny of man, so far as his happiness and welfare
+depend upon his own unaided efforts.
+
+It is a sad picture of oppression, injustice, crime, and wretchedness
+which I have now to present. Glory is succeeded by shame, strength by
+weakness, and virtue by vice. The condition of the mass is deplorable,
+and even the great and fortunate shine in a false and fictitious light.
+We see laws, theoretically good, practically perverted, and selfishness
+and egotism the mainsprings of life; we see energies misdirected, and
+art corrupted. All noble aspirations have fled, and the good and the
+wise retire from active life in despair and misanthropy. Poets flatter
+the tyrants who trample on human rights, while sensuality and luxurious
+pleasure absorb the depraved thoughts of a perverse generation.
+
+The first thing which arrests our attention as we survey the civilized
+countries of the old world, is the imperial despotism of Rome. The
+empire indeed enjoyed quietude, and society was no longer rent by
+factions and parties. Demagogues no longer disturbed the public peace,
+nor were the provinces ransacked and devastated to provide for the
+means of carrying on war. So long as men did not oppose the government
+they were safe from molestation, and were left to pursue their business
+and pleasure in their own way. Imperial cruelty was not often visited on
+the humble classes. It was the policy of the emperors to amuse and
+flatter the people, while depriving them of political rights. Hence
+social life was free. All were at liberty to seek their pleasures and
+gains; all were proud of their metropolis, with its gilded glories and
+its fascinating pleasures. Outrages, extortions, and disturbances were
+punished. Order reigned, and all classes felt secure; they could sleep
+without fear of robbery or assassination. In short, all the arguments
+which can be adduced in favor of despotism in contrast with civil war
+and violence, show that it was beneficial in its immediate effects.
+
+Nevertheless, it was a most lamentable change from that condition of
+things which existed before the civil wars. Roman liberties were
+prostrated forever; noble sentiments and aspirations were rebuked. Under
+the Emperors we read of no more great orators like Cicero, battling for
+human rights and defending the public weal. Eloquence was suppressed.
+Nor was there liberty of speech even in the Senate. It was treason to
+find fault with any public acts. From the Pillars of Hercules to the
+Caspian Sea one stern will ruled all classes and orders. No one could
+fly from the agents and ministers of the Emperor; he controlled the
+army, the Senate, the judiciary, the internal administration of the
+empire, and the religious worship of the people; all offices, honors,
+and emoluments emanated from him. All influences conspired to elevate
+the man whom no one could hope successfully to rival. Revolt was
+madness, and treason absurdity. Nor did the Emperors attempt to check
+the gigantic social evils of the empire. They did not seek to prevent
+irreligion, luxury, slavery, and usury, the encroachments of the rich
+upon the poor, the tyranny of foolish fashions, demoralizing sports and
+pleasures, money-making, and all the follies which lax principles of
+morality allowed; they fed the rabble with corn, oil, and wine, and thus
+encouraged idleness and dissipation. The world never saw a more rapid
+retrogression in human rights, or a greater prostration of liberties.
+Taxes were imposed according to the pleasure or necessities of the
+government. Provincial governors became still more rapacious and cruel;
+judges hesitated to decide against the government. Patriotism, in its
+most enlarged sense, became an impossibility; all lofty spirits were
+crushed. Corruption in all forms of administration fearfully increased,
+for there was no safeguard against it.
+
+Theoretically, absolutism may be the best government, if rulers are
+wise and just; but practically, as men are, despotisms are generally
+cruel and revengeful. Despotism implies slavery, and slavery is the
+worst condition of mankind.
+
+It cannot be questioned that many virtuous princes reigned at Rome, who
+would have ornamented any age or country. Titus, Hadrian, Marcus
+Aurelius, Antoninus Pius, Alexander Severus, Tacitus, Probus, Carus,
+Constantine, Theodosius, were all men of remarkable virtues as well as
+talents. They did what they could to promote public prosperity. Marcus
+Aurelius was one of the purest and noblest characters of antiquity.
+Theodosius for genius and virtue ranks with the most illustrious
+sovereigns that ever wore a crown,--with Charlemagne, with Alfred, with
+William III., with Gustavus Adolphus.
+
+But it matters not whether the Emperors were good or bad, if the régime
+to which they consecrated their energies was exerted to crush the
+liberties of mankind. The imperial despotism, whether brilliant or
+disgraceful, was a mournful retrograde step in civilization; it implied
+the extinction of patriotism and the general degradation of the people,
+and would have been impossible in the days of Cato, Scipio, or Metellus.
+
+If we turn from the Emperors to the class which before the dictatorship
+of Julius Caesar had the ascendency in the State, and for several
+centuries the supreme power, we shall find but little that is
+flattering to a nation or to humanity. Under the Emperors the
+aristocracy had degenerated in morals as well as influence. They still
+retained their enormous fortunes, originally acquired as governors of
+provinces, and continually increased by fortunate marriages and
+speculations. Indeed, nothing was more marked and melancholy at Rome
+than the vast disproportion in fortunes. In the better days of the
+republic, property was more equally divided; the citizens were not
+ambitious for more land than they could conveniently cultivate. But the
+lands, obtained by conquest, gradually fell into the possession of
+powerful families. The classes of society widened as great fortunes were
+accumulated; pride of wealth kept pace with pride of ancestry; and when
+plebeian families had obtained great estates, they were amalgamated with
+the old aristocracy. The equestrian order, founded substantially on
+wealth, grew daily in importance. Knights ultimately rivalled senatorial
+families. Even freedmen in an age of commercial speculation became
+powerful for their riches. The pursuit of money became a passion, and
+the rich assumed all the importance and consideration which had once
+been bestowed upon those who had rendered great public services.
+
+As the wealth of the world flowed naturally to the capital, Rome became
+a city of princes, whose fortunes were almost incredible. It took
+eighty thousand dollars a year to support the ordinary senatorial
+dignity. Some senators owned whole provinces. Trimalchio, a rich
+freedman whom Petronius ridiculed, could afford to lose thirty millions
+of sesterces in a single voyage without sensibly diminishing his
+fortune. Pallas, a freedman of the Emperor Claudius, possessed a fortune
+of three hundred millions of sesterces. Seneca, the philosopher, amassed
+an enormous fortune.
+
+As the Romans were a sensual, ostentatious, and luxurious people, they
+accordingly wasted their fortunes by an extravagance in their living
+which has had no parallel. The pleasures of the table and the cares of
+the kitchen were the most serious avocation of the aristocracy in the
+days of the greatest corruption. They had around them regular courts of
+parasites and flatterers, and they employed even persons of high rank as
+their chamberlains and stewards. Carving was taught in celebrated
+schools, and the masters of this sublime art were held in higher
+estimation than philosophers or poets. Says Juvenal,--
+
+     "To such perfection now is carving brought,
+      That different gestures by our curious men
+      Are used for different dishes, hare or hen."
+
+Their entertainments were accompanied with everything which could
+flatter vanity or excite the passions; musicians, male and female
+dancers, players of farce and pantomime, jesters, buffoons, and
+gladiators exhibited, while the guests reclined at table after the
+fashion of the Orientals. The tables were made of Thuja-root, with claws
+of ivory or Delian bronze. Even Cicero, in an economical age, paid six
+hundred and fifty pounds for his banqueting-table. Gluttony was carried
+to such a point that the sea and earth scarcely sufficed to set off
+their tables; they ate as delicacies water-rats and white worms. Fish
+were the chief object of the Roman epicures, of which the _mullus_, the
+_rhombus_, and the _asellus_ were the most valued; it is recorded that a
+mullus (sea barbel), weighing but eight pounds, sold for eight thousand
+sesterces. Oysters from the Lucrine Lake were in great demand; snails
+were fattened in ponds for cooking, while the villas of the rich had
+their piscinae filled with fresh or salt-water fish. Peacocks and
+pheasants were the most highly esteemed among poultry, although the
+absurdity prevailed of eating singing-birds. Of quadrupeds, the greatest
+favorite was the wild boar,--the chief dish of a grand _coena_,--coming
+whole upon the table; and the practised gourmand pretended to
+distinguish by the taste from what part of Italy it came. Dishes, the
+very names of which excite disgust, were used at fashionable banquets,
+and held in high esteem. Martial devotes two entire books of his
+"Epigrams" to the various dishes and ornaments of a Roman banquet.
+
+The extravagance of that period almost surpasses belief. Cicero and
+Pompey one day surprised Lucullus at one of his ordinary banquets, when
+he expected no guests, and even that cost fifty thousand
+drachmas,--about four thousand dollars; his table-couches were of
+purple, and his vessels glittered with jewels. The halls of Heliogabalus
+were hung with cloth of gold, enriched with jewels; his table and plate
+were of pure gold; his couches were of massive silver, and his
+mattresses, covered with carpets of cloth of gold, were stuffed with
+down found only under the wings of partridges. His suppers never cost
+less than one hundred thousand sesterces. Crassus paid one hundred
+thousand sesterces for a golden cup. Banqueting-rooms were strewed with
+lilies and roses. Apicius, in the time of Trajan, spent one hundred
+millions of sesterces in debauchery and gluttony; having only ten
+millions left, he ended his life with poison, thinking he might die of
+hunger. Things were valued for their cost and rarity rather than their
+real value. Enormous prices were paid for carp, the favorite dish of the
+Romans as of the Chinese. Drusillus, a freedman of Claudius, caused a
+dish to be made of five hundred pounds weight of silver. Vitellius had
+one made of such prodigious size that he was obliged to build a furnace
+on purpose for it; and at a feast which he gave in honor of this dish,
+it was filled with the livers of the scarrus (fish), the brains of
+peacocks, the tongues of parrots, and the roes of lampreys caught in the
+Carpathian Sea.
+
+The nobles squandered money equally on their banquets, their stables,
+and their dress; and it was to their crimes, says Juvenal, that they
+were indebted for their gardens, their palaces, their tables, and their
+fine old plate.
+
+Unbounded pride, insolence, inhumanity, selfishness, and scorn marked
+this noble class. Of course there were exceptions, but the historians
+and satirists give the saddest pictures of their cold-hearted depravity.
+The sole result of friendship with a great man was a meal, at which
+flattery and sycophancy were expected; but the best wine was drunk by
+the host, instead of by the guest. Provinces were ransacked for fish and
+fowl and game for the tables of the great, and sensualism was thought to
+be no reproach. They violated the laws of chastity and decorum; they
+scourged to death their slaves; they degraded their wives and sisters;
+they patronized the most demoralizing sports; they enriched themselves
+by usury and monopolies; they practised no generosity, except at their
+banquets, when ostentation balanced their avarice; they measured
+everything by the money-standard; they had no taste for literature, but
+they rewarded sculptors and painters who prostituted art to their vanity
+or passions; they had no reverence for religion, and ridiculed the gods.
+Their distinguishing vices were meanness and servility, the pursuit of
+money by every artifice, the absence of honor, and unblushing
+sensuality.
+
+Gibbon has eloquently abridged the remarks of Ammianus Marcellinus
+respecting these people:--
+
+"They contend with each other in the empty vanity of titles and
+surnames. They affect to multiply their likenesses in statues of bronze
+or marble; nor are they satisfied unless these statues are covered with
+plates of gold. They boast of the rent-rolls of their estates; they
+measure their rank and consequence by the loftiness of their chariots
+and the weighty magnificence of their dress; their long robes of silk
+and purple float in the wind, and as they are agitated by art or
+accident they discover the under garments, the rich tunics embroidered
+with the figures of various animals. Followed by a train of fifty
+servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move along the streets as if
+they travelled with post-horses; and the example of the senators is
+boldly imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose covered carriages are
+continually driving round the immense space of the city and suburbs.
+Whenever they condescend to enter the public baths, they assume, on
+their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and maintain a
+haughty demeanor, which perhaps might have been excused in the great
+Marcellus after the conquest of Syracuse. Sometimes these heroes
+undertake more arduous achievements: they visit their estates in Italy,
+and procure themselves, by servile hands, the amusements of the chase.
+And if at any time, especially on a hot day, they have the courage to
+sail in their gilded galleys from the Lucrine Lake to their elegant
+villas on the sea-coast of Puteoli and Cargeta, they compare these
+expeditions to the marches of Caesar and Alexander; yet should a fly
+presume to settle on the silken folds of their gilded umbrellas, should
+a sunbeam penetrate through some unguarded chink, they deplore their
+intolerable hardships, and lament, in affected language, that they were
+not born in the regions of eternal darkness. In the exercise of domestic
+jurisdiction they express an exquisite sensibility for any personal
+injury, and a contemptuous indifference for the rest of mankind. When
+they have called for warm water, should a slave be tardy in his
+obedience, he is chastised with a hundred lashes; should he commit a
+wilful murder, his master will mildly observe that he is a worthless
+fellow, and shall be punished if he repeat the offence. If a foreigner
+of no contemptible rank be introduced to these senators, he is welcomed
+with such warm professions that he retires charmed with their
+affability; but when he repeats his visit, he is surprised and mortified
+to find that his name, his person, and his country are forgotten. The
+modest, the sober, and the learned are rarely invited to their sumptuous
+banquets, only the most worthless of mankind,--parasites who applaud
+every look and gesture, who gaze with rapture on marble columns and
+variegated pavements, and strenuously praise the pomp and elegance
+which he is taught to consider as a part of his personal merit. At the
+Roman table the birds, the squirrels, the fish, which appear of uncommon
+size, are contemplated with curious attention, and notaries are summoned
+to attest, by authentic record, their real weight. Another method of
+introduction into the houses of the great is skill in games, which is a
+sure road to wealth and reputation. A master of this sublime art, if
+placed at a supper below a magistrate, displays in his countenance a
+surprise and indignation which Cato might be supposed to feel when
+refused the praetorship. The acquisition of knowledge seldom engages the
+attention of the nobles, who abhor the fatigue and disdain the
+advantages of study; and the only books they peruse are the 'Satires of
+Juvenal,' or the fabulous histories of Marius Maximus. The libraries
+they have inherited from their fathers are secluded, like dreary
+sepulchres, from the light of day; but the costly instruments of the
+theatre--flutes and hydraulic organs--are constructed for their use. In
+their palaces sound is preferred to sense, and the care of the body to
+that of the mind. The suspicion of a malady is of sufficient weight to
+excuse the visits of the most intimate friends. The prospect of gain
+will urge a rich and gouty senator as far as Spoleta; every sentiment of
+arrogance and dignity is suppressed in the hope of an inheritance or
+legacy, and a wealthy, childless citizen is the most powerful of the
+Romans. The distress which follows and chastises extravagant luxury
+often reduces the great to use the most humiliating expedients. When
+they wish to borrow, they employ the base and supplicating style of the
+slaves in the comedy; but when they are called upon to pay, they assume
+the royal and tragic declamations of the grandsons of Hercules. If the
+demand is repeated, they readily procure some trusty sycophant to
+maintain a charge of poison or magic against the insolent creditor, who
+is seldom released from prison until he has signed a discharge of the
+whole debt. And these vices are mixed with a puerile superstition which
+disgraces their understanding. They listen with confidence to the
+productions of haruspices, who pretend to read in the entrails of
+victims the signs of future greatness and prosperity; and this
+superstition is observed among those very sceptics who impiously deny or
+doubt the existence of a celestial power."
+
+Such, in the latter days of the empire, was the leading class at Rome,
+and probably also in the cities which aped the fashions of the capital.
+Frivolity and luxury loosened all the ties of society. They were bound
+up in themselves, and had no care for the people except as they might
+extract more money from them.
+
+As for the miserable class whom the patricians oppressed, their
+condition became worse every day from the accession of the Emperors. The
+plebeians had ever disdained those arts which now occupied the middle
+classes; these were intrusted to slaves. Originally, they employed
+themselves upon the lands which had been obtained by conquest; but these
+lands were gradually absorbed or usurped by the large proprietors. The
+small farmers, oppressed with debt and usury, parted with their lands to
+their wealthy creditors. Even in the time of Cicero, it was computed
+that there were only about two thousand citizens possessed of
+independent property. These two thousand persons owned the world; the
+rest were dependent and powerless, and would have perished but for
+largesses. Monthly distributions of corn were converted into daily
+allowance for bread. The people were amused with games and festivals,
+fed like slaves, and of course lost at last even the semblance of
+manliness and independence. They loitered in the public streets, and
+dissipated in gaming their miserable pittance; they spent the hours of
+the night in the lowest resorts of crime and misery; they expired in
+wretched apartments without attracting the attention of government;
+pestilence, famine, and squalid misery thinned their ranks, and they
+would have been annihilated but for constant accession to their numbers
+from the provinces.
+
+In the busy streets of Rome might be seen adventurers from all parts of
+the world, disgraced by all the various vices of their respective
+countries. They had no education, and but small religious advantages;
+they were held in terror by both priests and nobles,--the priest
+terrifying them with Egyptian sorceries, the nobles crushing them by
+iron weight; like lazzaroni, they lived in the streets, or were crowded
+into filthy tenements; a gladiatorial show delighted them, but the
+circus was their peculiar joy,--here they sought to drown the
+consciousness of their squalid degradation; they were sold into slavery
+for trifling debts; they had no homes. The poor man had no ambition or
+hope; his wife was a slave; his children were precocious demons, whose
+prattle was the cry for bread, whose laughter was the howl of
+pandemonium, whose sports were the tricks of premature iniquity, whose
+beauty was the squalor of disease and filth; he fled from a wife in whom
+he had no trust, from children in whom he had no hope, from brothers for
+whom he felt no sympathy, from parents for whom he felt no reverence;
+the circus was his home, the fights of wild beasts were his consolation;
+the future was a blank, death was the release from suffering. There were
+no hospitals for the sick and the old, except one on an island in the
+Tiber; the old and helpless were left to die, unpitied and unconsoled.
+Suicide was so common that it attracted no attention.
+
+Superstition culminated at Rome, for there were seen the priests and
+devotees of all the countries that it governed,--"the dark-skinned
+daughters of Isis, with drum and timbrel and wanton mien; devotees of
+the Persian Mithras; emasculated Asiatics; priests of Cybele, with their
+wild dances and discordant cries; worshippers of the great goddess
+Diana; barbarian captives with the rites of Teuton priests; Syrians,
+Jews, Chaldaean astrologers, and Thessalian sorcerers.... The crowds
+which flocked to Rome from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean
+brought with them practices extremely demoralizing. The awful rites of
+initiation, the tricks of magicians, the pretended virtues of amulets
+and charms, the riddles of emblematical idolatry with which the
+superstition of the East abounded, amused the languid voluptuaries who
+had neither the energy for a moral belief nor the boldness requisite for
+logical scepticism."
+
+We cannot pass by, in this enumeration of the different classes of Roman
+society, the number and condition of slaves. A large part of the
+population belonged to this servile class. Originally brought in by
+foreign conquest, it was increased by those who could not pay their
+debts. The single campaign of Regulus introduced as many captives as
+made up a fifth part of the whole population. Four hundred were
+maintained in a single palace, at a comparatively early period; a
+freedman in the time of Augustus left behind him forty-one hundred and
+sixteen; Horace regarded two hundred as the suitable establishment for a
+gentleman; some senators owned twenty thousand. Gibbon estimates the
+number of slaves at about sixty millions,--one-half of the whole
+population. One hundred thousand captives were taken in the Jewish war,
+who were sold as slaves, and sold as cheap as horses. William Blair
+supposes that there were three slaves to one freeman, from the conquest
+of Greece to the reign of Alexander Severus. Slaves often cost two
+hundred thousand sesterces, yet everybody was eager to possess a slave.
+At one time the slave's life was at the absolute control of his master;
+he could be treated at all times with brutal severity. Fettered and
+branded, he toiled to cultivate the lands of an imperious master, and at
+night was shut up in a subterranean cell. The laws hardly recognized his
+claim to be considered a moral agent,--he was _secundum hominum genus_;
+he could acquire no rights, social or political,--he was incapable of
+inheriting property, or making a will, or contracting a legal marriage;
+his value was estimated like that of a brute; he was a thing and not a
+person, "a piece of furniture possessed of life;" he was his master's
+property, to be scourged, or tortured, or crucified. If a wealthy
+proprietor died under circumstances which excited suspicion of foul
+play, his whole household was put to torture. It is recorded that on the
+murder of a man of consular dignity by a slave, every slave in his
+possession was condemned to death. Slaves swelled the useless rabbles of
+the cities, and devoured the revenues of the State. All manual labor
+was done by slaves, in towns as well as the country; they were used in
+the navy to propel the galleys. Even the mechanical arts were cultivated
+by the slaves. Nay more, slaves were schoolmasters, secretaries, actors,
+musicians, and physicians, for in intelligence they were often on an
+equality with their masters. Slaves were procured from Greece and Asia
+Minor and Syria, as well as from Gaul and the African deserts; they were
+white as well as black. All captives in war were made slaves, also
+unfortunate debtors; sometimes they could regain their freedom, but
+generally their condition became more and more deplorable. What a state
+of society when a refined and cultivated Greek could be made to obey the
+most offensive orders of a capricious and sensual Roman, without
+remuneration, without thanks, without favor, without redress! What was
+to be expected of a class who had no object to live for? They became the
+most degraded of mortals, ready for pillage, and justly to be feared in
+the hour of danger.
+
+Slavery undoubtedly proved the most destructive canker of the Roman
+State. It was this social evil, more than political misrule, which
+undermined the empire. Slavery proved at Rome a monstrous curse,
+destroying all manliness of character, creating contempt of honest
+labor, making men timorous yet cruel, idle, frivolous, weak, dependent,
+powerless. The empire might have lasted centuries longer but for this
+incubus, the standing disgrace of the Pagan world. Paganism never
+recognized what is most noble and glorious in man; never recognized his
+equality, his common brotherhood, his natural rights. It had no
+compunction, no remorse in depriving human beings of their highest
+privileges; its whole tendency was to degrade the soul, and to cause
+forgetfulness of immortality. Slavery thrives best when the generous
+instincts are suppressed, when egotism, sensuality, and pride are the
+dominant springs of human action.
+
+The same influences which tended to rob man of the rights which God has
+given him, and produce cruelty and heartlessness in the general
+intercourse of life, also tended to degrade the female sex. In the
+earlier age of the republic, when the people were poor, and life was
+simple and primitive, and heroism and patriotism were characteristic,
+woman was comparatively virtuous and respected; she asserted her natural
+equality, and led a life of domestic tranquillity, employed upon the
+training of her children, and inspiring her husband to noble deeds. But
+under the Emperors these virtues had fled. Woman was miserably educated,
+being taught by a slave, or some Greek chambermaid, accustomed to ribald
+conversation, and fed with idle tales and silly superstitions; she was
+regarded as more vicious in natural inclination than man, and was
+chiefly valued for household labors; she was reduced to dependence; she
+saw but little of her brothers or relatives; she was confined to her
+home as if it were a prison; she was guarded by eunuchs and female
+slaves; she was given in marriage without her consent; she could be
+easily divorced; she was valued only as a domestic servant, or as an
+animal to prevent the extinction of families; she was regarded as the
+inferior of her husband, to whom she was a victim, a toy, or a slave.
+Love after marriage was not frequent, since woman did not shine in the
+virtues by which love is kept alive. She became timorous or frivolous,
+without dignity or public esteem; her happiness was in extravagant
+attire, in elaborate hair-dressings, in rings and bracelets, in a
+retinue of servants, in gilded apartments, in luxurious couches, in
+voluptuous dances, in exciting banquets, in demoralizing spectacles, in
+frivolous gossip, in inglorious idleness. If virtuous, it was not so
+much from principle as from fear. Hence she resorted to all sorts of
+arts to deceive her husband; her genius was sharpened by perpetual
+devices, and cunning was her great resource. She cultivated no lofty
+friendships; she engaged in no philanthropic mission; she cherished no
+ennobling sentiments; she kindled no chivalrous admiration. Her
+amusements were frivolous, her taste vitiated, her education neglected,
+her rights violated, her sympathy despised, her aspirations scorned.
+And here I do not allude to great and infamous examples that history has
+handed down in the sober pages of Suetonius and Tacitus, or that
+unblushing depravity which stands out in the bitter satires of those
+times; I speak not of the adultery, the poisoning, the infanticide, the
+debauchery, the cruelty of which history accuses the Messalinas and
+Agrippinas of imperial Rome; I allude not to the orgies of the Palatine
+Hill, or the abominations which are inferred from the paintings of
+Pompeii,--I mean the general frivolity and extravagance and
+demoralization of the women of the Roman empire. Marriage was considered
+inexpedient unless large dowries were brought to the husband. Numerous
+were the efforts of Emperors to promote honorable marriages, but the
+relation was shunned. Courtesans usurped the privileges of wives, and
+with unblushing effrontery. A man was derided who contemplated
+matrimony, for there was but little confidence in female virtue or
+capacity, and woman lost all her fascination when age had destroyed her
+beauty; even her very virtues were distasteful to her self-indulgent
+husband. When, as sometimes happened, the wife gained the ascendency by
+her charms, she was tyrannical; her relatives incited her to despoil her
+husband; she lived amid incessant broils; she had no care for the
+future, and exceeded man in prodigality. "The government of her house is
+no more merciful," says Juvenal, "than the court of a Sicilian tyrant."
+In order to render herself attractive, she exhausted all the arts of
+cosmetics and elaborate hair-dressing; she delighted in magical
+incantations and love-potions. In the bitter satire of Juvenal we get an
+impression most melancholy and loathsome:--
+
+     "'T were long to tell what philters they provide,
+     What drugs to set a son-in-law aside,--
+     Women, in judgment weak, in feeling strong,
+     By every gust of passion borne along.
+     To a fond spouse a wife no mercy shows;
+     Though warmed with equal fires, she mocks his woes,
+     And triumphs in his spoils; her wayward will
+     Defeats his bliss and turns his good to ill.
+     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 class, 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
+mass 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 institution. 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. Titus 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 Titus, 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 passion. All
+classes alike pursued them with restless eagerness. Amusements 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 Titus, 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 passion for gambling in every
+shape, we can form some idea of the effect of these amusements 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 classes 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 classes 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 appetite; 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 Titus, Caracalla, and
+Diocletian in Rome show that they were decorated with prodigal
+magnificence, and with everything that could excite the
+passions,--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 factitious 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 godless 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
+accumulation 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
+pass 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
+certitudes 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 appetite and the _ennui_ of
+realized expectation,--all of the earth, earthy; making a wreck of the
+divine image which was made for God 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
+passion 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 passion
+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 passed away. The
+barbarians were advancing to conquer and desolate; there was no power to
+resist them but enervated and timid legions, with the accumulated 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 accumulation 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 nobler
+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 chastisement
+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 gods 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. Ammianus 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.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME
+III***
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+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html>
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Beacon Lights of History, Volume III, by John Lord</title>
+    <style type="text/css">
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+<body>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Beacon Lights of History, Volume III, by John
+Lord</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>
+
+Title: Beacon Lights of History, Volume III
+
+Author: John Lord
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2003  [eBook #10484]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME III***
+
+
+</pre>
+<center><h3>E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner,<br>
+            and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</h3></center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="full">
+<br><br>
+<center><i>LORD'S LECTURES</i></center>
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY.</h2>
+
+<h2>BY JOHN LORD, LL.D.</h2>
+
+<center>AUTHOR OF &quot;THE OLD ROMAN WORLD,&quot; &quot;MODERN EUROPE,&quot;
+ETC., ETC.</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<h2>VOLUME III.</h2>
+
+<h2>ANCIENT ACHIEVEMENTS.</h2>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p><i><a href="#GOVERNMENTS_AND_LAWS.">GOVERNMENTS AND LAWS</a></i>.
+
+<p>GREEK AND ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.</p>
+
+Governments and laws<br>
+Oriental laws<br>
+Priestly jurisprudence<br>
+The laws of Lycurgus<br>
+The laws of Solon<br>
+Cleisthenes<br>
+The Ecclesia at Athens<br>
+Struggle between patricians and plebeians at Rome<br>
+Tribunes of the people<br>
+Roman citizens<br>
+The Roman senate<br>
+The Roman constitution<br>
+Imperial power<br>
+The Twelve Tables<br>
+Roman lawyers<br>
+Jurisprudence under emperors<br>
+Labeo<br>
+Capito<br>
+Gaius<br>
+Paulus<br>
+Ulpian<br>
+Justinian<br>
+Tribonian<br>
+Code, Pandects, and Institutes<br>
+Roman citizenship<br>
+Laws pertaining to marriage<br>
+Extent of paternal power<br>
+Transfer of property<br>
+Contracts<br>
+The courts<br>
+Crimes<br>
+Fines<br>
+Penal statutes<br>
+Personal rights<br>
+Slavery<br>
+Security of property<br>
+Authorities<br>
+<br>
+
+<p><i><a href="#THE_FINE_ARTS.">THE FINE ARTS</a></i>.</p>
+
+<p>ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, PAINTING.</p>
+
+Early architecture<br>
+Egyptian monuments<br>
+The Temple of Karnak<br>
+The pyramids<br>
+Babylonian architecture<br>
+Indian architecture<br>
+Greek architecture<br>
+The Doric order<br>
+The Parthenon<br>
+The Ionic order<br>
+The Corinthian order<br>
+Roman architecture<br>
+The arch<br>
+Vitruvius<br>
+Greek sculpture<br>
+Phidias<br>
+Statue of Zeus<br>
+Praxiteles<br>
+Scopas<br>
+Lysippus<br>
+Roman sculpture<br>
+Greek painters<br>
+Polygnotus<br>
+Apollodorus<br>
+Zeuxis<br>
+Parrhasius<br>
+Apelles<br>
+The decline of art<br>
+Authorities<br>
+<br>
+
+<p><i><a href="#ANCIENT_SCIENTIFIC_KNOWLEDGE.">ANCIENT SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE</a></i>.</p>
+
+<p>ASTRONOMY, GEOGRAPHY, ETC.</p>
+
+Ancient astronomy<br>
+Chaldaean astronomers<br>
+Egyptian astronomy<br>
+The Greek astronomers<br>
+Thales<br>
+Anaximenes<br>
+Aristarchus<br>
+Archimedes<br>
+Hipparchus<br>
+Ptolemy<br>
+The Roman astronomers<br>
+Geometry<br>
+Euclid<br>
+Empirical science<br>
+Hippocrates<br>
+Galen<br>
+Physical science<br>
+Geography<br>
+Pliny<br>
+Eratosthenes<br>
+Authorities<br>
+<br>
+
+<p><i><a href="#MATERIAL_LIFE_OF_THE_ANCIENTS.">MATERIAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS.</a></i></p>
+
+<p>MECHANICAL AND USEFUL ARTS.</p>
+
+Mechanical arts<br>
+Material life in Egypt<br>
+Domestic utensils<br>
+Houses and furniture<br>
+Entertainments<br>
+Glass manufacture<br>
+Linen fabrics<br>
+Paper manufacture<br>
+Leather and tanners<br>
+Carpenters and boat-builders<br>
+Agriculture<br>
+Field sports<br>
+Ornaments of dress<br>
+Greek arts<br>
+Roman luxuries<br>
+Material wonders<br>
+Great cities<br>
+Commerce<br>
+Roman roads<br>
+Ancient Rome<br>
+Architectural wonders<br>
+Roman monuments<br>
+Roman spectacles<br>
+Gladiatorial shows<br>
+Roman triumphs<br>
+Authorities<br>
+<br>
+
+<p><i><a href="#THE_MILITARY_ART.">THE MILITARY ART</a></i>.</p>
+
+<p>WEAPONS, ENGINES, DISCIPLINE.</p>
+
+The tendency to violence and war<br>
+Early wars<br>
+Progress in the art of war<br>
+Sesostris<br>
+Egyptian armies<br>
+Military weapons<br>
+Chariots of war<br>
+Persian armies, Cyrus<br>
+Greek warfare<br>
+Spartan phalanx<br>
+Alexander the Great<br>
+Roman armies<br>
+Hardships of Roman soldiers<br>
+Military discipline<br>
+The Roman legion<br>
+Importance of the infantry<br>
+The cavalry<br>
+Military engines<br>
+Ancient fortifications<br>
+Military officers<br>
+The praetorian cohort<br>
+Roman camps<br>
+Consolidation of Roman power<br>
+Authorities<br>
+<br>
+
+<p><i><a href="#CICERO.">CICERO</a></i>.</p>
+
+<p>ROMAN LITERATURE.</p>
+
+Condition of Roman society when Cicero was born<br>
+His education and precocity<br>
+He adopts the profession of the law<br>
+His popularity as an orator<br>
+Elected Quaestor; his Aedileship<br>
+Prosecution of Verres<br>
+His letters to Atticus; his vanity<br>
+His Praetorship; declines a province<br>
+His Consulship; conspiracy of Catiline<br>
+Banishment of Cicero: his weakness; his recall<br>
+His law practice; his eloquence<br>
+His provincial government<br>
+His return to Rome<br>
+His fears in view of the rivalry between Caesar and Pompey<br>
+Sides with Pompey<br>
+Death of Tullia and divorce of Terentia<br>
+Second marriage of Cicero<br>
+Literary labors: his philosophical writings<br>
+His detestation of Imperialism<br>
+His philippics against Antony<br>
+His proscription, flight, and death<br>
+His great services<br>
+Character of his eloquence<br>
+His artistic excellence of style<br>
+His learning and attainments; his character<br>
+His immortal legacy<br>
+Authorities<br>
+<br>
+
+<p><i><a href="#CLEOPATRA.">CLEOPATRA</a></i>.</p>
+
+<p>THE WOMAN OF PAGANISM.</p>
+
+Why Cleopatra represents the woman of Paganism<br>
+Glory of Ancient Rome<br>
+Paganism recognizes the body rather than the soul<br>
+Ancestors of Cleopatra<br>
+The wonders of Alexandria<br>
+Cleopatra of Greek origin<br>
+The mysteries of Ancient Egypt<br>
+Early beauty and accomplishments of Cleopatra<br>
+Her attractions to Caesar<br>
+Her residence in Rome<br>
+Her first acquaintance with Antony<br>
+The style of her beauty<br>
+Her character<br>
+Character of Antony<br>
+Antony and Cleopatra in Cilicia<br>
+Magnificence of Cleopatra<br>
+Infatuation of Antony<br>
+Motives of Cleopatra<br>
+Antony's gifts to Cleopatra<br>
+Indignation of the Romans<br>
+Antony gives up his Parthian expedition<br>
+Returns to Alexandria<br>
+Contest with Octavius<br>
+Battle of Actium<br>
+Wisdom of Octavius<br>
+Death of Antony<br>
+Subsequent conduct of Cleopatra<br>
+Nature of her love for Antony<br>
+Immense sacrifices of Antony<br>
+Tragic fate of Cleopatra<br>
+Frequency of suicide at Rome<br>
+Immorality no bar to social position in Greece and Rome<br>
+Dulness of home in Pagan antiquity<br>
+Drudgeries of women<br>
+Influence of women on men<br>
+Paganism never recognized the equality of women with men<br>
+It denied to them education<br>
+Consequent degradation of women<br>
+Paganism without religious consolation<br>
+Did not recognize the value of the soul<br>
+And thus took no cognizance of the higher aspirations of man<br>
+The revenge of woman under degradation<br>
+Women, under Paganism, took no interest in what elevates society<br>
+Men, therefore, fled to public amusements<br>
+No true society under Paganism<br>
+Society only created by Christianity<br>
+<br>
+
+<p><i><a href="#PAGAN_SOCIETY.">PAGAN SOCIETY.</a></i></p>
+
+<p>GLORY AND SHAME.</p>
+
+Glories of the ancient civilization<br>
+A splendid external deception<br>
+Moral evils<br>
+Imperial despotism<br>
+Prostration of liberties<br>
+Some good emperors<br>
+Disproportionate fortunes<br>
+Luxurious living<br>
+General extravagance<br>
+Pride and insolence of the aristocracy<br>
+Gibbon's description of the nobles<br>
+The plebeian class<br>
+Hopelessness and disgrace of poverty<br>
+Popular superstitions<br>
+The slaves<br>
+The curse of slavery<br>
+Degradation of the female sex<br>
+Bitter satires of Juvenal<br>
+Games and festivals<br>
+Gladiatorial shows<br>
+General abandonment to pleasure<br>
+The baths<br>
+General craze for money-making<br>
+Universal corruption<br>
+Saint Paul's estimate of Roman vices<br>
+Decline and ruin a logical necessity<br>
+The Sibylline prophecy<br>
+Authorities<br>
+<br>
+
+<p>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</p>
+
+<p>VOLUME III.</p>
+
+<a href="Illus0001.jpg">Cleopatra Tests the Poison which She Intends for Her
+Own Destruction on Her Slaves....</a> <i>Frontispiece</i>
+<i>After the painting by Alexander Cabanel</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0002.jpg">Justinian Orders the Compilation of the Pandects</a>
+<i>After the painting by Benjamin Constant</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0003.jpg">The Temple of Karnak</a>
+<i>After a photograph</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0004.jpg">The Laoco&ouml;n</a>
+<i>After the photograph from the statue in the Vatican, Rome</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0005.jpg">The Death of Archimedes</a>
+<i>After the painting by E. Vimont</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0006.jpg">Race of Roman Chariots</a>
+<i>After the painting by V. Checa</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0007.jpg">Sale of Slaves in a Roman Camp</a>
+<i>After the painting by R. Coghe</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0008.jpg">Marcus Tullius Cicero</a>
+<i>From the bust in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0009.jpg">Cleopatra Obtains an Interview with Caesar</a>
+<i>After the painting by J.L. Gerome</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0010.jpg">Death of Cleopatra</a>
+<i>After the painting by John Collier</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0011.jpg">A Roman Bacchanal</a>
+<i>After the painting by W. Kotarbinski</i>.<br>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<h2><a name="GOVERNMENTS_AND_LAWS."></a>GOVERNMENTS AND LAWS.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>GREEK AND ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.</p>
+
+<p>624 B.C.-550 A.D.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>There is not much in ancient governments and laws to interest us, except
+such as were in harmony with natural justice, and were designed for the
+welfare of all classes in the State. A jurisprudence founded on the
+edicts of absolute kings, or on the regulations of a priestly caste, is
+necessarily partial, and may be unenlightened. But those laws which are
+gradually enacted for the interests of the whole body of the
+people,--for the rich and poor, the powerful and feeble alike,--have
+generally been the result of great and diverse experiences, running
+through centuries, the work of wise men under constitutional forms of
+government. The jurisprudence of nations based on equity is a growth or
+development according to public wants and necessities, especially in
+countries having popular liberty and rights, as in England and the
+United States.</p>
+
+<p>We do not find in the history of ancient nations such a jurisprudence,
+except in the free States of Greece and among the Romans, who had a
+natural genius or aptitude for government, and where the people had a
+powerful influence in legislation, until even the name of liberty was
+not invoked.</p>
+
+<p>Among the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians the only laws were the
+edicts of kings or the regulations of priests, mostly made with a view
+of cementing their own power, except those that were dictated by
+benevolence or the pressing needs of the people, who were ground down
+and oppressed, and protected only as slaves were once protected in the
+Southern States of America. Wise and good monarchs doubtless issued
+decrees for the benefit of all classes, such as conscience or knowledge
+dictated, whenever they felt their great responsibilities, as in some of
+the absolute monarchies of Europe; but they never issued their decrees
+at the suggestions or demands of those classes for whom the laws were
+made. The voice of the people was ignored, except so far as it moved the
+pity or appealed to the hearts and consciences of their rulers; the
+people had, and claimed, no <i>rights</i>. The only men to whom rulers
+listened, or by whom they were controlled, were those whom they chose as
+counsellors and ministers, who were supposed to advise with a view to
+the sovereign's benefit, and that of the empire generally.</p>
+
+<p>The same may be said in general of other Oriental monarchies,
+especially when embarked in aggressive wars, where the will of the
+monarch was supreme and unresisted, as in Persia. In India and China the
+government was not so absolute, since it was checked by feudatory
+princes, almost independent like the feudal barons and dukes of
+mediaeval Europe.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was there probably among Oriental nations any elaborate codification
+of the decrees and laws as in Greece and Rome, except by the priests for
+their ritual service, like that which marked the jurisprudence of the
+Israelites. There were laws against murder, theft, adultery, and other
+offences, since society cannot exist anywhere without such laws; but
+there was no complicated jurisprudence produced by the friction of
+competing classes striving for justice and right, or even for the
+interests of contending parties. We do not look to Egypt or to China for
+wise punishment of ordinary crimes; but we do look to Greece and Rome,
+and to Rome especially, for a legislation which shall balance the
+complicated relations of society on principles of enlightened reason.
+Moreover, those great popular rights which we now most zealously defend
+have generally been extorted in the strife of classes and parties,
+sometimes from kings, and sometimes from princes and nobles. Where there
+has been no opposition to absolutism these rights have not been secured;
+but whenever and wherever the people have been a power they have
+imperiously made their wants known, and so far as they have been
+reasonable they have been finally secured,--perhaps after angry
+expostulations and, disputations.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it is this kind of legislation which is remarkable in the history
+of Greece and Rome, secured by a combination of the people against the
+ruling classes in the interests of justice and the common welfare, and
+finally endorsed and upheld even by monarchs themselves. It is from this
+legislation that modern nations have learned wisdom; for a permanent law
+in a free country may be the result of a hundred years of discussion or
+contention,--a compromise of parties, a lesson in human experience. As
+the laws of Greece and Rome alone among the ancients are rich in moral
+wisdom and adapted more or less to all nations and ages in the struggle
+for equal rights and wise social regulations, I shall confine myself to
+them. Besides, I aim not to give useless and curious details, but to
+show how far in general the enlightened nations of antiquity made
+attainments in those things which we call civilization, and particularly
+in that great department which concerns so nearly all human
+interests,--that of the regulation of mutual social relations; and this
+by modes and with results which have had their direct influence upon our
+modern times.</p>
+
+<p>When we consider the native genius of the Greeks, and their marvellous
+achievements in philosophy, literature, and art, we are surprised that
+they were so inferior to the Romans in jurisprudence,--although in the
+early days of the Roman republic a deputation of citizens was sent to
+Athens to study the laws of Solon. But neither nations nor individuals
+are great in everything. Before Solon lived, Lycurgus had given laws to
+the Spartans. This lawgiver, one of the descendants of Hercules, was
+born, according to Grote, about eight hundred and eighty years before
+Christ, and was the uncle of the reigning king. There is, however, no
+certainty as to the time when he lived; it was probably about the period
+when Carthage was founded by the Phoenicians. He instituted the Spartan
+senate, and gave an aristocratic form to the constitution. But the
+senate, composed of about thirty old men who acted in conjunction with
+the two kings, did not differ materially from the council of chiefs, or
+old men, found in other ancient Grecian States; the Spartan chiefs
+simply modified or curtailed the power of the kings. In the course of
+time the senate, with the kings included in it, became the governing
+body of the State, and this oligarchical form of government lasted
+several hundred years. We know but little of the especial laws given by
+Lycurgus. We know the distinctions of society,--citizens and helots,
+and their mutual relations,--the distribution of lands to check luxury,
+the public men, the public training of youth, the severe discipline to
+which all were subjected, the cruelty exercised towards slaves, the
+attention given to gymnastic exercises and athletic sports,--in short,
+the habits and customs of the people rather than any regular system of
+jurisprudence. Lycurgus was the trainer of a military brotherhood rather
+than a law-giver. Under his r&eacute;gime the citizen belonged to the State
+rather than to his family, and all the ends of the State were warlike
+rather than peaceful,--not looking to the settlement of quarrels on
+principles of equity, or a development of industrial interests, which
+are the great aims of modern legislation.</p>
+
+<p>The influence of the Athenian Solon on the laws which affected
+individuals is more apparent than that of the Spartan Lycurgus, the
+earliest of the Grecian legislators. But Solon had a predecessor in
+Athens itself,--Draco, who in 624 was appointed to reduce to writing the
+arbitrary decisions of the archons, thus giving a form of permanent law
+and a basis for a court of appeal. Draco's laws were extraordinarily
+severe, punishing small thefts and even laziness with death. The
+formulation of any system of justice would have, as Draco's did, a
+beneficial influence on the growth of the State; but the severity of
+these bloody laws caused them to be hated and in practice neglected,
+until Solon arose. Solon was born in Athens about 638 B.C., and
+belonged to the noblest family of the State. He was contemporary with
+Pisistratus and Thales. His father having lost his property, Solon
+applied himself to merchandise,--always a respectable calling in a
+mercantile city. He first became known as a writer of love poems; then
+came into prominence as a successful military commander of volunteer
+forces in a disastrous war; and at last he gained the confidence of his
+countrymen so completely that in a period of anarchy, distress, and
+mutiny,--the poor being so grievously oppressed by the rich that a sixth
+part of the produce of land went to the landlord,--he was chosen archon,
+with authority to revise the laws, and might have made himself king. He
+abolished the custom of selling the body of a debtor for debt, and even
+annulled debts in a state of general distress,--which did not please the
+rich, nor even the poor, since they desired a redivision of lands such
+as Lycurgus had made in Sparta. He repealed the severe laws of Draco,
+which inflicted capital punishment for so many small offences, retaining
+the extreme penalty only for murder and treason. In order further to
+promote the interests of the people, he empowered any man whatever to
+enter an action for one that was injured. He left the great offices of
+state, however, in the hands of the rich, giving the people a share in
+those which were not so important. He re-established the council of the
+Areopagus, composed of those who had been archons, and nine were
+appointed annually for the general guardianship of the laws; but he
+instituted another court or senate of four hundred citizens, for the
+cognizance of all matters before they were submitted to the higher
+court. Although the poorest and most numerous class were not eligible
+for office, they had the right of suffrage, and could vote for the
+principal officers. It would at first seem that the legislation of Solon
+gave especial privileges to the rich, but it is generally understood
+that he was the founder of the democracy of Athens. He gave the
+Athenians, not the best possible code, but the best they were capable of
+receiving. He intended to give to the people as much power as was
+strictly needed, and no more; but in a free State the people continually
+encroach on the privileges of the rich, and thus gradually the chief
+power falls into their hands.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the power which Solon gave to the people, and however great
+their subsequent encroachments, it cannot be doubted that he was the
+first to lay the foundations of constitutional government,--that is, one
+in which the people took part in legislation and in the election of
+rulers. The greatest benefit which he conferred on the State was in the
+laws which gave relief to poor debtors, those which enabled people to
+protect themselves by constitutional means, and those which prohibited
+fathers from selling their daughters and sisters for slaves,--an
+abomination which had long disgraced the Athenian republic.</p>
+
+<p>Some of Solon's laws were of questionable utility. He prohibited the
+exportation of the fruits of the soil in Attica, with the exception of
+olive-oil alone,--a regulation difficult to be enforced in a mercantile
+State. Neither would he grant citizenship to immigrants; and he released
+sons from supporting their parents in old age if the parents had
+neglected to give them a trade. He encouraged all developments of
+national industries, knowing that the wealth of the State depended on
+them. Solon was the first Athenian legislator who granted the power of
+testamentary bequests when a man had no legitimate children. Sons
+succeeded to the property of their parents, with the obligation of
+giving a marriage dowry to their sisters. If there were no sons, the
+daughters inherited the property of their parents; but a person who had
+no children could bequeath his property to whom he pleased. Solon
+prohibited costly sacrifices at funerals; he forbade evil-speaking of
+the dead, and indeed of all persons before judges and archons; he
+pronounced a man infamous who took part in a sedition.</p>
+
+<p>When this enlightened and disinterested man had finished his work of
+legislation, 494 B.C, he visited Egypt and Cyprus, and devoted his
+leisure to the composition of poems. He also, it is said, when a
+prisoner in the hands of the Persians, visited Croesus, the rich king of
+Lydia, and gave to him an admonitory lesson on the vicissitudes of life.
+After a prolonged absence, Solon returned to Athens about the time of
+the usurpation of his kinsman Peisistratus (560 B.C.), who, however,
+suffered the aged legislator and patriot to go unharmed, and even
+allowed most of his laws to remain in force.</p>
+
+<p>The constitution and laws of Athens continued substantially for about a
+hundred years after the archonship of Solon, when the democratic party
+under Cleisthenes gained complete ascendency. Some modification of the
+laws was then made. The political franchise was extended to all free
+native Athenians. The command of the military forces was given to ten
+generals, one from each tribe, instead of being intrusted to one of the
+archons. The Ecclesia, a formal assembly of the citizens, met more
+frequently. The people were called into direct action as <i>dikasts</i>, or
+jurors; all citizens were eligible to the magistracy, even to the
+archonship; ostracism,--which virtually was exile without
+disgrace,--became a political necessity to check the ascendency of
+demagogues.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the main features of the constitution and jurisprudence of
+Athens when the struggle between the patricians and plebeians of Rome
+began, to which we now give our attention. It was the real beginning of
+constitutional liberty in Rome. Before this time the government was in
+the hands either of kings or aristocrats. The patricians were
+descendants of the original Latin, Sabine, and Etruscan families; the
+plebeians were the throng of common folk brought in by conquest or later
+immigration,--mostly of Latin origin. The senate was the ruling power
+after the expulsion of the kings, and senators were selected from the
+great patrician families, who controlled by their wealth and influence
+the popular elections, the army and navy, and all foreign relations.
+Consuls, the highest magistrates, who commanded the armies, were
+annually elected by the people; but for several centuries the consuls
+belonged to great families. The constitution was essentially
+aristocratic, and the aristocracy was based on wealth. Power was in the
+hands of nobles, whether their ancestors were patricians or plebeians,
+although in the early ages of the Republic they were mostly patricians
+by birth. But with the growth of Rome new families that were not
+descended from the ancient tribes became prominent,--like the Claudii,
+the Julii, and the Servilii,--and were incorporated with the nobility.
+There are very few names in Roman history before the time of Marius
+which did not belong to this noble class. The <i>plebs</i>, or common people,
+had at first no political privileges whatever, not even the right of
+suffrage, and were not allowed to marry into patrician rank. Indeed,
+they were politically and socially oppressed.</p>
+
+<p>The first great event which gave the plebs protection and political
+importance was the appointment of representatives called &quot;tribunes of
+the people,&quot;--a privilege extorted from the patricians. The tribunes had
+the right to be present at the deliberations of the senate; their
+persons were inviolable, and they had the power of veto over obnoxious
+laws. Their power continually increased, until they were finally elected
+from the senatorial body. In 421 B.C. the plebs had gained sufficient
+influence to establish the <i>connubium</i>, by which they were allowed to
+intermarry with patricians. In the same year they were admitted to the
+quaestorship, which office entitled the possessor to a seat in the
+senate. The quaestors had charge of the public money. In 336 B.C. the
+plebeians obtained the praetorship, a judicial office.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 286 B.C. the distinctions vanished between plebeians and
+patricians, and the term <i>populus</i> instead of <i>plebs</i>, was applied to
+all Roman people alike. Originally the <i>populus</i> comprised strictly
+Roman citizens, those who belonged to the original tribes, and who had
+the right of suffrage. When the plebeians obtained access to the great
+offices of the state, the senate represented the whole people as it
+formerly represented the <i>populus</i>, and the term <i>populus</i> was enlarged
+to embrace the entire community.</p>
+
+<p>The senate was an august body, and was very powerful. It was both
+judicial and legislative, and for several centuries was composed of
+patricians alone. Its members always belonged to the aristocracy,
+whether of patrician or plebeian descent, and were supposed to be rich.
+Under Augustus it required one million two hundred thousand sesterces
+annually to support the senatorial dignity. The senate, the members of
+which were chosen for life, had the superintendence of matters of
+religion and foreign relations; it commanded the levies of troops; it
+regulated duties and taxes; it gave audience to ambassadors; it
+determined upon the way that war should be conducted; it decreed to what
+provinces governors should be sent; it declared martial law in the
+appointment of dictators; and it decreed triumphs to fortunate generals.
+The senators, as a badge of distinction, wore upon their tunics a broad
+purple stripe, and they had the privilege of the best seats in the
+theatres. Their decisions were laws <i>(leges).</i> A large part of them had
+held curule offices, which entitled them to a seat in the senate for
+life. The curule officers were the consuls, the praetors, the aediles,
+the quaestors, the tribunes; so that an able senator was sure of a great
+office in the course of his life. A man could scarcely be a senator
+unless he had held a great office, nor could he often have held a great
+office unless he were a senator. Thus it would seem that the Roman
+constitution for three hundred years after the expulsion of the kings
+was essentially aristocratic. The <i>plebs</i> had but small consideration
+till the time of the Gracchi.</p>
+
+<p>But after the institution of tribunes a change in the constitution
+gradually took place, so that it was neither aristocratic nor popular
+exclusively, but was composed of both elements, and was a system of
+balance of power between the various classes. The more complete the
+balance of power, the closer is the resemblance to a constitutional
+government. When one class acted as a check against another class, as
+gradually came to pass, until the subversion of liberties by successful
+generals, the senate, the magistrates, and the people in their
+assemblies shared between them the political power, but the senate had a
+preponderating influence. The judicial, the legislative, and the
+executive authority was as well defined in Roman legislation as it is in
+English or American. No person was above the authority of the laws; no
+one class could subvert the liberties and prerogatives of another
+class,--even the senate could not override the constitution. The
+consuls, elected by the centuries, presided over the senate and over the
+assemblies of the people. There was no absolute power exercised at Rome
+until the subversion of the constitution, except by dictators chosen by
+the senate in times of imminent danger. Nor could senators elect members
+of their own body; the censors alone had the right of electing from the
+ex-magistrates, and of excluding such as were unworthy. The consuls
+could remain in office but a year, and could be called to account when
+their terms of office had expired. The tribunes of the people ultimately
+could prevent a consul from convening the senate, could seize a consul
+and imprison him, and could veto an ordinance of the senate itself. The
+nobles had no exclusive privilege like the feudal aristocracy of
+mediaeval Europe, although it was their aim to secure the high
+magistracies to the members of their own body. The term <i>nobilitas</i>
+implied that some one of a man's ancestors had filled a curule
+magistracy. A patrician, long before the reforms of the Gracchi, had
+become a man of secondary importance, but the nobles were aristocrats to
+the close of the republic, and continued to secure the highest offices;
+they prevented their own extinction by admitting into their ranks those
+who distinguished themselves,--that is, exercising their influence in
+the popular elections to secure the magistracies from among themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman constitution then, as gradually developed by the necessities
+and crises that arose, which I have not space to mention, was a
+wonderful monument of human wisdom. The nobility were very powerful from
+their wealth and influence, but the people were not ground down. There
+were no oppressive laws to reduce them to practical slavery; what rights
+they gained they retained. They constantly extorted new privileges,
+until they were sufficiently powerful to be courted by demagogues. It
+was the demagogues, generally aristocratic ones, like Catiline and
+Caesar, who subverted the liberties of the people by buying votes. But
+for nearly five hundred years not a man arose whom the Roman people
+feared, and the proud symbol &quot;SPQR,&quot; on the standards of the armies of
+the republic, bore the name of the Roman Senate and People to the ends
+of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>When, however, the senate came to be made up of men whom the great
+generals selected; when the tribunes played into the hands of the very
+men they were created to oppose; when the high-priest of a people,
+originally religious, was chosen politically and without regard to moral
+or religious consideration; when aristocratic nobles left their own
+ranks to steal the few offices which the people controlled,--then the
+constitution, under which the Romans had advanced to the conquest of the
+world, became subverted, and the empire was a consolidated despotism.</p>
+
+<p>Under the emperors there was no constitution, since they combined in
+their own persons all the great offices of state, and controlled the
+senate, the army, the tribunals of the law, the distant provinces, the
+city itself, and regulated taxes and imposed burdens as they pleased.
+The senate lost its independence, the courts their justice, the army its
+spirit, and the people their hopes. And yet the old forms remained; the
+senate met as in the days of the Gracchi, and there were consuls and
+praetors as before.</p>
+
+<p>However much we may deplore the subversion of the Roman constitution and
+the absolute reign of the emperors, in which most historians see a
+political necessity, there was yet under these emperors, whether good or
+bad, the reign of law, the bequest of five hundred years' experience.
+The emperors reigned despotically, but under the forms of legislation.
+Nor did they attempt to subvert laws which did not interfere with their
+own political power. What is called jurisprudence they even improved, as
+that later imperial despot Napoleon gave a code to the nation he ruled.
+It is this science of jurisprudence, for which the Romans had a genius,
+that gives them their highest claim to be ranked among the benefactors
+of mankind. They created legal science. Its aim was justice,--equity in
+the relations between man and man. This was the pride of the Roman
+world, even under the rule of tyrants and madmen, and this has survived
+all the calamities of fifteen hundred years. The Roman laws--founded by
+the Republic, but symmetrically completed by the Empire--have more
+powerfully affected the interests of civilization than have the
+philosophy and arts of Greece. Roman jurisprudence was not perfectly
+developed until five hundred years after the Christian era, when
+Justinian consolidated it into the Code, the Pandects, and the
+Institutes. The classical jurists, like Gaius, Ulpian, and Paulus, may
+have laid the foundation, but the superstructure was raised under the
+auspices of the imperial despots.</p>
+
+<p>The earliest code of Roman laws was called the Twelve Tables, framed
+from the report of the commissioners sent to Athens and other Greek
+States, to collect what was most useful in their legal systems. The laws
+of the Twelve Tables were the basis of all the Roman laws, civil and
+religious. But the edicts of the praetors, who were the great equity
+judges as well as the common-law magistrates, proclaimed certain changes
+which custom and the practice of the courts had introduced; and these,
+added to the <i>leges populi</i>, or laws proposed by the consul and passed
+by the centuries, the <i>plebiscita</i>, or laws proposed by the tribunes
+and passed by the tribes, and the <i>senatus consulta,</i> or decrees of the
+senate, gradually swelled the laws to a great number. Three thousand
+engraved plates of brass containing these various laws were deposited in
+the capitol.</p>
+
+<p>Subtleties and fictions were in the course of litigations introduced by
+the lawyers to defeat the written statutes, and jurisprudence became
+complicated as early as the time of Cicero. Even the opinions of eminent
+lawyers were adopted by the legal profession as authoritative, and were
+recognized by the courts. The evils of a complicated jurisprudence were
+so evident in the seventh century of the city, that Q. Mucius Scaevola,
+a great lawyer, when consul, published a scientific elaboration of the
+civil law. Cicero studied law under him, and his contemporaries, Varus
+and Aelius Gallus, wrote learned treatises, from which extracts appear
+in the Digest made under the Emperor Justinian, 528 A.D. Julius Caesar
+contemplated a complete revision of the laws, but did not live long
+enough to carry out his intentions. His legislation, so far as he
+directed his mind to it, was very just. Among other laws established by
+him was one which ordained that creditors should accept lands as payment
+for their outstanding debts, according to the value determined by
+commissioners. In his time the relative value of money had changed, and
+was greatly diminished. The most important law of Augustus, deserving of
+all praise, was that which related to the manumission of slaves; but he
+did not interfere with the social relations of the people after he had
+deprived them of political liberty. He once attempted, by his <i>Lex
+Julia</i>, to counteract the custom which then prevailed, of abstaining
+from legal marriage and substituting concubinage instead, by which the
+free population declined; but this attempt to improve the morals of the
+people met with such opposition from the tribes and centuries that the
+next emperor abolished popular assemblies altogether, which Augustus had
+feared to do. The senate in the time of the emperors, composed chiefly
+of lawyers and magistrates, and entirely dependent upon them, became the
+great fountain of law. By the original constitution the people were the
+source of power, and the senate merely gave or refused its approbation
+to the laws proposed; but under the emperors the <i>comitia</i>, or popular
+assemblies, disappeared, and the senate passed decrees which had the
+force of laws, subject to the veto of the Emperor. It was not until the
+time of Septimus Severus and Caracalla (second century A.D.) that the
+legislative action of the senate ceased, and the edicts and rescripts of
+emperors took the place of all legislation.</p>
+
+<p>The golden age of Roman jurisprudence was from the birth of Cicero to
+the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus, 222 A.D.; before this period
+it was an occult science, confined to praetors, pontiffs, and patrician
+lawyers. But in the latter days of the republic law became the
+fashionable study of Roman youth, and eminent masters arose. The first
+great lawyer who left behind him important works was Q. Mucius Scaevola,
+who wrote a treatise in eighteen books on the civil law. &quot;He was,&quot; says
+Cicero, &quot;the most eloquent of jurists and the most learned of orators.&quot;
+This work, George Long thinks, had a great influence on contemporaries
+and on subsequent jurists, who followed it as a model. It is the oldest
+work from which there are any excerpts in the Digest.</p>
+
+<p>Servius Sulpicius, the friend of Cicero and his fellow-student in
+oratory, surpassed his teachers Balbus and Gallus, and was the equal in
+reputation of the great Mucius Scaevola, the Pontifex Maximus, who said
+it was disgraceful for a patrician and a noble to be ignorant of the law
+with which he had to do. Cicero ascribes the great superiority of
+Servius as a lawyer to the study of philosophy, which disciplined and
+developed his mind, and enabled him to deduce his conclusions from his
+premises with logical precision. He left behind him one hundred and
+eighty treatises, and had numerous pupils, among whom A. Ofilius and
+Alfenus Varus, Cato, Julius Caesar, Antony, and Cicero were great
+lawyers. Labeo, in the time of Augustus, wrote four hundred books on
+jurisprudence, spending six months in the year in giving instruction to
+his pupils and in answering legal questions, and the other six months in
+the country in writing books. Like all the great Roman jurists, he was
+versed in literature and philosophy, and so devoted to his profession
+that he refused political office. His rival Capito was equally learned
+in all departments of the law, and left behind him as many treatises as
+Labeo. These two jurists were the founders of celebrated schools, like
+the ancient philosophers, and each had distinguished followers. Gaius,
+who flourished in the time of the Antonines, was a great legal
+authority; and the recent discovery of his Institutes has revealed the
+least mutilated fragment of Roman jurisprudence which exists, and one of
+the most valuable, which sheds great light on ancient Roman law; it was
+found in the library of Verona. No Roman jurist had a higher reputation
+than Papinian, who was praefectus praetorio under Septimius Severus (193
+A.D.),--an office which made him second only to the Emperor, a sort of
+grand vizier, whose power extended over all departments of the State; he
+was beheaded by Caracalla. The great commentator Cujacius declares that
+he was the first of all lawyers who have been, or who are to be; that no
+one ever surpassed him in legal knowledge, and no one will ever equal
+him. Paulus was his contemporary, and held the same office as Papinian.
+He was the most fertile of Roman law-writers, and there is more taken
+from him in Justinian's Digest than from any other jurist, except
+Ulpian. There are two thousand and eighty-three excerpts from this
+writer,--one sixth of the whole Digest. No legal writer, ancient or
+modern, has handled so many subjects. In perspicuity he is said to be
+inferior to Ulpian, one of the most famous of jurists, who was his
+contemporary. Ulpian has also exercised a great influence on modern
+jurisprudence from the copious extracts of his writings in the Digest.
+He was the chief adviser of Alexander Severus, and like Paulus was
+praefectus praetorio. The number of excerpts in the Digest from him is
+said to be two thousand four hundred and sixty-two, and they form a
+third part of it. Some fragments of his writings remain. The last of the
+great civilians associated with Gaius, Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian, as
+oracles of jurisprudence, was Modestinus, who was a pupil of Ulpian. He
+wrote both in Greek and Latin. There are three hundred and forty-five
+excerpts in the Digest from his writings, the titles of which show the
+extent and variety of his labors.</p>
+
+<p>These eminent lawyers shed great glory on the Roman civilization. In the
+earliest times men sought distinction on the fields of battle, but in
+the latter days of the republic honor was conferred for forensic
+ability. The first pleaders of Rome were not jurisconsults, but
+aristocratic &quot;patrons,&quot; who looked after their &quot;clients,&quot;--men of lower
+social grade, who in return for protection and assistance rendered
+service, sometimes political by voting, sometimes pecuniary, sometimes
+military. But when law became complicated, a class of men arose to
+interpret it. These men were held in great honor, and reached by their
+services the highest offices,--like Cicero and Hortensius. No
+remuneration was given originally for forensic pleading beyond the
+services which the client gave to a patron, but gradually the practice
+of the law became lucrative. Hortensius, as well as Cicero, gained an
+immense fortune; he had several villas, a gallery of paintings, a large
+stock of wines, parks, fish-ponds, and aviaries. Cicero had villas in
+all parts of Italy, a house on the Palatine with columns of Numidian
+marble, and a fortune of twenty millions of sesterces, equal to eight
+hundred thousand dollars. Most of the great statesmen of Rome in the
+time of Cicero were either lawyers or generals. Crassus, Pompey, P.
+Sextus, M. Marcellus, P. Clodius, Asinius Pollio, C. Cicero, M.
+Antonius, Julius Caesar, Caelius, Brutus, Catullus, were all celebrated
+for their forensic efforts. Candidates for the bar studied four years
+under a distinguished jurist, and were required to pass a rigorous
+examination. The judges were chosen from members of the bar, as well as
+in later times the senators. The great lawyers were not only learned in
+the law, but possessed great accomplishments. Varro was a lawyer, and
+was the most learned man that Rome ever produced. But under the emperors
+the lawyers were chiefly distinguished for their legal attainments, like
+Paulus and Ulpian.</p>
+
+<p>During this golden age of Roman jurisprudence many commentaries were
+written on the Twelve Tables, the Perpetual Edict, the Laws of the
+People, and the Decrees of the senate, as well as a vast mass of
+treatises on every department of the law, most of which have perished.
+The Institutes of Gaius, already mentioned, are the most valuable that
+remain, and have thrown great light on some important branches
+previously involved in obscurity. Their use in explaining the Institutes
+of Justinian is spoken of very highly by Mackenzie, since the latter are
+mainly founded on the long-lost work of Gaius. The great lawyers who
+flourished from Trajan to Alexander Severus, like Gaius, Ulpian, Paulus,
+Papinian, and Modestinus, had no successors who can be compared with
+them, and their works became standard authorities in the courts of law.</p>
+
+<p>After the death of Alexander Severus, 235 A.D., no great accession was
+made to Roman law until Theodosius II., 438 A.D., caused the
+constitutions, from Constantine to his own time, to be collected and
+arranged in sixteen books. This was called the Theodosian Code, which
+in the West was held in high esteem. It was very influential among the
+Germanic nations, serving as the chief basis of their early legislation;
+it also paved the way for the more complete codification that followed
+in the Justinian Code, which superseded it.</p>
+
+<p>To Justinian belongs the immortal glory of reforming the jurisprudence
+of the Romans. &quot;In the space of ten centuries,&quot; says Gibbon, &quot;the
+infinite variety of laws and legal opinions had filled many thousand
+volumes, which no fortune could purchase, and no capacity could digest.
+Books could not easily be found, and the judges, poor in the midst of
+riches, were reduced to the exercise of their illiterate discretion.&quot;
+The emperors had very early begun to issue ordinances, under the
+authority of the various offices gathered into their hands; and these,
+together with the answers to appeals from the lower courts made to the
+emperors directly, or to the sort of supreme court which they
+established, were called <i>imperial constitutions</i> and <i>rescripts</i>.
+Justinian determined to unite in one body all the rules of law, whatever
+may have been their origin; and in the year 528 appointed ten
+jurisconsults, among whom was the celebrated Tribonian, to select and
+arrange the imperial constitutions and rescripts, leaving out what was
+obsolete or useless or contradictory, and to make such alterations as
+the circumstances required. This was called the <i>Code</i>, divided into
+twelve books, and comprising the constitutions from Hadrian to
+Justinian. It was published in fourteen months after it was undertaken.</p>
+
+<p>Justinian thereupon authorized Tribonian, then quaestor, <i>vir magnificus
+magisteria dignitate inter agentes decoratus,</i>--&quot;for great titles were
+now given to the officers of the crown,&quot;--to prepare, with the
+assistance of sixteen associates, a collection of extracts from the
+writings of the most eminent jurists, so as to form a body of law for
+the government of the empire, with power to select and omit and alter;
+and this immense work was done in three years, and published under the
+title of Digest, or Pandects. Says Lord Mackenzie:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All the judicial learning of former times was laid under contribution
+by Tribonian and his colleagues. Selections from the works of
+thirty-nine of the ablest lawyers, scattered over two thousand separate
+treatises, were collected in one volume; and care was taken to inform
+posterity that three millions of lines were abridged and reduced in
+these extracts to the modest number of one hundred and fifty thousand.
+Among the selected jurists only three names belonged to the age of the
+republic,--the civilians who flourished under the first emperors are
+seldom appealed to; so that most of the writers whose works have
+contributed to the Pandects lived within a period of one hundred years.
+More than a third of the whole Pandects is from Ulpian, and next to him
+the principal writers are Paulus, Papinian, Salvius Julianus, Pomponius,
+Q. Cervidius Scaevola, and Gaius. Though the variety of subjects is
+immense, the Digest has no claims to scientific arrangement. It is a
+vast cyclopedia of heterogeneous law badly arranged; everything is
+there, but everything is not in its proper place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Neither the Digest nor the Code was adapted to elementary instruction;
+it was therefore necessary to prepare a treatise on the principles of
+Roman law. This was intrusted to Tribonian and two professors,
+Theophilus and Dorotheus. It is probable that Tribonian merely
+superintended the work, which was founded chiefly on the Institutes of
+Gaius, divided into four books. It has been universally admired for its
+method and elegant precision. It was intended merely as an introduction
+to the Pandects and the Code, and was entitled the Institutes.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Novels</i>, or <i>New Constitutions, of Justinian</i> were subsequently
+published, being the new ordinances of the Emperor and the changes he
+thought proper to make, and were therefore of high authority. The Code,
+Pandects, Institutes, and Novels of Justinian comprise the Roman law as
+received in Europe, in the form given by the school of Bologna, and is
+called the &quot;Corpus Juris Civilis.&quot; Savigny says:--</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was in that form that the Roman law became the common law of Europe;
+and when, four centuries later, other sources came to be added to it,
+the <i>Corpus Juris</i> of the school of Bologna had been so universally
+received, and so long established as a basis of practice, that the new
+discoveries remained in the domain of science, and served only for the
+theory of the law. For the same reason, the Ante-Justinian law is
+excluded from practice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After Justinian the old texts were left to moulder as useless though
+venerable, and they have nearly all disappeared. The Code, the Pandects,
+and the Institutes were declared to be the only legitimate authority,
+and alone were admitted to the tribunals or taught in the schools. The
+rescripts of the early emperors recognized too many popular rights to
+suit the despotic character of Justinian; and the older jurists, like
+the Scaevolas, Sulpicius, and Labeo, were distasteful from their
+sympathy with free institutions. Different opinions have been expressed
+by the jurisconsults as to the merits of the Justinian collection. By
+some it is regarded as a vast mass of legal lumber; by others, as a
+beautiful monument of human labor. After the lapse of so many centuries
+it is certain that a large portion of it is of no practical utility,
+since it is not applicable to modern wants. But again, no one doubts
+that it has exercised a great and good influence on moral and political
+science, and introduced many enlightened views concerning the
+administration of justice as well as the nature of civil government, and
+thus has modified the codes of the Teutonic nations that sprang up on
+the ruins of the old Roman world. It was used in the Greek empire until
+the fall of Constantinople. It never entirely lost authority in Italy,
+although it remained buried for centuries, till the discovery of the
+Florentine copy of the Pandects at the siege of Amalfi in 1135. Peter
+Valence, in the eleventh century, made use of it in a law-book which he
+published.</p>
+
+<p>With the rise of the Italian cities, the study of Roman law revived, and
+Bologna became the seat from which it spread over Europe. In the
+sixteenth century the science of theoretical law passed from Italy to
+France, under the auspices of Francis I., when Cujas, or Cujacius,
+became the great ornament of the school of Bourges and the greatest
+commentator on Roman law until Dumoulin appeared. Grotius, in Holland,
+excited the same interest in civil law that Dumoulin did in France,
+followed by eminent professors in Leyden and the German universities. It
+was reserved for Pothier, in the middle of the eighteenth century, to
+reduce the Roman law to systematic order,--one of the most gigantic
+tasks that ever taxed the industry of man. The recent discoveries,
+especially that made by Niebuhr of the long-lost work of Gaius, have
+given a great impulse to the study of Roman law in Germany; and to this
+impulse no one has contributed so greatly as Savigny of Berlin.</p>
+
+<p>The great importance of the subject demands a more minute notice of the
+principles of the Roman law than the limits of this work properly allow.
+I shall therefore endeavor to abridge what has been written by eminent
+authorities, taking as a basis the late work of Lord Mackenzie and the
+learned and interesting essay of Professor Maine.</p>
+
+<p>The Institutes of Justinian began with the law of persons, recognizing
+the distinction of ranks. All persons are capable of enjoying civil
+rights, but not all in the same degree. Greater privileges are allowed
+to men than to women, to freemen than to slaves, to fathers than
+to children.</p>
+
+<p>In the eye of the law all Roman citizens were equal wherever they lived,
+whether in the capital or the provinces. Citizenship embraced both
+political and civil rights. Political rights had reference to the right
+of voting in the comitia; but this was not considered the essence of
+citizenship, which was the enjoyment of the <i>connubium</i>, and
+<i>commercium</i>. By the former the citizen could contract a valid marriage
+and acquire the rights resulting from it, particularly the paternal
+power; by the latter he could acquire and dispose of property.
+Citizenship was acquired by birth and by manumission; it was lost when a
+Roman became a prisoner of war, or had been exiled for crime, or became
+a citizen of another State. An unsullied reputation was required by law
+for a citizen to exercise his rights to their full extent.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman jurists acknowledged all persons originally free by natural
+law; and while they recognized slavery, they ascribed the power of
+masters entirely to the law and custom of nations. Persons taken in war
+were considered at the absolute control of their captors, and were
+therefore, <i>de facto</i>, slaves; the children of a female slave followed
+the condition of their mother, and belonged to her master. But masters
+could manumit their slaves, who thus became Roman citizens with some
+restrictions. After the emancipation of a slave, he was bound to render
+certain services to his former master as patron, and if the freedman
+died intestate his property reverted to his patron.</p>
+
+<p>Marriage was contracted by the simple consent of the parties, though in
+early times equality of condition was required. The <i>lex Canuleia</i>,
+A.U.C. 309, authorized connubium between patricians and plebeians, and
+the <i>lex Julia</i>, A.U.C. 757, allowed it between freedmen and freeborn.
+By the <i>conventio in manum</i>, a wife passed out of her family into that
+of her husband, who acquired all her property; without it, the woman
+remained in the power of her father, and retained the free disposition
+of her property. Polygamy was not permitted; and relationship within
+certain degrees rendered the parties incapable of contracting marriage.
+(These rules as to forbidden degrees have been substantially adopted in
+England.) Celibacy was discouraged. Concubinage was allowed, if a man
+had not a wife, and provided the concubine was not the wife of another
+man; this heathenish custom was abrogated by Justinian. The wife was
+entitled to protection and support from her husband, and she retained
+her property independent of him. On her marriage the father gave his
+daughter a dowry in proportion to his means, the management of which,
+with its usufruct during marriage, belonged to the husband; but he could
+not alienate real estate without the wife's consent, and on the
+dissolution of marriage the <i>dos</i> reverted to the wife. Divorce existed
+in all ages at Rome, and was very common at the beginning of the empire;
+to check its prevalence, laws were passed inflicting severe penalties on
+those whose bad conduct led to it. Every man, whether married or not,
+could adopt children under certain restrictions, and they passed
+entirely under paternal power. But the marriage relation among the
+Romans did not accord after all with those principles of justice which
+we see in other parts of their legislative code. The Roman husband, like
+the father, was a tyrant. The facility of divorce destroyed mutual
+confidence, and inflamed every trifling dispute; for a word or a
+message or a letter or the mandate of a freedman was quite sufficient to
+secure a separation. It was not until Christianity became the religion
+of the empire that divorce could not be easily effected without a just
+cause. This facility of divorce was a great stigma on the Roman laws,
+and the degradation of woman was the principal consequence. But woman
+never was honored in any Pagan land, although her condition at Rome was
+better than it was at Athens. She always was regarded as a possession
+rather than as a person; her virtue was mistrusted, and her aspirations
+were scorned; she was hampered and guarded more like a slave than the
+equal companion of man. But the progress of legislation, as a whole, was
+in her favor, and she continued to gain new privileges until the fall of
+the empire. The Roman Catholic Church regards marriage as one of the
+sacraments, and through all the Middle Ages and down to our own day the
+great authority of the Church has been one of the strongest supports of
+that institution, as necessary to Christianity as to civilization. We
+Americans have improved on the morality of Jesus, of the early and later
+Church, and of the great nations of modern Europe; and in many of our
+States persons are allowed to slip out of the marriage tie about as
+easily as they get into it.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is more remarkable in the Roman laws than the extent of
+paternal power. It was unjust, and bears the image of a barbarous age.
+Moreover, it seems to have been coeval with the foundation of the city.
+A father could chastise his children by stripes, by imprisonment, by
+exile, by sending them to the country with chains on their feet. He was
+even armed with the power of life and death. &quot;Neither age nor rank,&quot;
+says Gibbon, &quot;nor the consular office, could exempt the most illustrious
+citizen from the bonds of filial subjection. Without fear, though not
+without danger of abuse, the Roman legislators had reposed unbounded
+confidence in the sentiments of paternal love, and the oppression was
+tempered by the assurance that each generation must succeed in its turn
+to the awful dignity of parent and master.&quot; By an express law of the
+Twelve Tables a father could sell his children as slaves. But the abuse
+of paternal power was checked in the republic by the censors, and
+afterward by emperors. Alexander Severus limited the right of the father
+to simple correction, and Constantine declared the father who should
+kill his son to be guilty of murder. The rigor of parents in reference
+to the disposition of the property of children was also gradually
+relaxed. Under Augustus, the son could keep absolute possession of what
+he had acquired in war; under Constantine, he could retain any property
+acquired in the civil service, and all property inherited from the
+mother could also be retained. In later times, a father could not give
+his son or daughter to another by adoption without their consent. Thus
+this <i>patria potestas</i> was gradually relaxed as civilization advanced,
+though it remained a peculiarity of Roman law to the latest times, and
+was severer than is ever seen in the modern world. Fathers were bound to
+maintain their children when they had no separate means to supply their
+wants, and children were also bound to maintain their parents if in
+want. These reciprocal duties, creditable to the Roman lawgivers, are
+recognized in the French Code, but not in the English, which also
+recognizes the right of a father to bequeath his whole estate to
+strangers,--a thing which Roman fathers had not power to do. The age
+when children attained majority among the Romans was twenty-five years.
+Women were condemned to the perpetual tutelage of parents, husbands, or
+guardians, as it was supposed they never could attain to the age of
+reason and experience. The relation of guardian and ward was strictly
+observed by the Romans. They made a distinction between the right to
+govern a person and the right to manage his estate, although the tutor
+or guardian could do both. If the pupil was an infant, the tutor could
+act without the intervention of the pupil; if the pupil was above seven
+years of age, he was considered to have an imperfect will. The youth
+ceased to be a pupil, if a boy, at fourteen; if a girl, at twelve. The
+tutor managed the estate of the pupil, but was liable for loss
+occasioned by bad management. He could sell movable property when
+expedient, but not real estate, without judicial authority. The tutor
+named by the father was preferred to all others.</p>
+
+<p>The Institutes of Justinian pass from persons to things, or the law
+relating to real rights; in other words, that which pertains to
+property. Some things common to all, like air, light, the ocean, and
+things sacred, like temples and churches, are not classed as property.</p>
+
+<p>Two things were required for the transfer of property, for it is the
+essence of property that the owner of a thing should have the right to
+transfer it,--first, the consent of the owner to transfer the thing upon
+some just ground; and secondly, the actual delivery of the thing to the
+person who is to acquire it. Movables were presumed to be the property
+of the possessors, until positive evidence was produced to the contrary.
+A prescriptive title to movables was acquired by possession for one
+year, and to immovables by possession for two years. Undisturbed
+possession for thirty years constituted in general a valid title.</p>
+
+<p>When a Roman died, his heirs succeeded to all his property by hereditary
+right. If he left no will, his estate devolved upon his relatives in a
+certain order prescribed by law. The power of making a testament only
+belonged to citizens above puberty. Children under the paternal power
+could not make a will. Males above fourteen and females above twelve,
+when not under power, could make wills without the authority of their
+guardian; but pupils, lunatics, prisoners of war, criminals, and various
+other persons were incapable of making a testament. The testator could
+divide his property among his heirs in such proportions as he saw fit;
+but if there was no distribution, all the heirs participated equally. A
+man could disinherit either of his children by declaring his intentions
+in his will, but only for grave reasons,--such as grievously injuring
+his person or character or feelings, or attempting his life. No will was
+effectual unless one or more persons were appointed heirs to represent
+the deceased. Wills were required to be signed by the testator, or some
+person for him, in the presence of seven witnesses who were Roman
+citizens. If a will was made by a parent for distributing his property
+solely among his children, no witnesses were required; and the ordinary
+formalities were dispensed with among soldiers in actual service, and
+during the prevalence of pestilence. The testament was opened in the
+presence of the witnesses, or a majority of them; and after they had
+acknowledged their seals a copy was made, and the original was deposited
+in the public archives.</p>
+
+<p>According to the Twelve Tables, the powers of a testator in disposing
+of his property were unlimited; but in process of time, laws were
+enacted to restrain immoderate or unnatural bequests. By the Falcidian
+law, in the time of Augustus, no one could leave in legacies more than
+three fourths of his estate, so that the heirs could inherit at least
+one fourth. Again, a law was passed by which the descendants were
+entitled to one third of the succession, and to one half if there were
+more than four. In France, if a man die leaving one lawful child, he can
+dispose of only half his estate by will; if he leaves two children, he
+can dispose only of one third; if he leaves three or more children, then
+he can dispose by will of only one fourth of his estate. In England, a
+man can disinherit both his wife and children. These, and many other
+matters,--bequests in trust, succession of men dying intestate, heirs at
+law, etc.,--were regulated by the Romans in ways on which our modern
+legislators have improved little or none.</p>
+
+<p>In the matter of contracts the Roman law was especially comprehensive,
+and the laws of France and Scotland are substantially based upon the
+Roman system. The Institutes of Gaius and Justinian distinguish four
+sorts of obligations,--<i>aut re, aut verbis, aut literis, aut consensu</i>.
+Gibbon, in his learned chapter, prefers to consider the specific
+obligations of men to each other under promises, benefits, and
+injuries. Lord Mackenzie treats the subject in the order of the
+Institutes:--</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Obligations contracted <i>re</i>--by the intervention of <i>things</i>--are
+called by the moderns real contracts, because they are not perfected
+till something has passed from one party to another. Of this description
+are the contracts of loan, deposit, and pledge,--security for
+indebtedness. Till the subject is actually lent, deposited, or pledged,
+it does not form the special contract of loan, deposit, or pledge.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Next to the perfection of contracts by <i>re</i>,--the intervention of
+things,--were obligations contracted by <i>verbis</i>, spoken <i>words</i>, and by
+<i>literis</i>, or writings. The <i>verborum obligatio</i> was contracted by
+uttering certain words of formal style,--an interrogation being put by
+one party, and an answer given by the other. These stipulations were
+binding. In England all guarantees must be in writing.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>obligatio literis</i> was a written acknowledgment of debt, chiefly
+employed when money was borrowed; but the creditor could not sue upon a
+note within two years from its date, without being called upon also to
+prove that the money was in fact paid to the debtor.</p>
+
+<p>Contracts perfected by consent, <i>consensu</i>, had reference to sale,
+hiring; partnership, and mandate, or orders to be carried out by agents.
+All contracts of sale were good without writing.</p>
+
+<p>Acts which caused damage to another opened a new class of cases. The
+law obliged the wrong-doer to make reparation, and this responsibility
+extended to damages arising not only from positive acts, but from
+negligence or imprudence. In cases of libel or slander, the truth of the
+allegation might be pleaded in justification. In all cases it was
+necessary to show that an injury had been committed maliciously; but if
+damage arose in the exercise of a right, as killing a slave in
+self-defence, no claim for reparation could be maintained. If any one
+exercised a profession or trade for which he was not qualified, he was
+liable to all the damage his want of skill or knowledge might
+occasion,--a provision that some of our modern laws might advantageously
+revive. When any damage was done by a slave or an animal, the owner of
+the same was liable for the loss, though the mischief was done without
+his knowledge and against his will. If anything was thrown from a window
+giving on the public thoroughfare so as to injure any one by the fall,
+the occupier was bound to repair the damage, though done by a stranger.
+Legal claims might be transferred to a third person by sale, exchange,
+or donation; but to prevent speculators from purchasing debts at low
+prices, it was ordered that the assignee should not be entitled to exact
+from the debtor more than he himself had paid to acquire the debt, with
+interest,--a wise and just regulation.</p>
+
+<p>By the ancient constitution, the king had the prerogative of
+determining civil causes. The right then devolved on the consuls,
+afterward on the praetor, and in certain cases on the curule and
+plebeian ediles, who were charged with the internal police of the city.</p>
+
+<p>The praetor, a magistrate next in dignity to the consuls, acted as
+supreme judge of the civil courts, assisted by a council of
+jurisconsults to determine questions in law. At first one praetor was
+sufficient, but as the limits of the city and empire extended, he was
+joined by a colleague. After the conquest of Sicily, Sardinia, and the
+two Spains, new praetors were appointed to administer justice in the
+provinces. The praetor held his court in the comitium, wore a robe
+bordered with purple, sat in a curule chair, and was attended
+by lictors.</p>
+
+<p>The praetor delegated his power to three classes of judges, called
+respectively <i>judex</i>, <i>arbiter</i>, and <i>recuperator</i>. When parties were at
+issue about facts, it was the custom for the praetor to fix the question
+of law upon which the action turned, and then to remit to a delegate, or
+judge, to inquire into the facts and pronounce judgment according to
+them. In the time of Augustus there were four thousand judices, who were
+merely private citizens, generally senators or men of consideration. The
+judex was invested by the magistrate with a judicial commission for a
+single case only. After being sworn to duty, he received from the
+praetor a formula containing a summary of all the points under
+litigation, from which he was not allowed to depart. He was required not
+merely to investigate facts, but to give sentence; and as law questions
+were more or less mixed up with the case, he was allowed to consult one
+or more jurisconsults. If the case was beyond his power to decide, he
+could decline to give judgment. The arbiter, like the judex, received a
+formula from the praetor, and seemed to have more extensive power. The
+recuperators heard and determined cases, but the number appointed for
+each case was usually three or five.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>centumvirs</i> constituted a permanent tribunal composed of members
+annually elected, in equal numbers, from each tribe; and this tribunal
+was presided over by the praetor, and divided into four chambers, which
+under the republic was placed under the ancient quaestors. The
+centumvirs decided questions of property, embracing a wide range of
+subjects. The Romans had no class of men like the judges of modern
+times; the superior magistrates were changed annually, and political
+duties were mixed with judicial. The evil was partially remedied by the
+institution of legal assessors, selected from the most learned
+jurisconsults. Under the empire the praetors were greatly increased;
+under Tiberius there were sixteen who administered justice, besides the
+consuls, six ediles, and ten tribunes of the people. The Emperor himself
+became the supreme judge, and he was assisted in the discharge of his
+judicial duties by a council composed of the consuls, a magistrate of
+each grade, and fifteen senators. At first, the duties of the praetorian
+prefects were purely military, but finally they discharged important
+judicial functions. The prefect of the city, in the time of the
+emperors, was a great judicial personage, who heard appeals from the
+praetors themselves.</p>
+
+<p>In all cases brought before the courts, the burden of proof was with the
+party asserting an affirmative fact. Proof by writing was generally
+considered most certain, but proof by witnesses was also admitted.
+Pupils, lunatics, infamous persons, interested parties, near relatives,
+and slaves could not bear evidence, nor any person who had a strong
+enmity against either party. The witnesses were required to give their
+testimony on oath. In most cases two witnesses were enough to prove a
+fact. When witnesses gave conflicting testimony, the judge regarded
+those who were most worthy of credit rather than those who were most
+numerous. In the English courts the custom used to be as with the
+Romans, of refusing testimony from those who were interested; but this
+has been removed. On the failure of regular proof, the Roman law allowed
+a party to refer the facts in a civil action to the oath of his
+adversary.</p>
+
+<p>Under the Roman republic there was no appeal in civil suits, but under
+the emperors a regular system was established. Under Augustus there was
+an appeal from all the magistrates to the prefect of the city, and from
+him to the praetorian prefect or even to the Emperor. In the provinces
+there was an appeal from the municipal magistrates to the governors, and
+from them to the Emperor, as Paul appealed from Festus to Caesar. Under
+Justinian no appeal was allowed from a suit which did not involve at
+least twenty pounds in gold.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to criminal courts among the Romans during the republic, the
+only body which had absolute power of life and death was the <i>comitia
+centuriata</i>. The senate had no jurisdiction in criminal cases, so far as
+Roman citizens were concerned. It was only in extraordinary emergencies
+that the senate, with the consuls, assumed the responsibility of
+inflicting summary punishment. Under the emperors, the senate was armed
+with the power of criminal jurisdiction; and as the senate was the tool
+of the imperator, he could crush whomsoever he pleased.</p>
+
+<p>As it was inconvenient, when Rome had become a very great city, to
+convene the comitia for the trial of offenders, the expedient was
+adopted of delegating the jurisdiction of the people to persons invested
+with temporary authority, called <i>quaestors</i>. These were finally
+established into regular and permanent courts, called <i>quaestores
+perpetui</i>. Every case submitted to these courts was tried by a judge and
+jury. It was the duty of the judge to preside and regulate proceedings
+according to law; and it was the duty of the jury, after hearing the
+evidence and pleadings, to decide on the guilt or innocence of the
+accused. As many as fifty persons frequently composed the jury, whose
+names were drawn out of an urn. Each party had a right to challenge a
+certain number, and the verdict was decided by a majority of votes. At
+first the judices were chosen from the senate, and afterward from the
+equestrians, and then again from both orders. But in process of time the
+quaestores perpetui gave place to imperial magistrates. The accused
+defended himself in person or by counsel.</p>
+
+<p>The Romans divided <i>crimes</i> into public and private. Private crimes
+could be prosecuted only by the party injured, and were generally
+punished by pecuniary fines, as among the old Germanic nations.</p>
+
+<p>Of public crimes the <i>crimen laesae majestatis</i>, or treason, was
+regarded as the greatest; and this was punished with death and with
+confiscation of goods, while the memory of the offender was declared
+infamous. Greater severity could scarcely be visited on a culprit.
+Treason comprehended conspiracy against the government, assisting the
+enemies of Rome, and misconduct in the command of armies. Thus Manlius,
+in spite of his magnificent services, was hurled from the Tarpeian
+Rock, because he was convicted of an intention to seize upon the
+government. Under the empire not only any attempt on the life of the
+Emperor was treason, but disrespectful words or acts. The criminal was
+even tried after death, that his memory might become infamous; and this
+barbarous practice was perpetuated in France and Scotland as late as the
+beginning of the seventeenth century. In England men have been executed
+for treasonable words. Besides treason there were other crimes against
+the State, such as a breach of the peace, extortion on the part of
+provincial governors, embezzlement of public property, stealing sacred
+things, bribery,--most of which offences were punished by pecuniary
+penalties.</p>
+
+<p>But there were also crimes against individuals, which were punished with
+the death penalty. Wilful murder, poisoning, and parricide were
+capitally punished. Adultery was punished by banishment, besides a
+forfeiture of considerable property; Constantine made it a capital
+offence. Rape was punished with death and confiscation of goods, as in
+England till a late period, when transportation for life became the
+penalty. The punishments inflicted for forgery, coining base money, and
+perjury were arbitrary. Robbery, theft, patrimonial damage, and injury
+to person and property were private trespasses, and not punished by the
+State. After a lapse of twenty years without accusation, crimes were
+supposed to be extinguished. The Cornelian, Pompeian, and Julian laws
+formed the foundation of criminal jurisprudence. This however never
+attained the perfection that was seen in the Civil Code, in which the
+full maturity of Roman wisdom was reached. The emperors greatly
+increased the severity of punishments, as was probably necessary in a
+corrupt state of society. After the decemviral laws fell into disuse,
+the Romans in the days of the republic passed from extreme rigor to
+great lenity, as is observable in the transition from the Puritan r&eacute;gime
+to our own times in the United States. Capital punishment for several
+centuries was exceedingly rare, and was frequently prevented by
+voluntary exile. Under the empire, again, public executions were
+frequent and revolting.</p>
+
+<p>Fines were a common mode of punishment with the Romans, as with the
+early Germans. Imprisonment in a public jail was rare, the custom of
+bail being in general use. Although retaliation was authorized by the
+Twelve Tables for bodily injuries, it was seldom exacted, since
+pecuniary compensation was taken in lieu. Corporal punishments were
+inflicted upon slaves, but rarely upon citizens, except for military
+crimes; but Roman citizens could be sold into slavery for various
+offences, chiefly military, and criminals were often condemned to labor
+in the mines or upon public works. Banishment was common,--<i>aquae et
+ignis interdictio</i>; and this was equivalent to the deprivation of the
+necessities of life and incapacitating a person from exercising the
+rights of citizenship. Under the emperors persons were confined often on
+the rocky islands off the coast, or in a compulsory residence in a
+particular place assigned. Thus Chrysostom was sent to a dreary place on
+the banks of the Euxine, and Ovid was banished to Tomi. Death, when
+inflicted, was by hanging, scourging, and beheading; also by strangling
+in prison. Slaves were often crucified, and were compelled to carry
+their cross to the place of execution. This was the most ignominious and
+lingering of all deaths; it was abolished by Constantine, from reverence
+to the sacred symbol. Under the emperors, execution took place also by
+burning alive and exposure to wild beasts; it was thus the early
+Christians were tormented, since their offence was associated with
+treason. Persons of distinction were treated with more favor than the
+lower classes, and their punishments were less cruel and ignominious;
+thus Seneca, condemned for privity to treason, was allowed to choose his
+mode of death. The criminal laws of modern European States followed too
+often the barbarous custom of the Roman emperors until a recent date.
+Since the French Revolution the severity of the penal codes has been
+much modified.</p>
+
+<p>The penal statutes of Rome however, as Gibbon emphatically remarks,
+&quot;formed a very small portion of the Code and the Pandects; and in all
+judicial proceedings the life or death of the citizen was determined
+with less caution and delay than the most ordinary question of covenant
+or inheritance.&quot; This was owing to the complicated relations of society,
+by which obligations are created or annulled, while duties to the State
+are explicit and well known, being inscribed not only on tables of
+brass, but on the conscience itself. It was natural, with the growth and
+development of commerce and dominion, that questions should arise which
+could not be ordinarily settled by ancient customs, and the practice of
+lawyers and the decisions of judges continually raised new difficulties,
+to be met only by new edicts. It is a pleasing fact to record, that
+jurisprudence became more just and enlightened as it became more
+intricate. The principles of equity were more regarded under the
+emperors than in the time of Cato. It is in the application of these
+principles that the laws of the Romans have obtained so high
+consideration; their abuse consisted in the expense of litigation, and
+the advantages which the rich thus obtained over the poor.</p>
+
+<p>But if delays and forms led to an expensive and vexatious administration
+of justice, these were more than compensated by the checks which a
+complicated jurisprudence gave to hasty or partial decisions. It was in
+the minuteness and precision of the forms of law, and in the foresight
+with which questions were anticipated in the various transactions of
+business, that the Romans in their civil and social relations were very
+much on a level with modern times. It would be difficult to find in the
+most enlightened of modern codes greater wisdom and foresight than
+appear in the legacy of Justinian as to all questions pertaining to the
+nature, the acquisition, the possession, the use, and the transfer of
+property. Civil obligations are most admirably defined, and all
+contracts are determined by the wisest application of the natural
+principles of justice. Nothing can be more enlightened than the laws
+which relate to leases, to sales, to partnerships, to damages, to
+pledges, to hiring of work, and to quasi-contracts. The laws pertaining
+to the succession to property, to the duties of guardians, to the rights
+of wards, to legacies, to bequests in trust, and to the general
+limitation of testamentary powers were singularly clear. The regulations
+in reference to intestate succession, and to the division of property
+among males and females, were wise and just; we find no laws of entail,
+no unequal rights, no absurd distinction between brothers, no peculiar
+privileges given to males over females, or to older sons. Particularly
+was everything pertaining to property and contracts and wills guarded
+with the most jealous care. A man was sure of possessing his own, and of
+transmitting it to his children. In the Institutes of Justinian we see
+on every page a regard to the principles of natural justice: but
+moreover we find that malicious witnesses should be punished; that
+corrupt judges should be visited with severe penalties; that libels and
+satires should subject their authors to severe chastisement; that every
+culprit should be considered innocent until his guilt was proved.</p>
+
+<p>No infringement on personal rights could be tolerated. A citizen was
+free to go where he pleased, to do whatsoever he would, if he did not
+trespass on the rights of another; to seek his pleasure unobstructed,
+and pursue his business without vexatious incumbrances. If he was
+injured or cheated, he was sure of redress; nor could he be easily
+defrauded with the sanction of the laws. A rigorous police guarded his
+person, his house, and his property; he was supreme and uncontrolled
+within his family. This security to property and life and personal
+rights was guaranteed by the greatest tyrants. Although political
+liberty was dead, the fullest personal liberty was enjoyed under the
+emperors, and it was under their sanction that jurisprudence in some of
+the most important departments of life reached perfection. If injustice
+was suffered it was not on account of the laws, but owing to the
+depravity of men, the venality of the rich, and the tricks of lawyers;
+the laws were wise and equal. The civil jurisprudence of the Romans
+could be copied with safety by the most enlightened of European States;
+indeed, it is already the foundation of their civil codes, especially in
+France and Germany.</p>
+
+<p>That there were some features in the Roman laws which we in these
+Christian times cannot indorse, and which we reprehend, cannot be
+denied. Under the republic there was not sufficient limit to paternal
+power, and the <i>pater familias</i> was necessarily a tyrant. It was unjust
+that the father should control the property of his son, and cruel that
+he was allowed an absolute control not only over his children, but also
+his wife. Yet the limits of paternal power were more and more curtailed,
+so that under the later emperors fathers were not allowed to have more
+authority than was perhaps expedient.</p>
+
+<p>The recognition of slavery as a domestic institution was another blot,
+and slaves could be treated with the grossest cruelty and injustice
+without possibility of redress. But here the Romans were not sinners
+beyond all other nations, and our modern times have witnessed a
+parallel. It was not the existence of slavery, however, which was the
+greatest evil, but the facility by which slaves could be made. The laws
+pertaining to debt were severe, and were most disgraceful in dooming a
+debtor to the absolute power of a creditor. To subject men of the same
+race to slavery for trifling debts which they could not discharge, was
+the great defect of the Roman laws. But even these cruel regulations
+were modified, so that in the corrupt times of the empire there was no
+greater practical severity than was common in England as late as one
+hundred years ago. The temptations to fraud were enormous in a wicked
+state of society, and demanded a severe remedy. It is possible that our
+modern laws may show too great leniency to debtors who are not merely
+unfortunate, but dishonest. The problem is not yet solved, whether men
+should be severely handled who are guilty of reckless and unprincipled
+speculations and unscrupulous dealings, or whether they should be
+allowed immunity to prosecute their dangerous and disgraceful courses.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, the penal code of the Romans in reference to breaches of trust
+or carelessness or ignorance, by which property was lost or squandered,
+may have been too severe, as is still the case in England in reference
+to hunting game on another's grounds. It was hard to doom a man to death
+who drove away his neighbor's cattle, or even entered in the night his
+neighbor's house; but severe penalties alone will keep men from crimes
+where there is a low state of virtue and religion, and general
+prosperity and contentment become impossible where there is no efficient
+protection to property. Society was never more secure and happy in
+England than when vagabonds could be arrested, and when petty larcenies
+were visited with certain retribution. Every traveller in France and
+England feels that in regard to the punishment of crime, those older
+countries, restricted as are their political privileges, are in most
+questions of secure and comfortable living vastly superior to our own.
+The Romans lost under the emperors their political rights, but gained
+protection and safety in their relations with society. Where quiet and
+industrious citizens feel safe in their homes, are protected from
+scoundrels in their dealings, have ample scope for industrial
+enterprise, and are free to choose their private pleasures, they resign
+themselves to the loss of electing their rulers without great
+unhappiness. There are greater evils in the world than the deprivation
+of the elective franchise, lofty and glorious as is this privilege. The
+arbitrary rule of the emperors was fatal to political aspirations and
+rights and the growth of a genuine manhood; yet it is but fair to note
+that the evils of political slavery were qualified and set off by the
+excellence of the civil code and the privileges of social freedom.</p>
+
+<p>The great practical evil connected with Roman jurisprudence was the
+intricacy and perplexity and uncertainty of the laws, together with the
+expense involved in litigation. The class of lawyers was large, and
+their gains were extortionate. Justice was not always to be found on the
+side of right. The law was uncertain as well as costly. The most learned
+counsel could be employed only by the rich, and even judges were venal,
+so that the poor did not easily find adequate redress. But all this is
+the necessary attendant on a factitious state of society, and by many is
+regarded as being quite as characteristic of modern, civilized Christian
+England and America as it was of Pagan Rome. Material civilization leads
+to an undue estimate of money; and when money purchases all that
+artificial people desire, then all classes will prostitute themselves
+for its possession, and justice, dignity, and elevation of sentiment
+will be forced to retreat,--as hermits sought a solitude when society
+had reached its lowest degradation, out of pure despair of its
+renovation.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>AUTHORITIES.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>The authorities for this chapter are very numerous. Since the Institutes
+of Gaius have been recovered, many eminent writers on Roman law have
+appeared, especially in Germany and France. Many might be cited, but for
+all ordinary purposes of historical study the work of Lord Mackenzie on
+Roman Law, together with the articles of George Long in Smith's
+Dictionary, will be found most useful. Maine's Treatise on Ancient Law
+is exceedingly interesting and valuable. Gibbon's famous chapter should
+also be read by every student. There is a fine translation of the
+Institutes of Justinian, which is quite accessible, by Dr. Harris of
+Oxford. The Code, Pandects, Institutes, and Novels are of course the
+original authority, with the long-lost Institutes of Gaius.</p>
+
+<p>In connection with the study of the Roman law, it would be well to read
+Sir George Bowyer's Commentaries on the Modern Civil Law. Also Irving,
+Introduction to the Study of the Civil Law; Lindley, Introduction to the
+Study of Jurisprudence; Wheaton's Elements of International Law; and
+Vattel, Le Droit des Gens.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="THE_FINE_ARTS."></a>THE FINE ARTS.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, PAINTING.</p>
+
+<p>500-430 B.C.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>My object in the present lecture is not a criticism of the principles
+of art so much as an enumeration of its various forms among the
+ancients, to show that in this department of civilization they reached
+remarkable perfection, and were not inferior to modern Christian nations.</p>
+
+<p>The first development of art among all the nations of antiquity was in
+architecture. The earliest buildings erected were houses to protect
+people from heat, cold, and the fury of the elements of Nature. At that
+remote period much more attention was given to convenience and practical
+utility than to beauty or architectural effect. The earliest houses were
+built of wood, and stone was not employed until temples and palaces
+arose. Ordinary houses were probably not much better than log-huts and
+hovels, until wealth was accumulated by private persons.</p>
+
+<p>The earliest monuments of enduring magnificence were the temples of
+powerful priests and the palaces of kings; and in Egypt and Assyria
+these appear earliest, as well as most other works showing civilization.
+Perhaps the first great monument which arose after the deluge of Noah
+was the Tower of Babel, built probably of brick. It was intended to be
+very lofty, but of its actual height we know nothing, nor of its style
+of architecture. Indeed, we do not know that it was ever advanced beyond
+its foundations; yet there are some grounds for supposing that it was
+ultimately finished, and became the principal temple of the Chaldaean
+metropolis.</p>
+
+<p>From the ruins of ancient monuments we conclude that architecture
+received its earliest development in Egypt, and that its effects were
+imposing, massive, and grand. It was chiefly directed to the erection of
+palaces and temples, the ruins of which attest grandeur and vastness.
+They were built of stone, in blocks so huge and heavy that even modern
+engineers are at loss to comprehend how they could have been transported
+and erected. All the monuments of the Pharaohs are wonders, especially
+such as appear in the ruins of Karnak,--a temple formerly designated as
+that of Jupiter Ammon. It was in the time of Sesostris, or Rameses the
+Great, the first of the Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty, that
+architecture in Egypt reached its greatest development. Then we find the
+rectangular-cut blocks of stone in parallel courses, the heavy pier, the
+cylindrical column with its bell-shaped capital, and the bold and
+massive rectangular architraves extending from pier to pier and column
+to column, surmounted by a deep covered coping or cornice.</p>
+
+<p>The imposing architecture of Egypt was chiefly owing to the impressive
+vastness of the public buildings. It was not produced by beauty of
+proportion or graceful embellishments; it was designed to awe the
+people, and kindle sentiments of wonder and astonishment. So far as this
+end was contemplated it was nobly reached; even to this day the
+traveller stands in admiring amazement before those monuments that were
+old three thousand years ago. No structures have been so enduring as the
+Pyramids; no ruins are more extensive and majestic than those of Thebes.
+The temple of Karnak and the palace of Rameses the Great were probably
+the most imposing ever built by man. This temple was built of blocks of
+stone seventy feet in length, on a platform one thousand feet long and
+three hundred wide, with pillars sixty feet in height. But this and
+other structures did not possess that unity of design which marked the
+Grecian temples. Alleys of colossal sphinxes formed the approach. At
+Karnak the alley was six thousand feet long, and before the main body
+of the edifice stood two obelisks commemorative of the dedication. The
+principal structures of Egyptian temples do not follow the straight
+line, but begin with pyramidal towers which flank the gateways; then
+follow, usually, a court surrounded with colonnades, subordinate
+temples, and houses for the priests. A second pylon, or pyramidal tower,
+leads to the interior and most considerable part of the temple,--a
+portico inclosed with walls, which receives light only through the
+entablature or openings in the roof. Adjoining this is the cella of the
+temple, without columns, enclosed by several walls, often divided into
+various small chambers with monolithic receptacles for idols or mummies
+or animals. The columns stand within the walls. The colonnade is not, as
+among the Greeks, an expansion of the temple; it is merely the wall with
+apertures. The walls, composed of square blocks, are perpendicular only
+on the inside, and bevelled externally, so that the thickness at the
+bottom sometimes amounts to twenty-four feet; thus the whole building
+assumes a pyramidal form, the fundamental principle of Egyptian
+architecture. The columns are more slender than the early Doric, are
+placed close together, and have bases of circular plinths; the shaft
+diminishes upward, and is ornamented with perpendicular or oblique
+furrows, but not fluted like Grecian columns. The capitals are of the
+bell form, ornamented with all kinds of foliage, and have a narrow but
+high abacus. They abound with sculptured decorations, the designs of
+which were borrowed from the vegetation of the country. The highest of
+the columns of the temple of Luxor is five and a quarter times the
+greatest diameter.</p>
+
+<p>But no monuments have ever excited so much curiosity and wonder as the
+Pyramids, not in consequence of any particular beauty or ingenuity in
+their construction, but because of their immense size and unknown age.
+None but sacerdotal monarchs would ever have erected them; none but a
+fanatical people would ever have toiled upon them. We do not know for
+what purpose they were raised, unless as sepulchres for kings. They are
+supposed to have been built at a remote antiquity, between two thousand
+and three thousand years before Christ. Lepsius thought that the oldest
+of these Pyramids were built more than three thousand years before
+Christ. The Pyramid of Cheops, at Memphis, covers a square whose side is
+seven hundred and sixty-eight feet, and rises into the air nearly five
+hundred feet. It is a solid mass of stone, which has suffered less from
+time than the mountains near it. Possibly it stands over an immense
+substructure, in which may yet be found the lore of ancient Egypt; it
+may even prove to be the famous labyrinth of which Herodotus speaks,
+built by the twelve kings of Egypt. According to this author, one
+hundred thousand men worked on this monument for forty years.</p>
+
+<p>The palaces of the kings are mere imitations of the temples, their only
+difference of architecture being that their rooms are larger and in
+greater numbers. Some think that the famous labyrinth was a collective
+palace of many rulers.</p>
+
+<p>Of Babylonian architecture we know little beyond what the Hebrew
+Scriptures and ancient authors tell us. But though nothing survives of
+ancient magnificence, we know that a city whose walls, according to
+Herodotus, were eighty-seven feet in thickness, three hundred and
+thirty-seven in height, and sixty miles in circumference, and in which
+were one hundred gates of brass, must have had considerable
+architectural splendor. This account of Babylon, however, is probably
+exaggerated, especially as to the height of the walls. The tower of
+Belus, the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Obelisk of Semiramis were
+probably wonderful structures, certainly in size, which is one of the
+conditions of architectural effect.</p>
+
+<p>The Tyrians must have carried architecture to considerable perfection,
+since the Temple of Solomon, one of the most magnificent in the ancient
+world, was probably built by artists from Tyre. It was not remarkable
+for size,--it was, indeed, very small,--but it had great splendor of
+decoration. It was of quadrangular outline, erected upon a solid
+platform of stone, and bearing a striking resemblance to the oldest
+Greek temples, like those of Aegina and Paestum. The portico of the
+Temple as rebuilt by Herod was one hundred and eighty feet high, and the
+Temple itself was entered by nine gates, thickly coated with silver and
+gold. The inner sanctuary was covered on all sides with plates of gold,
+and was dazzling to the eye. The various courts and porticos and palaces
+with which it was surrounded gave to it a very imposing effect.</p>
+
+<p>Architectural art in India was not so impressive and grand as in Egypt,
+and was directed chiefly to the erection of temples. Nor is it of very
+ancient date. There is no stone architecture now remaining in India,
+according to Sir James Fergusson, older than two and a half centuries
+before Christ; and this is in the form of Buddhist temples, generally
+traced to the great Asoka, who reigned from 272 B.C. to 236 B.C., and
+who established Buddhism as a state religion. There were doubtless
+magnificent buildings before his time, but they were of wood, and have
+all perished. We know, however, nothing about them.</p>
+
+<p>The Buddhist temples were generally excavated out of the solid rock, and
+only the fa&ccedil;ades were ornamented. These were not larger than ordinary
+modern parochial churches, and do not give the impression of
+extraordinary magnificence. Besides these rock-hewn temples in India
+there remain many examples of a kind of memorial monument called
+<i>stupas</i>, or <i>topes</i>. The earliest of these are single columns; but the
+later and more numerous are in the shape of cones or circular mounds,
+resembling domes, rarely exceeding one hundred feet in diameter. Around
+the apex of each was a balustrade, or some ornamental work, about six
+feet in diameter. These topes remind one of the Pantheon at Rome in
+general form, but were of much smaller size. They were built on a stone
+basement less than fifty feet in height, above which was the brickwork.
+In process of time they came to resemble pyramidal towers rather than
+rounded domes, and were profusely ornamented with carvings. The great
+peculiarity of all Indian architectural monuments is excessive
+ornamentation rather than beauty of proportion or grand effect.</p>
+
+<p>In course of time, however, Indian temples became more and more
+magnificent; and a Chinese traveller in the year 400 A.D. describes one
+in Gaudhava as four hundred and seventy feet high, decorated with every
+sort of precious substance. Its dome, as it appears in a bas-relief,
+must have rivalled that of St. Peter's at Rome; but no trace of it now
+remains. The topes of India, which were numerous, indicate that the
+Hindus were acquainted with the arch, both pointed and circular, which
+was not known to the Egyptians or the Greeks. The most important of
+these buildings, in which are preserved valuable relics, are found in
+the Punjab. They were erected about twenty years before Christ. In size,
+they are about one hundred and twenty-seven feet in diameter. Connected
+with the circular topes are found what are called <i>rails</i>, surrounding
+the topes, built in the form of rectangles, with heavy pillars. One of
+the most interesting of these was found to be two hundred and
+seventy-five feet long, having square pillars twenty-two feet in height,
+profusely carved with scenes from the life of Buddha, topped by capitals
+in the shape of elephants supporting a succession of horizontal stone
+beams, all decorated with a richness of carving unknown in any other
+country. The Amravati rail, one of the finest of the ancient monuments
+of India, is found to be one hundred and ninety-five by one hundred and
+sixty-five feet, having octagonal pillars ornamented with the most
+elaborate carvings.</p>
+
+<p>From an architectural point of view, the rails were surpassed by the
+<i>chaityas</i>, or temple-caves, in western India. These were cut in the
+solid rock. Some one thousand different specimens are to be found. The
+facades of these caves are perfect, generally in the form of an arch,
+executed in the rock with every variety of detail, and therefore
+imperishable without violence. The process of excavation extended
+through ten centuries from the time of Asoka; and the interiors as well
+as the fa&ccedil;ades were highly ornamented with sculptures. The temple-caves
+are seldom more than one hundred and fifty feet deep and fifty feet in
+width, and the roofs are supported by pillars like the interior of
+Gothic cathedrals, some of which are of beautiful proportions with
+elaborated capitals. Though these rock-hewn temples are no larger than
+ordinary Christian churches, they are very impressive from the richly
+decorated carvings; they were lighted from a single opening in the
+fa&ccedil;ade, sometimes in the shape of a horseshoe.</p>
+
+<p>Besides these chaityas, or temples, there are still more numerous
+<i>viharas</i>, or monasteries, found in India, of different dates, but none
+older than the third century before Christ. They show a central hall,
+surrounded on three sides by cells for the monks. On the fourth side is
+an open verandah; facing this is generally a shrine with an image of
+Buddha. These edifices are not imposing unless surrounded by galleries,
+as some were, supported by highly decorated pillars. The halls are
+constructed in several stories with heavy masonry, in the shape of
+pyramids adorned with the figures of men and animals. One of these halls
+in southern India had fifteen hundred cells. The most celebrated was
+the Nalanda monastery, founded in the first century by Nagarjuna, which
+accommodated ten thousand priests, and was enclosed by a wall measuring
+sixteen hundred feet by four hundred. It was to Central India what Mount
+Casino was to Italy, and Cluny was to France, in the Middle Ages,--the
+seat of learning and art.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until the Mohammedan conquest in India that architecture
+received a new impulse from the Saracenic influence. Then arose the
+mosques, minarets, and palaces which are a wonder for their
+magnificence, and in which are seen the influence of Greek art as well
+as that of India. There is an Oriental splendor in these palaces and
+mosques which has called out the admiration of critics, although it is
+different from those types of beauty which we are accustomed to praise.
+But these later edifices were erected in the Middle Ages, coeval with
+the cathedrals of Europe, and therefore do not properly come under the
+head of ancient art, in which the ancient Hindus, whether of Aryan or
+Turanian descent, did not particularly excel. It was in matters of
+religion and philosophy that the Hindus felt most interest, even as the
+ancient Jews thought more of theology than of art and science.</p>
+
+<p>Architecture, however, as the expression of genius and high
+civilization, was carried to perfection only by the Greeks, who excelled
+in so many things. It was among the ancient Dorians, who descended from
+the mountains of northern Greece eighty years after the fall of Troy,
+that architectural art worthy of the name first appeared. The Pelasgi
+erected Cyclopean structures fifteen hundred years before Christ, as
+seen in the massive walls of the Acropolis at Athens, constructed of
+huge blocks of hewn stone, and in the palaces of the princes of the
+heroic times. The lintel of the doorway of the Mycenaean treasury is
+composed of a single stone twenty-seven feet long and sixteen broad. But
+these edifices, which aimed at splendor and richness merely, were
+deficient in that simplicity and harmony which have given immortality to
+the temples of the Dorians. In this style of architecture everything was
+suitable to its object, and was grand and noble. The great thickness of
+the columns, the beautiful entablature, the ample proportion of the
+capital, the great horizontal lines of the architrave and cornice
+predominating over the vertical lines of the columns, the severity of
+geometrical forms produced for the most part by straight lines, gave an
+imposing simplicity to the Doric temple.</p>
+
+<p>How far the Greek architects were indebted to the Egyptian we cannot
+tell, for though columns are found amid the ruins of the Egyptian
+temples, they are of different shape from any made by the Greeks. In the
+structures of Thebes we find both the tumescent and the cylindrical
+columns, from which amalgamation might have been produced the Doric
+column. The Greeks seized on beauty wherever they found it, and improved
+upon it. The Doric column was not probably an entirely new creation, but
+shaped after models furnished by the most original of all the ancient
+nations, even the Egyptians. The Doric temples were uniform in plan. The
+columns were fluted, and were generally about six diameters in height;
+they diminished gradually upward from the base, with a slightly con
+vexed swelling; they were surmounted by capitals regularly proportioned
+according to their height. The entablature which the column supported
+was also of a certain number of diameters in height. So regular and
+perfect was the plan of the temple, that &quot;if the dimensions of a single
+column and the proportion the entablature should bear to it were given
+to two individuals acquainted with the style, with directions to compose
+a temple, they would produce designs exactly similar in size,
+arrangement, and general proportions.&quot; The Doric order possessed a
+peculiar harmony, but taste and skill were nevertheless necessary in
+order to determine the number of diameters a column should have, and
+also the height of the entablature.</p>
+
+<p>The Doric was the favorite order of European Greece for one thousand
+years, and also of her colonies in Sicily and Magna Graecia. It was
+used exclusively until after the Macedonian conquest, and was chiefly
+applied to temples. The massive temples of Paestum, the colossal
+magnificence of the Sicilian ruins, and the more elegant proportions of
+the Athenian structures, like the Parthenon and Temple of Theseus, show
+the perfection of the Doric architecture. Although the general style of
+all the Doric temples is so uniform, hardly two temples were alike. The
+earlier Doric was more massive; the later was more elegant, and its
+edifices were rich in sculptured decorations. Nothing could surpass the
+beauty of a Doric temple in the time of Pericles. The stylobate, or
+general base upon which the columnar story stood, from two thirds to a
+whole diameter of a column in height, was built in three equal courses,
+which gradually receded upward and formed steps, as it were, of a grand
+platform. The column, simply set upon the stylobate, without base or
+pedestal, was from four to six diameters in height, with twenty flutes,
+having a capital of half a diameter. On this rested the entablature, two
+column-diameters in height, which was divided into architrave (lower
+mouldings), frieze (broad middle space), and cornice (upper mouldings).
+The great beauty of the temple was the portico in front,--a forest of
+columns supporting the triangular pediment, about a diameter and a half
+to the apex, making an angle at the base of about fourteen degrees.
+From the pediment projects the cornice, while in the apex and at the
+base of the flat three-cornered gable are sculptured ornaments,
+generally the figures of men or animals. The whole outline of columns
+supporting the entablature is graceful, while the variety of light and
+shade arising from the arrangement of mouldings and capitals produces a
+grand effect.</p>
+
+<p>The Parthenon, the most beautiful specimen of the Doric, has never been
+equalled, and it still stands august in its ruins, the glory of the old
+Acropolis and the pride of Athens. It was built of white Pentelic
+marble, and rested on a basement of limestone. It was two hundred and
+twenty-seven feet in length, one hundred and one in breadth, and
+sixty-five in height, surrounded with forty-eight fluted columns, six
+feet and two inches at the base and thirty-four feet in height, while
+within the peristyle, at either end, was an interior range of columns
+standing before the end of the cella. The frieze and the pediment were
+elaborately ornamented with reliefs and statues, and the cella, within
+and without, was adorned with the choicest sculptures of Phidias, The
+remains of the exquisite sculptures of the pediment and the frieze were
+in the early part of this century brought from Greece by Lord Elgin,
+purchased by the English government, and placed in the British Museum,
+where, preserved from further dilapidation, they stand as indisputable
+evidence of the perfection of Greek art. The grandest adornment of the
+temple was the colossal statue of Minerva in the eastern apartment of
+the cella, forty feet in height, composed of gold and ivory; the inner
+walls of the chamber were decorated with paintings, and the whole temple
+was a repository of countless treasure. But the Parthenon, so regular to
+the eye with its vertical, oblique, and horizontal lines, was curved in
+every line, with the exception of the gable,--with its entablature,
+architrave, frieze, and cornice, together with the basement, all arched
+upwards; and even the columns had a slight convexity of vertical line,
+amounting to 1/550 of the entire height of shaft, though so slightly as
+not to be perceptible. These curved lines gave to the structure a
+peculiar grace which cannot be imitated, as well as an effect
+of solidity.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly coeval with the Doric was the Ionic order, invented by the
+Asiatic Greeks, still more graceful, though not so imposing. The
+Acropolis is a perfect example of this order. The column is nine
+diameters in height, with a base, while the capital is more ornamented
+than the Doric. The shaft is fluted with twenty-four flutes and
+alternate fillets (flat longitudinal ridges), and the fillet is about a
+quarter the width of the flute. The pediment is flatter than that of
+the Doric order, and more elaborate. The great distinction of the Ionic
+column is a base, and a capital formed with volutes (spiral scrolls),
+the shaft also being more slender. Vitruvius, the greatest authority
+among the ancients in architecture, says that &quot;the Greeks, in inventing
+these two kinds of columns, imitated in the one the naked simplicity and
+dignity of man, and in the other the delicacy and ornaments of woman;
+the base of the Ionic was the imitation of sandals, and the volutes of
+ringlets.&quot; The discoveries of many of the Ionic ornamentations among the
+remains of Assyrian architecture indicate the Oriental source of the
+Ionic ideas, just as the Doric style seems to have originated in Egypt.
+The artistic Greeks, however, always simplified and refined upon
+their masters.</p>
+
+<p>The Corinthian order exhibits a still greater refinement and elegance
+than the other two, and was introduced toward the end of the
+Peloponnesian War. Its peculiarity consists in columns with foliated
+capitals modelled after the acanthus leaf, and still greater height,
+about ten diameters, surmounted with a more ornamented entablature. Of
+this order the most famous temple in Greece was that of Minerva at
+Tegea, built by Scopas of Paros, but destroyed by fire four hundred
+years before Christ.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing more distinguished Greek architecture than the variety, the
+grace, and the beauty of the mouldings, generally in eccentric curves.
+The general outline of the moulding is a gracefully flowing cyma, or
+wave, concave at one end and convex at the other, like an Italic <i>f</i>,
+the concavity and convexity being exactly in the same curve, according
+to the line of beauty which Hogarth describes.</p>
+
+<p>The most beautiful application of Greek architecture was in the temples,
+which were very numerous and of extraordinary grandeur, long before the
+Persian War. Their entrance was always from the west or the east. They
+were built either in an oblong or round form, and were mostly adorned
+with columns. Those of an oblong form had columns either in the front
+alone, or in the eastern and western fronts, or on all the four sides.
+They generally had porticos attached to them, and were without windows,
+receiving their light from the door or from above. The friezes were
+adorned with various sculptures, as were sometimes the pediments, and no
+expense was spared upon them. The most important part of the temple was
+the cell (<i>cella,</i> or temple proper, a square chamber), in which the
+statue of the deity was kept, generally surrounded with a balustrade. In
+front of the cella was the vestibule, and in the rear or back a chamber
+in which the treasures of the temple were kept. Names were applied to
+the temples as well as to the porticos, according to the number of
+columns in the portico at either end of the temple,--such as the
+tetrastyle (four columns in front), or hexastyle (when there were six).
+There were never more than ten columns across the front. The Parthenon
+had eight, but six was the usual number. It was the rule to have twice
+as many columns along the sides as in front. Some of the temples had
+double rows of columns on all sides, like that of Diana at Ephesus and
+of Quirinus at Rome. The distance between the columns varied from one
+diameter and a half to four diameters. About five eighths of a Doric
+temple were occupied by the cella, and three eighths by the portico.</p>
+
+<p>That which gives to the Greek temples so much simplicity and
+harmony,--the great elements of beauty in architecture,--is the simple
+outline in parallelogrammic and pyramidal forms, in which the lines are
+uninterrupted through their entire length. This simplicity and harmony
+are more apparent in the Doric than in any of the other orders, but
+pertain to all the Grecian temples of which we have knowledge. The Ionic
+and Corinthian, or the voluted and foliated orders, do not possess that
+severe harmony which pervades the Doric; but the more beautiful
+compositions are so consummate that they will ever be taken as models
+of study.</p>
+
+<p>There is now no doubt that the exteriors of the Grecian temples were
+ornamented in color,--perhaps with historical pictures, etc.,--although
+as the traces have mostly disappeared it is impossible to know the
+extent or mode of decoration. It has been thought that the mouldings
+also may have been gilded or colored, and that the background of the
+sculptures had some flat color laid on as a relief to the raised
+figures. We may be sure, however it was done, that the effect was not
+gaudy or crude, but restrained within the limits of refinement and good
+taste by the infallible artistic instinct of those masters of the
+beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>It is not the magnitude of the Greek temples and other works of art
+which most impresses us. It is not for this that they are important
+models; it is not for this that they are copied and reproduced in all
+the modern nations of Europe. They were generally small compared with
+the temples of Egypt, and with the vast dimensions of Roman
+amphitheatres; only three or four would compare in size with a Gothic
+cathedral,--the Parthenon, the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens, and
+the Temple of Diana at Ephesus; even the Pantheon at Rome is small,
+compared with the later monuments of the Caesars. The traveller is
+always disappointed in contemplating the ruins of Greek buildings so far
+as size is concerned. But it is their matchless proportions, their
+severe symmetry, the grandeur of effect, the undying beauty, the
+graceful form which impress us, and make us feel that they are perfect.
+By the side of the Colosseum they are insignificant in magnitude; they
+do not cover acres, like the baths of Caracalla. Yet who has copied the
+Flavian amphitheatre; who erects an edifice after the style of the
+Thermae? All artists, however, copy the Parthenon. That, and not the
+colossal monuments of the Caesars, reappears in the capitals of Europe,
+and stimulates the genius of a Michael Angelo or a Christopher Wren.</p>
+
+<p>The flourishing period of Greek architecture was during the period from
+Pericles to Alexander,--one hundred and thirteen years. The Macedonian
+conquest introduced more magnificence and less simplicity. The Roman
+conquest accelerated the decline in severe taste, when different orders
+began to be used indiscriminately.</p>
+
+<p>In this state the art passed into the hands of the masters of the world,
+and they inaugurated a new era in architecture. The art was still
+essentially Greek, although the Romans derived their first knowledge
+from the Etruscans. The Cloaca Maxima, or Great Sewer, was built during
+the reign of the second Tarquin,--the grandest monument of the reign of
+the kings. It is not probable that temples and other public buildings in
+Rome were either beautiful or magnificent until the conquest of Greece,
+after which Grecian architects were employed. The Romans adopted the
+Corinthian style, which they made even more ornamental; and by the
+successful combination of the Etruscan arch with the Grecian column they
+laid the foundation of a new and original style, susceptible of great
+variety and magnificence. They entered into architecture with the
+enthusiasm of their teachers, but in their passion for novelty lost
+sight of the simplicity which is the great fascination of a Doric
+temple. Says Memes:--</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They [the Romans] deemed that lightness and grace were to be attained
+not so much by proportion between the vertical and the horizontal as by
+the comparative slenderness of the former. Hence we see a poverty in
+Roman architecture in the midst of profuse ornament. The great error was
+a constant aim to lessen the diameter while they increased the elevation
+of the columns. Hence the massive simplicity and severe grandeur of the
+ancient Doric disappear in the Roman, the characteristics of the order
+being frittered down into a multiplicity of minute details.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When the Romans used the Doric at all, they used a base for the column,
+which was never done at Athens. They also altered the Doric capital,
+which cannot be improved. Again, most of the Grecian Doric temples were
+peripteral,--surrounded with pillars on all the sides. But the Romans
+built with porticos on one front only, which had a greater projection
+than the Grecian. They generally were projected three columns, while the
+Greek portico had usually but a single row. Many of the Roman temples
+are circular, like the Pantheon, which has a portico of eight columns
+projected to the depth of three. Nor did the Romans construct hypaethral
+or uncovered temples with internal columns, like the Greeks. The
+Pantheon is an exception, since the dome has an open eye; and one great
+ornament of this beautiful structure is in the arrangement of internal
+columns placed in the front of niches, composed of antae, or pier-formed
+ends of walls, to carry an entablature round under an attic on which the
+cupola rests. The Romans also adopted coupled columns, broken and
+recessed entablatures, and pedestals, which are considered blemishes.
+They again paid more attention to the interior than to the exterior
+decoration of their palaces and baths,--as we may infer from the ruins
+of Hadrian's villa at Tivoli and the excavations of Pompeii.</p>
+
+<p>The pediments (roof-angles) used in Roman architectural works are
+steeper than those made by the Greeks, varying in inclination from
+eighteen to twenty-five degrees, instead of fourteen. The mouldings are
+the same as the Grecian in general form, although they differ from them
+in contour; they are less delicate and graceful, but were used in great
+profusion. Roman architecture is overdone with ornament, every moulding
+carved, and every straight surface sculptured with foliage or historical
+subjects in relief. The ornaments of the frieze consist of foliage and
+animals, with a variety of other things. The great exuberance of
+ornament is considered a defect, although when applied to some
+structures it is exceedingly beautiful. In the time of the first Caesars
+Roman architecture had, from the huge size of the buildings, a character
+of grandeur and magnificence. Columns and arches appeared in all the
+leading public buildings,--columns generally forming the external and
+arches the internal construction. Fabric after fabric arose on the ruins
+of others. The Flavii supplanted the edifices of Nero, which ministered
+to debauchery, by structures of public utility.</p>
+
+<p>The Romans invented no new principle in architecture, unless it be the
+arch, which was known, though not practically applied, by the Assyrians,
+Egyptians, and Greeks. The Romans were a practical and utilitarian
+people, and needed for their various structures greater economy of
+material than was compatible with large blocks of stone, especially for
+such as were carried to great altitudes. The arch supplied this want,
+and is perhaps the greatest invention ever made in architecture. No
+instance of its adoption occurs in the construction of Greek edifices
+before Greece became a part of the Roman empire. Its application dates
+back to the Cloaca Maxima, and may have been of Etrurian invention. Some
+maintain that Archimedes of Sicily was the inventor of the arch; but to
+whomsoever the glory of the invention is due, it is certain that the
+Romans were the first of European nations to make a practical
+application of its wonderful qualities. It enabled them to rear vast
+edifices with the humblest materials, to build bridges, aqueducts,
+sewers, amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, as well as temples and
+palaces. The merits of the arch have never been lost sight of by
+succeeding generations, and it is an essential element in the
+magnificent Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Its application
+extends to domes and cupolas, to floors and corridors and roofs, and to
+various other parts of buildings where economy of material and labor is
+desired. It was applied extensively to doorways and windows, and is an
+ornament as well as a utility. The most imposing forms of Roman
+architecture may be traced to a knowledge of the properties of the arch,
+and as brick was more extensively used than any other material, the arch
+was invaluable. The imperial palace on Mount Palatine, the Pantheon
+(except its portico and internal columns), the temples of Peace, of
+Venus and Rome, and of Minerva Medica, were of brick. So were the great
+baths of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian, the villa of Hadrian, the
+city walls, the villa of Mecaenas at Tivoli, and most of the palaces of
+the nobility,--although, like many of the temples, they were faced with
+stone. The Colosseum was of travertine, a cheap white limestone, and
+faced with marble. It was another custom to stucco the surface of brick
+walls, as favorable to decorations. In consequence of the invention of
+the arch, the Romans erected a greater variety of fine structures than
+either the Greeks or Egyptians, whose public edifices were chiefly
+confined to temples. The arch entered into almost every structure,
+public or private, and superseded the use of long stone-beams, which
+were necessary in the Grecian temples, as also of wooden timbers, in the
+use of which the Romans were not skilled, and which do not really
+pertain to architecture: an imposing edifice must always be constructed
+of stone or brick. The arch also enabled the Romans to economize in the
+use of costly marbles, of which they were very fond, as well as of other
+stones. Some of the finest columns were made of Egyptian granite, very
+highly polished.</p>
+
+<p>The extensive application of the arch doubtless led to the deterioration
+of the Grecian architecture, since it blended columns with arcades, and
+thus impaired the harmony which so peculiarly marked the temples of
+Athens and Corinth; and as taste became vitiated with the decline of
+the empire, monstrous combinations took place, which were a great fall
+from the simplicity of the Parthenon and the interior of the Pantheon.</p>
+
+<p>But whatever defects marked the age of Diocletian and Constantine, it
+can never be questioned that the Romans carried architecture to a
+perfection rarely attained in our times. They may not have equalled the
+severe simplicity of their teachers the Greeks, but they surpassed them
+in the richness of their decorations, and in all buildings designed for
+utility, especially in private houses and baths and theatres.</p>
+
+<p>The Romans do not seem to have used other than semicircular arches. The
+Gothic, or Pointed, or Christian architecture, as it has been variously
+called, was the creation of the Middle Ages, and arose almost
+simultaneously in Europe after the first Crusade, so that it would seem
+to be of Eastern origin. But it was a graft on the old Roman arch, in
+the curve of the ellipse rather than the circle.</p>
+
+<p>Aside from this invention of the arch, to which we are indebted for the
+most beautiful ecclesiastical structures ever erected, we owe everything
+in architecture to the Greeks and Romans. We have found out no new
+principles which were not known to Vitruvius. No one man was the
+inventor or creator of the wonderful structures which ornamented the
+cities of the ancient world. We have the names of great architects, who
+reared various and faultless models, but they all worked upon the same
+principles, and these can never be subverted; so that in architecture
+the ancients are our schoolmasters, whose genius we revere the more we
+are acquainted with their works. What more beautiful than one of those
+grand temples which the cultivated heathen Greeks erected to the worship
+of their unknown gods!--the graduated and receding stylobate as a base
+for the fluted columns, rising at regular distances in all their severe
+proportion and matchless harmony, with their richly carved capitals
+supporting an entablature of heavy stones, most elaborately moulded and
+ornamented with the figures of plants and animals; and rising above
+this, on the ends of the temple, or over a portico several columns deep,
+the pediment, covered with chiselled cornices, with still richer
+ornaments rising from the apices and at the feet, all carved in white
+marble, and then spread over an area larger than any modern churches,
+making a forest of columns to bear aloft those ponderous beams of stone,
+without anything tending to break the continuity of horizontal lines, by
+which the harmony and simplicity of the whole are regulated! So
+accurately squared and nicely adjusted were the stones and pillars of
+which these temples were composed, that there was scarcely need even of
+cement. Without noise or confusion or sound of hammers did those
+temples rise, since all their parts were cut and carved in the distant
+quarries, and with mathematical precision. And within the cella, nearly
+concealed by surrounding columns, were the statues of the gods, and the
+altars on which incense was offered, or sacrifices made. In every part,
+interior and exterior, do we see a matchless proportion and beauty,
+whether in the shaft or the capital or the frieze or the pilaster or the
+pediment or the cornices, or even the mouldings,--everywhere grace and
+harmony, which grow upon the mind the more they are contemplated. The
+greatest evidence of the matchless creative genius displayed in those
+architectural wonders is that after two thousand years, and with all the
+inventions of Roman and modern artists, no improvement has been made;
+and those edifices which are the admiration of our own times are deemed
+beautiful as they approximate the ancient models, which will forever
+remain objects of imitation. No science can make two and two other than
+four; no art can make a Doric temple different from the Parthenon
+without departing from the settled principles of beauty and proportion
+which all ages have indorsed. Such were the Greeks and Romans in an art
+which is one of the greatest indices of material civilization, and which
+by them was derived from geometrical forms, or the imitation of Nature.</p>
+
+<p>The genius displayed by the ancients in sculpture is even more
+remarkable than their skill in architecture. Sculpture was carried to
+perfection only by the Greeks; but they did not originate the art, since
+we read of sculptured images from the remotest antiquity. The earliest
+names of sculptors are furnished by the Old Testament. Assyria and Egypt
+are full of relics to show how early this art was cultivated. It was not
+carried to perfection as early, probably, as architecture; but rude
+images of gods, carved in wood, are as old as the history of idolatry.
+The history of sculpture is in fact identified with that of idols. The
+Egyptians were probably the first who made any considerable advances in
+the execution of statues. Those which remain are rude, simple, uniform,
+without beauty or grace (except a certain serenity of facial expression
+which seems to pervade all their portraiture), but colossal and grand.
+Nearly two thousand years before Christ the walls of Thebes were
+ornamented with sculptured figures, even as the gates of Babylon were
+made of sculptured bronze. The dimensions of Egyptian colossal figures
+surpass those of any other nation. The sitting statues of Memnon at
+Thebes are fifty feet in height, and the Sphinx is twenty-five,--all of
+granite. The number of colossal statues was almost incredible. The
+sculptures found among the ruins of Karnak must have been made nearly
+four thousand years ago. They exhibit great simplicity of design, but
+have not much variety of expression. They are generally carved from the
+hardest stones, and finished so nicely that we infer that the Egyptians
+were acquainted with the art of hardening metals for their tools to a
+degree not known in our times. But we see no ideal grandeur among any of
+the remains of Egyptian sculpture; however symmetrical or colossal,
+there is no diversity of expression, no trace of emotion, no
+intellectual force,--everything is calm, impassive, imperturbable. It
+was not until sculpture came into the hands of the Greeks that any
+remarkable excellence in grace of form or expression of face was
+reached. But the progress of development was slow. The earliest carvings
+were rude wooden images of the gods, and more than a thousand years
+elapsed before the great masters were produced whose works marked the
+age of Pericles.</p>
+
+<p>It is not my object to give a history of the development of the plastic
+art, but to show the great excellence it attained in the hands of
+immortal sculptors.</p>
+
+<p>The Greeks had an intuitive perception of the beautiful, and to this
+great national trait we ascribe the wonderful progress which sculpture
+made. Nature was most carefully studied by the Greek artists, and that
+which was most beautiful in Nature became the object of their imitation.
+They even attained to an ideal excellence, since they combined in a
+single statue what could not be found in a single individual,--as Zeuxis
+is said to have studied the beautiful forms of seven virgins of Crotona
+in order to paint his famous picture of Venus. Great as was the beauty
+of Phryne or Aspasia or Lais, yet no one of them could have served for a
+perfect model; and it required a great sensibility to beauty in order to
+select and idealize what was most perfect in the human figure. Beauty
+was adored in Greece, and every means were used to perfect it,
+especially beauty of form, which is the characteristic excellence of
+Grecian statuary. The gymnasia were universally frequented; and the
+great prizes of the games, bestowed for feats of strength and agility,
+were regarded as the highest honors which men could receive,--the
+subject of the poet's ode and the people's admiration. Statues of the
+victors perpetuated their fame and improved the sculptor's art. From the
+study of these statues were produced those great creations which all
+subsequent ages have admired; and from the application of the principles
+seen in these forms we owe the perpetuation of the ideas of grace and
+beauty such as no other people besides the Greeks had ever discovered,
+or indeed scarcely appreciated. The sculpture of the human figure became
+a noble object of ambition in Greece, and was most munificently
+rewarded. Great artists arose, whose works adorned the temples of Greece
+so long as she preserved her independence, and when that was lost, her
+priceless productions were scattered over Asia and Europe. The Romans
+especially seized what was most prized, whether or not they could tell
+what was most perfect. Greece lived in her marble statues more than in
+her government or laws; and when we remember the estimation in which
+sculpture was held among the Greeks, the great prices paid for
+masterpieces, the care and attention with which they were guarded and
+preserved, and the innumerable works which were produced, filling all
+the public buildings, especially consecrated places, and even open
+spaces and the houses of the rich and great, calling from all classes
+admiration and praise,--we cannot think it likely that so great
+perfection will ever be reached again in those figures which are
+designed to represent beauty of form. Even the comparatively few statues
+which have survived the wars and violence of two thousand years,
+convince us that the moderns can only imitate; they can produce no
+creations equal to those by Athenian artists. &quot;No mechanical copying of
+Greek statues, however skilful the copyist, can ever secure for modern
+sculpture the same noble and effective character it possessed among the
+Greeks, for the simple reason that the imitation, close as may be the
+resemblance, is but the result of the eye and hand, while the original
+is the expression of a true and deeply felt sentiment. Art was not
+sustained by the patronage of a few who affect to have what is called
+<i>taste</i>; in Greece the artist, having a common feeling for the beautiful
+with his countrymen, produced his works for the public, which were
+erected in places of honor and dedicated in temples of the gods.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was not until the Persian wars awakened among the Greeks the
+slumbering consciousness of national power, and Athens became the
+central point of Grecian civilization, that sculpture, like architecture
+and painting, reached its culminating point of excellence under Phidias
+and his contemporaries. Great artists had previously made themselves
+famous, like Miron, Polycletus, and Ageladas; but the great riches which
+flowed into Athens at this time gave a peculiar stimulus to art,
+especially under the encouragement of such a ruler as Pericles, whose
+age was the golden era of Grecian history.</p>
+
+<p>Pheidias, or Phidias, was to sculpture what Aeschylus was to tragic
+poetry,--the representative of the sublime and grand. He was born four
+hundred and eighty-four years before Christ, and was the pupil of
+Ageladas. He stands at the head of the ancient sculptors, not from what
+<i>we</i> know of him, for his masterpieces have perished, but from the
+estimation in which he was held by the greatest critics of antiquity. It
+was to him that Pericles intrusted the adornment of the Parthenon, and
+the numerous and beautiful sculptures of the frieze and the pediment
+were the work of artists whom he directed. His great work in that
+wonderful edifice was the statue of the goddess Minerva herself, made of
+gold and ivory, forty feet in height, standing victorious, with a spear
+in her left hand and an image of victory in her right, with helmet on
+her head, and her shield resting by her side. The cost of this statue
+may be estimated when we consider that the gold alone used upon it was
+valued at forty-four talents, equal to five hundred thousand dollars of
+our money,--an immense sum in that age. Some critics suppose that this
+statue was overloaded with ornament, but all antiquity was unanimous in
+its admiration. The exactness and finish of detail were as remarkable as
+the grandeur of the proportions. Another of the famous works of Phidias
+was a colossal bronze statue of Athene Promachos, sixty feet in height,
+on the Acropolis between the Propylaea and the Parthenon. But both of
+these yielded to the colossal statue of Zeus in his great temple at
+Olympia, represented in a sitting posture, forty feet high, on a
+pedestal of twenty feet. The god was seated on a throne. Ebony, gold,
+ivory, and precious stones formed, with a multitude of sculptured and
+painted figures, the wonderful composition of this throne. In this his
+greatest work the artist sought to embody the idea of majesty and
+repose,--of a supreme deity no longer engaged in war with Titans and
+Giants, but enthroned as a conqueror, ruling with a nod the subject
+world, and giving his blessing to those victories which gave glory to
+the Greeks. So famous was this statue, which was regarded as the
+masterpiece of Grecian art, that it was considered a calamity to die
+without having seen it; and this served for a model for all subsequent
+representations of majesty and power in repose among the ancients. It
+was removed to Constantinople by Theodosius I., and was destroyed by
+fire in the year 475 A.D. Phidias executed various other famous works,
+which have perished; but even those that were executed under his
+superintendence which have come down to our times,--like the statues
+which ornamented the pediment of the Parthenon,--are among the finest
+specimens of art that exist, and exhibit the most graceful and
+appropriate forms which could have been selected, uniting grandeur with
+simplicity, and beauty with accuracy of anatomical structure. His
+distinguishing excellence was ideal beauty, and that of the
+sublimest order.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the wonders and mysteries of ancient art the colossal statues of
+ivory and gold were perhaps the most remarkable, and the difficulty of
+executing them has been set forth by the ablest of modern critics, like
+Winckelmann, Heyne, and De Quincey. &quot;The grandeur of their dimensions,
+the perfection of their workmanship, the richness of their materials,
+their majesty, beauty, and ideal truth, the splendor of the architecture
+and pictorial decoration with which they were associated,--all conspired
+to impress the beholder with wonder and awe, and induce a belief of the
+actual presence of the god.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After the Peloponnesian War a new school of art arose in Athens, which
+appealed more to the passions. Of this school was Praxiteles, who aimed
+to please without seeking to elevate or instruct. No one has probably
+ever surpassed him in execution. He wrought in bronze and marble, and
+was one of the artists who adorned the Mausoleum of Artemisia. Without
+attempting the sublime impersonation of the deity, in which Phidias
+excelled, he was unsurpassed in the softer graces and beauties of the
+human form, especially in female figures. His most famous work was an
+undraped statue of Venus, for his native town of Cnidus, which was so
+remarkable that people flocked from all parts of Greece to see it. He
+did not aim at ideal majesty so much as at ideal gracefulness; his works
+were formed from the most beautiful living models, and hence expressed
+only the ideal of sensuous charms. It is probable that the Venus de
+Medici of Cleomenes was a mere copy of the Aphrodite of Praxiteles,
+which was so highly extolled by, the ancient authors; it was of Parian
+marble, and modelled from the celebrated Phryne. His statues of Dionysus
+also expressed the most consummate physical beauty, representing the god
+as a beautiful youth crowned with ivy, and expressing tender and dreamy
+emotions. Praxiteles sculptured several figures of Eros, or the god of
+love, of which that at Thespiae attracted visitors to the city in the
+time of Cicero. It was subsequently carried to Rome, and perished by a
+conflagration in the time of Titus. One of the most celebrated statues
+of this artist was an Apollo, many copies of which still exist. His
+works were very numerous, but chiefly from the circle of Dionysus,
+Aphrodite, and Eros, in which adoration for corporeal attractions is the
+most marked peculiarity, and for which the artist was fitted by his
+dissolute life.</p>
+
+<p>Scopas was the contemporary of Praxiteles, and was the author of the
+celebrated group of Niobe, which is one of the chief ornaments of the
+gallery of sculpture at Florence. He flourished about three hundred and
+fifty years before Christ, and wrought chiefly in marble. He was
+employed in decorating the Mausoleum which Artemisia erected to her
+husband,--one of the wonders of the world. His masterpiece is said to
+have been a group representing Achilles conducted to the island of Leuce
+by the divinities of the sea, which ornamented the shrine of Domitius in
+the Flaminian Circus. In this, tender grace, heroic grandeur, daring
+power, and luxurious fulness of life were combined with wonderful
+harmony. Like the other great artists of this school, Scopas exhibited
+the grandeur and sublimity for which Phidias was celebrated, but a
+greater refinement and luxury, as well as skill in the use of drapery.</p>
+
+<p>Sculpture in Greece culminated, as an art, in Lysippus, who worked
+chiefly in bronze. He is said to have executed fifteen hundred statues,
+and was much esteemed by Alexander the Great, by whom he was extensively
+patronized. He represented men not as they were, but as they appeared to
+be; and if he exaggerated, he displayed great energy of action. He aimed
+to idealize merely human beauty, and his imitation of Nature was carried
+out in the minutest details. None of his works are extant; but as he
+alone was permitted to make the statue of Alexander, we infer that he
+had no equals. The Emperor Tiberius transferred one of his statues (that
+of an athlete) from the baths of Agrippa to his own chamber, which so
+incensed the people that he was obliged to restore it. His favorite
+subject was Hercules, and a colossal statue of this god was carried to
+Rome by Fabius Maximus, when he took Tarentum, and afterward was
+transferred to Constantinople; the Farnese Hercules and the Belvidere
+Torso are probably copies of this work. He left many eminent scholars,
+among whom were Chares (who executed the famous Colossus of Rhodes),
+Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus who sculptured the group of the
+&quot;Laoco&ouml;n.&quot; The Rhodian school was the immediate offshoot from the school
+of Lysippus at Sicyon; and from this small island of Rhodes the Romans,
+when they conquered it, carried away three thousand statues. The
+Colossus was one of the wonders of the world (seventy cubits in height);
+and the Laoco&ouml;n (the group of the Trojan hero and his two sons encoiled
+by serpents) is a perfect miracle of art, in which pathos is exhibited
+in the highest degree ever attained in sculpture. It was discovered in
+1506, near the baths of Titus, and is one of the choicest remains of
+ancient plastic art.</p>
+
+<p>The great artists of antiquity did not confine themselves to the
+representation of man, but also carved animals with exceeding accuracy
+and beauty. Nicias was famous for his dogs, Myron for his cows, and
+Lysippus for his horses. Praxiteles composed his celebrated lion after a
+living animal. &quot;The horses of the frieze of the Elgin Marbles,&quot; says
+Flaxman, &quot;appear to live and move; to roll their eyes, to gallop,
+prance, and curvet; the veins of their faces and legs seem distended
+with circulation. The beholder is charmed with the deer-like lightness
+and elegance of their make; and although the relief is not above an inch
+from the background, and they are so much smaller than nature, we can
+scarcely suffer reason to persuade us they are not alive.&quot; The Greeks
+also carved gems, cameos, medals, and vases, with unapproachable
+excellence. Very few specimens have come down to our times, but those
+which we possess show great beauty both in design and execution.</p>
+
+<p>Grecian statuary began with ideal representations of the deities, and
+was carried to the greatest perfection by Phidias in his statues of
+Jupiter and Minerva. Then succeeded the school of Praxiteles, in which
+the figures of gods and goddesses were still represented, but in mortal
+forms. The school of Lysippus was famous for the statues of celebrated
+men, especially in cities where Macedonian rulers resided. Artists were
+expected henceforth to glorify kings and powerful nobles and rulers by
+portrait statues. From this period, however, plastic art degenerated;
+nor were works of original genius produced, but rather copies or
+varieties from the three great schools to which allusion has been made.
+Sculpture may have multiplied, but not new creations; although some
+imitations of great merit were produced, like the Hermaphrodite, the
+Torso, the Farnese Hercules, and the Fighting Gladiator. When Corinth
+was sacked by Mummius, some of the finest statues of Greece were carried
+to Rome; and after the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, the Greek
+artists emigrated to Italy. The fall of Syracuse introduced many works
+of priceless value into Rome; but it was from Athens, Delphi, Corinth,
+Elis, and other great centres of art that the richest treasures were
+brought. Greece was despoiled to ornament Italy.</p>
+
+<p>The Romans did not create a school of sculpture. They borrowed wholly
+from the Greeks, yet made, especially in the time of Hadrian, many
+beautiful statues. They were fond of this art, and all eminent men had
+statues erected to their memory. The busts of emperors were found in
+every great city, and Rome was filled with statues. The monuments of the
+Romans were even more numerous than those of the Greeks, and among them
+some admirable portraits are found. These sculptures did not express
+that consummation of beauty and grace, of refinement and sentiment,
+which marked the Greeks; but the imitations were good. Art had reached
+its perfection under Lysippus; there was nothing more to learn. Genius
+in that department could soar no higher. It will never rise to
+loftier heights.</p>
+
+<p>It is noteworthy that the purest forms of Grecian art arose in its
+earlier stages. From a moral point of view, sculpture declined from the
+time of Phidias. It was prostituted at Rome under the emperors. The
+specimens which have often been found among the ruins of ancient baths
+make us blush for human nature. The skill of execution did not decline
+for several centuries; but the lofty ideal was lost sight of, and gross
+appeals to human passions were made by those who sought to please
+corrupt leaders of society in an effeminate age. The turgidity and
+luxuriance of art gradually passed into tameness and poverty. The
+reliefs on the Arch of Constantine are rude and clumsy compared with
+those on the column of Marcus Aurelius.</p>
+
+<p>It is not my purpose to describe the decline of art, or enumerate the
+names of the celebrated masters who exalted sculpture in the palmy days
+of Pericles or even Alexander. I simply speak of sculpture as an art
+which reached a great perfection among the Greeks and Romans, as we have
+a right to infer from the specimens that have been preserved. How many
+more must have perished, we may infer from the criticisms of the ancient
+authors. The finest productions of our own age are in a measure
+reproductions; they cannot be called creations, like the statue of the
+Olympian Jove. Even the Moses of Michael Angelo is a Grecian god, and
+Powers's Greek Slave is a copy of an ancient Venus. The very tints which
+have been admired in some of the works of modern sculptors are borrowed
+from Praxiteles, who succeeded in giving to his statues an appearance of
+living flesh. The Museum of the Vatican alone contains several thousand
+specimens of ancient sculpture which have been found among the d&eacute;bris of
+former magnificence, many of which are the productions of Greek artists
+transported to Rome. Among them are antique copies of the Cupid and the
+Faun of Praxiteles, the statue of Demosthenes, the Minerva Medica, the
+Athlete of Lysippus, the Torso Belvedere sculptured by Apollonius, the
+Belvidere Antinous, of faultless anatomy and a study for Domenichino,
+the Laoco&ouml;n, so panegyrized by Pliny, the Apollo Belvedere, the work of
+Agasias of Ephesus, the Sleeping Ariadne, with numerous other statues of
+gods and goddesses, emperors, philosophers, poets, and statesmen of
+antiquity. The Dying Gladiator, which ornaments the capitol, is alone a
+magnificent proof of the perfection to which sculpture was carried
+centuries after the art had culminated at Athens. And these are only a
+few which stand out among the twenty thousand recovered statues that now
+embellish Italy, to say nothing of those that are scattered over Europe.
+We have the names of hundreds of artists who were famous in their day.
+Not merely the figures of men are chiselled, but of animals and plants.
+Nature in all her forms was imitated; and not merely Nature, but the
+dresses of the ancients are perpetuated in marble. No modern sculptor
+has equalled, in delicacy of finish, the draperies of those ancient
+statues as they appear to us even after the exposure and accidents of
+two thousand years. No one, after a careful study of the museums of
+Europe, can question that of all the nations who have claimed to be
+civilized, the ancient Greeks and Romans deserve a proud pre-eminence in
+an art which is still regarded as among the highest triumphs of human
+genius. All these matchless productions of antiquity are the result of
+native genius alone, without the aid of Christian ideas. Nor with the
+aid of Christianity are we sure that any nation will ever soar to
+loftier heights than did the Greeks in that proud realm which was
+consecrated to Paganism.</p>
+
+<p>We are not so certain in regard to the excellence of the ancients in the
+art of painting as we are in regard to sculpture and architecture, since
+so few specimens of painting have been preserved. We have only the
+testimony of the ancients themselves; and as they had so severe a taste
+and so great a susceptibility to beauty in all its forms, we cannot
+suppose that their notions were crude in this great art which the
+moderns have carried to such great perfection. In this art the moderns
+doubtless excel, especially in perspective and drawing, and light and
+shade. No age, we fancy, can surpass Italy in the fifteenth and
+sixteenth centuries, when the genius of Raphael, Correggio, and
+Domenichino blazed with such wonderful brilliancy.</p>
+
+<p>Painting in some form, however, is very ancient, though not so ancient
+as are the temples of the gods and the statues that were erected to
+their worship. It arose with the susceptibility to beauty of form and
+color, and with the view of conveying thoughts and emotions of the soul
+by imitation of their outward expression. The walls of Babylon were
+painted after Nature with representations of different species of
+animals and of combats between them and man. Semiramis was represented
+as on horseback, striking a leopard with a dart, and her husband Ninus
+as wounding a lion. Ezekiel describes various idols and beasts portrayed
+upon the walls, and even princes painted in vermilion, with girdles
+around their loins. In ages almost fabulous there were some rude
+attempts in this art, which probably arose from the coloring of statues
+and reliefs. The wooden chests of Egyptian mummies are covered with
+painted and hieroglyphic presentations of religious subjects; but the
+colors were laid without regard to light and shade. The Egyptians did
+not seek to represent the passions and emotions which agitate the soul,
+but rather to authenticate events and actions; and hence their
+paintings, like hieroglyphics, are but inscriptions. It was their great
+festivals and religious rites which they sought to perpetuate, not ideas
+of beauty or of grace. Thus their paintings abound with dismembered
+animals, plants, and flowers, with censers, entrails,--whatever was used
+in their religious worship. In Greece also the original painting
+consisted in coloring statues and reliefs of wood and clay. At Corinth,
+painting was early united with the fabrication of vases, on which were
+rudely painted figures of men and animals. Among the Etruscans, before
+Rome was founded, it is said there were beautiful paintings, and it is
+probable that these people were advanced in art before the Greeks. There
+were paintings in some of the old Etruscan cities which the Roman
+emperors wished to remove, so much admired were they even in the days of
+the greatest splendor. The ancient Etruscan vases are famous for designs
+which have never been exceeded in purity of form, but it is probable
+that these were copied from the Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>Whether the Greeks or the Etruscans were the first to paint, however,
+the art was certainly carried to the greatest perfection among the
+former. The development of it was, like all arts, very gradual. It
+probably began by drawing the outline of a shadow, without intermediate
+markings; the next step was the complete outline with the inner
+markings,--such as are represented on the ancient vases, or like the
+designs of Flaxman. They were originally practised on a white ground;
+then light and shade were introduced, and then the application of colors
+in accordance with Nature. We read of a great painting by Bularchus, of
+the battle of Magnete, purchased by a king of Lydia seven hundred and
+eighteen years before Christ. As the subject was a battle, it must have
+represented the movement of figures, although we know nothing of the
+coloring or of the real excellence of the work, except that the artist
+was paid munificently. Cimon of Cleona is the first great name connected
+with the art in Greece. He is praised by Pliny, to whom we owe the
+history of ancient painting more than to any other author. Cimon was not
+satisfied with drawing simply the outlines of his figures, such as we
+see in the oldest painted vases, but he also represented limbs, and
+folds of garments. He invented the art of foreshortening, or the various
+representations of the diminution of the length of figures as they
+appear when looked at obliquely; and hence was the first painter of
+perspective. He first made muscular articulations, indicated the veins,
+and gave natural folds to drapery.</p>
+
+<p>A much greater painter than he was Polygnotus of Thasos, the
+contemporary of Phidias, who came to Athens about the year 463
+B.C.,--one of the greatest geniuses of any age, and one of the most
+magnanimous, who had the good fortune to live in an age of exceeding
+intellectual activity. He painted on panels, which were afterward let
+into the walls, being employed on the public buildings of Athens, and on
+the great temple of Delphi, the hall of which he painted gratuitously.
+He also decorated the Propylaea, which was erected under the
+superintendence of Phidias. The pictures of Polygnotus had nothing of
+that elaborate grouping, aided by the powers of perspective, so much
+admired in modern art. His greatness lay in statuesque painting, which
+he brought nearly to perfection by ideal expression, accurate drawing,
+and improved coloring. He used but few colors, and softened the rigidity
+of his predecessors by making the mouth of beauty smile. He gave great
+expression to the face and figure, and his pictures were models of
+excellence for the beauty of the eyebrows, the blush upon the cheeks,
+and the gracefulness of the draperies. He strove, like Phidias, to
+express character in repose. He imitated the personages and the subjects
+of the old mythology, and treated them in an epic spirit, his subjects
+being almost invariably taken from Homer and the Epic cycle.</p>
+
+<p>Among the works of Polygnotus, as mentioned by Pliny, are his paintings
+in the Temple at Delphi, in the Propylaea of the Acropolis, in the
+Temple of Theseus, and in the Temple of the Dioscuri at Athens. He
+painted in a truly religious spirit, and upon symmetrical principles,
+with great grandeur and freedom, resembling Michael Angelo more than any
+other modern artist.</p>
+
+<p>The use of oil was unknown to the ancients. The artists painted upon
+wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, but not upon canvas, which was
+not used till the time of Nero. They painted upon tablets or panels, and
+not upon the walls,--the panels being afterward framed and encased in
+the walls. The stylus, or cestrum, used in drawing and for spreading the
+wax colors was pointed on one end and flat on the other, and generally
+made of metal. Wax was prepared by purifying and bleaching, and then
+mixed with colors. When painting was practised in watercolors, glue was
+used with the white of an egg or with gums; but wax and resins were also
+worked with water, with certain preparations. This latter mode was
+called encaustic, and was, according to Plutarch, the most durable of
+all methods. It was not generally adopted till the time of Alexander the
+Great. Wax was a most essential ingredient, since it prevented the
+colors from cracking. Encaustic painting was practised both with the
+cestrum and the pencil, and the colors were also burned in.</p>
+
+<p>Fresco, or water-color, on fresh plaster, was used for coloring walls,
+which were divided into compartments or panels. The composition of the
+stucco, and the method of preparing the walls for painting, is described
+by the ancient writers: &quot;They first covered the walls with a layer of
+ordinary plaster, over which, when dry, were successively added three
+other layers of a finer quality, mixed with sand. Above these were
+placed three layers of a composition of chalk and marble-dust, the upper
+one being laid on before the under one was dry; by which process the
+different layers were so bound together that the whole mass formed one
+beautiful and solid slab, resembling marble, and was capable of being
+detached from the wall and transported in a wooden frame to any
+distance. The colors were applied when the composition was still wet.
+The fresco wall, when painted, was covered with an encaustic varnish,
+both to heighten the color and to preserve it from the effects of the
+sun or the weather; but this process required so much care, and was
+attended with so much expense, that it was used only in the better
+houses and palaces.&quot; The later discoveries at Pompeii show the same
+correctness of design in painting as in sculpture, and also considerable
+perfection in coloring. The great artists of Greece--Phidias and
+Euphranor, Zeuxis and Protogenes, Polygnotus and Lysippus--were both
+sculptors and painters, like Michael Angelo; and the ancient writers
+praise the paintings of these great artists as much as their sculpture.
+The Aldobrandini Marriage, found on the Esquiline Mount during the
+pontificate of Clement VIII., and placed in the Vatican by Pius VII., is
+admired both for drawing and color. Polygnotus was praised by Aristotle
+for his designs, and by Lucian for his color.</p>
+
+<p>Dionysius and Mikon were the great contemporaries of Polygnotus, the
+former being celebrated for his portraits. His pictures were deficient
+in the ideal, but were remarkable for expression and elegant drawing.
+Mikon was particularly skilled in painting horses, and was the first who
+used for a color the light Attic ochre, and the black made from burnt
+vine-twigs. He painted three of the walls of the Temple of Theseus, and
+also the walls of the Temple of the Dioscuri.</p>
+
+<p>A greater painter still was Apollodorus of Athens. Through his labors,
+about 408 B.C., dramatic effect was added to the style of Polygnotus,
+without departing from his pictures as models. &quot;The acuteness of his
+taste,&quot; says Fuseli, &quot;led him to discover that as all men were connected
+by one general form, so they were separated each by some predominant
+power, which fixed character and bound them to a class. Thence he drew
+his line of imitation, and personified the central form of the class to
+which his object belonged, and to which the rest of its qualities
+administered without being absorbed. Agility was not suffered to destroy
+firmness, solidity, or weight; nor strength and weight, agility.
+Elegance did not degenerate into effeminacy, nor grandeur swell to
+hugeness.&quot; His aim was to deceive the eye of the spectator by the
+semblance of reality: he painted men and things as they really appeared.
+He also made a great advance in coloring: he invented chiaro-oscuro.
+Other painters had given attention to the proper gradation of light and
+shade; he heightened this effect by the gradation of tints, and thus
+obtained what the moderns call <i>tone</i>. He was the first who conferred
+due honor on the pencil,--<i>primusque gloriam penicillo jure contulit</i>.</p>
+
+<p>This great painter was succeeded by Zeuxis, who belonged to his school,
+but who surpassed him in the power to give ideal form to rich effects.
+He began his great career four hundred and twenty-four years before
+Christ, and was most remarkable for his female figures. His Helen,
+painted from five of the most beautiful women of Croton, was one of the
+most renowned productions of antiquity, to see which the painter
+demanded money. He gave away his pictures, because, with an artist's
+pride, he maintained that their price could not be estimated. There is
+a tradition that Zeuxis laughed himself to death over an old woman
+painted by him. He arrived at illusion of the senses, regarded as a high
+attainment in art,--as in the instance recorded of his grapes, at which
+the birds pecked. He belonged to the Asiatic school, whose headquarters
+were at Ephesus,--the peculiarities of which were accuracy of imitation,
+the exhibition of sensuous charms, and the gratification of sensual
+tastes. He went to Athens about the time that the sculpture of Phidias
+was completed, which modified his style. His marvellous powers were
+displayed in the contrast of light and shade, which he learned from
+Apollodorus. He gave ideal beauty to his figures, but it was in form
+rather than in expression. He taught the true method of grouping, by
+making each figure the perfect representation of the class to which it
+belonged. His works were deficient in those qualities which elevate the
+feelings and the character. He was the Euripides rather than the Homer
+of his art. He exactly imitated natural objects, which are incapable of
+ideal representation. His works were not so numerous as they were
+perfect in their way, in some of which, as in the Infant Hercules
+strangling the Serpent, he displayed great dramatic power. Lucian highly
+praises his Female Centaur as one of the most remarkable paintings of
+the world, in which he showed great ingenuity of contrasts. His Jupiter
+Enthroned is also extolled by Pliny, as one of his finest works. Zeuxis
+acquired a great fortune, and lived ostentatiously.</p>
+
+<p>Contemporaneous with Zeuxis, and equal in fame, was Parrhasius, a native
+of Ephesus, whose skill lay in accuracy of drawing and power of
+expression. He gave to painting true proportion, and attended to minute
+details of the countenance and the hair. In his gods and heroes, he did
+for painting what Phidias did in sculpture. His outlines were so perfect
+as to indicate those parts of the figure which they did not express. He
+established a rule of proportion which was followed by all succeeding
+artists. While many of his pieces were of a lofty character, some were
+demoralizing. Zeuxis yielded the palm to him, since Parrhasius painted a
+curtain which deceived his rival, whereas the grapes of Zeuxis had
+deceived only birds. Parrhasius was exceedingly arrogant and luxurious,
+and boasted of having reached the utmost limits of his art. He combined
+the magic tone of Apollodorus with the exquisite design of Zeuxis and
+the classic expression of Polygnotus.</p>
+
+<p>Many were the eminent painters that adorned the fifth century before
+Christ, not only in Athens, but in the Ionian cities of Asia. Timanthes
+of Sicyon was distinguished for invention, and Eupompus of the same
+city founded a school. His advice to Lysippus is memorable: &quot;Let Nature,
+not an artist, be your model.&quot; Protogenes was celebrated for his high
+finish. His Talissus took him seven years to complete. Pamphilus was
+celebrated for composition, Antiphilus for facility, Theon of Samos for
+prolific fancy, Apelles for grace, Pausias for his chiaro-oscuro,
+Nicomachus for his bold and rapid pencil, Aristides for depth of
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>The art probably culminated in Apelles, who was at once a rich colorist
+and portrayer of sensuous charm and a scientific artist, while he added
+a peculiar grace of his own, which distinguished him above both his
+predecessors and contemporaries. He was contemporaneous with Alexander,
+and was alone allowed to paint the picture of the great conqueror.
+Apelles was a native of Ephesus, studied under Pamphilus of Amphipolis,
+and when he had gained reputation he went to Sicyon and took lessons
+from Melanthius. He spent the best part of his life at the court of
+Philip and Alexander, and painted many portraits of these great men and
+of their generals. He excelled in portraits, and labored so assiduously
+to perfect himself in drawing that he never spent a day without
+practising. He made great improvement in the mechanical part of his art,
+inventing some colors, and being the first to varnish pictures. By the
+general consent of ancient authors, Apelles stands at the head of all
+the painters of their world. His greatest work was his Venus Anadyomene,
+or Venus rising out of the sea, in which female grace was personified;
+the falling drops of water from her hair gave the appearance of a
+transparent silver veil over her form. This picture cost one hundred
+talents, was painted for the Temple of Aesculapius at Cos, and afterward
+placed by Augustus in the temple which he dedicated to Julius Caesar.
+The lower part of it becoming injured, no one could be found to repair
+it; nor was there an artist who could complete an unfinished picture
+which Apelles left. He feared no criticism, and was unenvious of the
+fame of rivals.</p>
+
+<p>After Apelles, the art of painting declined, although great painters
+occasionally appeared, especially from the school of Sicyon, which was
+renowned for nearly two hundred years. The destruction of Corinth by
+Mummius, 146 B.C., gave a severe blow to Grecian art. This general
+destroyed, or carried to Rome, more works than all his predecessors
+combined. Sulla, when he spoiled Athens, inflicted a still greater
+injury; and from that time artists resorted to Rome and Alexandria and
+other flourishing cities for patronage and remuneration. The
+masterpieces of famous artists brought enormous prices, and Greece and
+Asia were ransacked for old pictures. The paintings which Aemilius
+Paulus brought from Greece required two hundred and fifty wagons to
+carry them in the triumphal procession. With the spoliation of Greece,
+the migration of artists began; and this spoliation of Greece, Asia, and
+Sicily continued for two centuries. We have already said that such was
+the wealth of Rhodes in works of art that three thousand statues were
+found there by the conquerors; nor could there have been less at Athens,
+Olympia, and Delphi. Scaurus had all the public pictures of Sicyon
+transported to Rome. Verres plundered every temple and public building
+in Sicily.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Rome was possessed of the finest paintings in the world, without
+the slightest claim to the advancement of the art. And if the opinion of
+Sir Joshua Reynolds is correct, art could advance no higher in the realm
+of painting, as well as of statuary, than the Greeks had already borne
+it. Yet the Romans learned to place as high value on the works of
+Grecian genius as the English do on the paintings of the old masters of
+Italy and Flanders. And if they did not add to the art, they gave such
+encouragement that under the emperors it may be said to have been
+flourishing. Varro had a gallery of seven hundred portraits of eminent
+men. The portraits as well as the statues of the great were placed in
+the temples, libraries, and public buildings. The baths especially were
+filled with paintings.</p>
+
+<p>The great masterpieces of the Greeks were either historical or
+mythological. Paintings of gods and heroes, groups of men and women, in
+which character and passion could be delineated, were the most highly
+prized. It was in the expression given to the human figure--in beauty of
+form and countenance, in which all the emotions of the soul, as well as
+the graces of the body were portrayed--that the Greek artists sought to
+reach the ideal, and to gain immortality. And they painted for a people
+who had both a natural and a cultivated taste and sensibility.</p>
+
+<p>Among the Romans portrait, decorative, and scene painting engrossed the
+art, much to the regret of such critics as Pliny and Vitruvius. Nothing
+could be in more execrable taste than a colossal painting of Nero, one
+hundred and twenty feet high. From the time of Augustus landscape
+decorations were common, and were carried out with every species of
+license. Among the Greeks we do not read of landscape painting. This has
+been reserved for our age, and is much admired, as it was at Rome in the
+latter days of the empire. Mosaic work, of inlaid stones or composition
+of varying shades and colors, gradually superseded painting in Rome; it
+was first used for floors, and finally walls and ceilings were
+ornamented with it. It is true, the ancients could show no such
+exquisite perfection of colors, tints, and shades as may be seen to-day
+in the wonderful reproductions of world-renowned paintings on the walls
+of St. Peter's at Rome; but many ancient mosaics have been preserved
+which attest beauty of design of the highest character,--like the Battle
+of Issus, lately discovered at Pompeii; and this brilliant art had its
+origin and a splendid development at the hands of the old Romans.</p>
+
+<p>Thus in all those arts of which modern civilization is proudest, and in
+which the genius of man has soared to the loftiest heights, the ancients
+were not merely our equals,--they were our superiors. It is greater to
+originate than to copy. In architecture, in sculpture, and perhaps in
+painting, the Greeks attained absolute perfection. Any architect of our
+time, who should build an edifice in different proportions from those
+that were recognized in the great cities of antiquity, would make a
+mistake. Who can improve upon the Doric columns of the Parthenon, or
+upon the Corinthian capitals of the Temple of Jupiter? Indeed, it is in
+proportion as we accurately copy the faultless models of the age of
+Pericles that excellence with us is attained and recognized; when we
+differ from them we furnish grounds of just criticism. So in
+sculpture,--the finest modern works are inspired by antique models. It
+is only when the artist seeks to bring out the purest and loftiest
+sentiments of the soul, such as only Christianity can inspire, that he
+may hope to surpass the sculpture of antiquity in one department of that
+art alone,--in expression, rather than in beauty of form, on which no
+improvement can be made. And if we possessed the painted Venus of
+Apelles, as we can boast of having the sculptured Venus of Cleomenes, we
+should probably discover greater richness of coloring as well as grace
+of figure than appear in that famous picture of Titian which is one of
+the proudest ornaments of the galleries of Florence, and one of the
+greatest marvels of Italian art.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>AUTHORITIES.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>Winckelmann's History of Ancient Art; M&uuml;ller's Ancient Art and its
+Remains; A.J. Guattani, Antiquit&eacute;s de la Grande Gr&egrave;ce; Mazois,
+Antiquit&eacute;s de Pompeii; Sir W. Gill, Pompeiana; Donaldson's Antiquities
+of Athens; Vitruvius, Stuart, Chandler, Clarke, Dodwell, Cleghorn, De
+Quincey, Fergusson, Schliemann,--these are some of the innumerable
+authorities on Architecture among the ancients.</p>
+
+<p>In Sculpture, Pliny and Cicero are the most noted critics. There is a
+fine article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica on this subject. In Smith's
+Dictionary are the Lives and works of the most noted masters. M&uuml;ller's
+Ancient Art alludes to the leading masterpieces. Montfau&ccedil;on's Antiquit&eacute;
+Expliqu&eacute;e en Figures; Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, by the Society of
+Dilettanti, London, 1809; Ancient Marbles of the British Museum, by
+Taylor Combe; Millin, Introduction &agrave; l'&Eacute;tude des Monuments Antiques;
+Monuments In&eacute;dits d'Antiquit&eacute; figur&eacute;e, recuellis et publi&eacute;s par
+Raoul-Rochette; Gerhard's Arch&auml;ologische Zeitung; David's Essai sur le
+Classement Chronologique des Sculpteurs Grecs les plus c&eacute;l&egrave;bres.</p>
+
+<p>In Painting, see M&uuml;ller's Ancient Art; Fuseli's Lectures; Sir Joshua
+Reynolds's Lectures; Lanzi's History of Painting in Italy (translated by
+Roscoe); and the Article on &quot;Painting,&quot; Encyclopaedia Britannica, and
+Article &quot;Pictura,&quot; Smith's Dictionary, both of which last mentioned
+refer to numerous German, French, and other authorities, should the
+reader care to pursue the subject. Vitruvius (on Architecture,
+translated by Gwilt) writes at some length on ancient wall-paintings.
+The finest specimens of ancient paintings are found in catacombs, the
+baths, and the ruins of Pompeii. On this subject Winckelmann is the
+great authority.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="ANCIENT_SCIENTIFIC_KNOWLEDGE."></a>ANCIENT SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>ASTRONOMY, GEOGRAPHY, ETC.</p>
+
+<p>2000-100 B.C.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>It would be absurd to claim for the ancients any great attainments in
+science, such as they made in the field of letters or the realm of art.
+It is in science, especially when applied to practical life, that the
+moderns show their great superiority to the most enlightened nations of
+antiquity. In this great department of human inquiry modern genius
+shines with the lustre of the sun. It is this which most strikingly
+attests the advance of civilization. It is this which has distinguished
+and elevated the races of Europe, and carried them in the line of
+progress beyond the attainments of the Greeks and Romans. With the
+magnificent discoveries and inventions of the last three hundred years
+in almost every department of science, especially in the explorations of
+distant seas and continents, in the analysis of chemical compounds, in
+the wonders of steam and electricity, in mechanical appliances to
+abridge human labor, in astronomical researches, in the explanation of
+the phenomena of the heavens, in the miracles which inventive genius has
+wrought,--seen in our ships, our manufactories, our printing-presses,
+our observatories, our fortifications, our laboratories, our mills, our
+machines to cultivate the earth, to make our clothes, to build our
+houses, to multiply our means of offence and defence, to make weak
+children do the work of Titans, to measure our time with the accuracy of
+the planetary orbits, to use the sun itself in perpetuating our
+likenesses to distant generations, to cause a needle to guide the
+mariner with assurance on the darkest night, to propel a heavy ship
+against wind and tide without oars or sails, to make carriages ascend
+mountains without horses at the rate of thirty miles an hour, to convey
+intelligence with the speed of lightning from continent to continent and
+under oceans that ancient navigators never dared to cross,--these and
+other wonders attest an ingenuity and audacity of intellect which would
+have overwhelmed with amazement the most adventurous of Greeks and the
+most potent of Romans.</p>
+
+<p>But the great discoveries and inventions to which we owe this marked
+superiority are either accidental or the result of generations of
+experiment, assisted by an immense array of ascertained facts from which
+safe inductions can be made. It is not, probably, the superiority of
+the European races over the Greeks and Romans to which we may ascribe
+the wonderful advance of modern society, but the particular direction
+which genius was made to take. Had the Greeks given the energy of their
+minds to mechanical forces as they did to artistic creations, they might
+have made wonderful inventions. But it was not so ordered by Providence.
+At that time the world was not in the stage of development when this
+particular direction of intellect could have been favored. The
+development of the physical sciences, with their infinite multiplicity
+and complexity, required more centuries of observation, collection and
+collation of facts, deductions from known phenomena, than the ancients
+had had to work with; while the more ethereal realms of philosophy,
+ethics, aesthetics, and religion, though needing keen study of Nature
+and of man, depended more upon inner spiritual forces, and less upon
+accumulated detail of external knowledge. Yet as there were some
+subjects which the Greeks and Romans seemed to exhaust, some fields of
+labor and thought in which they never have been and perhaps never will
+be surpassed, so some future age may direct its energies into channels
+that are as unknown to us as clocks and steam-engines were to the
+Greeks. This is the age of mechanism and of science; and mechanism and
+science sweep everything before them, and will probably be carried to
+their utmost capacity and development. After that the human mind may
+seek some new department, some new scope for its energies, and an age of
+new wonders may arise,--perhaps after the present dominant races shall
+have become intoxicated with the greatness of their triumphs and have
+shared the fate of the old monarchies of the East. But I would not
+speculate on the destinies of the European nations, whether they are to
+make indefinite advances until they occupy and rule the whole world, or
+are destined to be succeeded by nations as yet undeveloped,--savages, as
+their fathers were when Rome was in the fulness of material wealth
+and grandeur.</p>
+
+<p>I have shown that in the field of artistic excellence, in literary
+composition, in the arts of government and legislation, and even in the
+realm of philosophical speculation, the ancients were our
+school-masters, and that among them were some men of most marvellous
+genius, who have had no superiors among us. But we do not see among them
+the exhibition of genius in what we call science, at least in its
+application to practical life. It would be difficult to show any
+department of science which the ancients carried to any considerable
+degree of perfection. Nevertheless, there were departments in which they
+made noble attempts, and in which they showed large capacity, even if
+they were unsuccessful in great practical results.</p>
+
+<p>Astronomy was one of these. In this science such men as Eratosthenes,
+Aristarchus, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy were great lights of whom humanity
+may be proud; and had they been assisted by our modern inventions, they
+might have earned a fame scarcely eclipsed by that of Kepler and Newton.
+The old astronomers did little to place this science on a true
+foundation, but they showed great ingenuity, and discovered some truths
+which no succeeding age has repudiated. They determined the
+circumference of the earth by a method identical with that which would
+be employed by modern astronomers; they ascertained the position of the
+stars by right ascension and declination; they knew the obliquity of the
+ecliptic, and determined the place of the sun's apogee as well as its
+mean motion. Their calculations on the eccentricity of the moon prove
+that they had a rectilinear trigonometry and tables of chords. They had
+an approximate knowledge of parallax; they could calculate eclipses of
+the moon, and use them for the correction of their lunar tables. They
+understood spherical trigonometry, and determined the motions of the sun
+and moon, involving an accurate definition of the year and a method of
+predicting eclipses; they ascertained that the earth was a sphere, and
+reduced the phenomena of the heavenly bodies to uniform movements of
+circular orbits. We have settled by physical geography the exact form
+of the earth, but the ancients arrived at their knowledge by
+astronomical reasoning. Says Whewell:--</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The reduction of the motions of the sun, moon, and five planets to
+circular orbits, as was done by Hipparchus, implies deep concentrated
+thought and scientific abstraction. The theories of eccentrics and
+epicycles accomplished the end of explaining all the known phenomena.
+The resolution of the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies into an
+assemblage of circular motions was a great triumph of genius, and was
+equivalent to the most recent and improved processes by which modern
+astronomers deal with such motions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Astronomy was probably born in Chaldaea as early as the time of Abraham.
+The glories of the firmament were impressed upon the minds of the rude
+primitive races with an intensity which we do not feel, with all the
+triumphs of modern science. The Chaldaean shepherds, as they watched
+their flocks by night, noted the movements of the planets, and gave
+names to the more brilliant constellations. Before religious rituals
+were established, before great superstitions arose, before poetry was
+sung, before musical instruments were invented, before artists
+sculptured marble or melted bronze, before coins were stamped, before
+temples arose, before diseases were healed by the arts of medicine,
+before commerce was known, those Oriental shepherds counted the anxious
+hours by the position of certain constellations. Astronomy is therefore
+the oldest of the ancient sciences, although it remained imperfect for
+more than four thousand years. The old Assyrians, Egyptians, and Greeks
+made but few discoveries which are valued by modern astronomers, but
+they laid the foundation of the science, and ever regarded it as one of
+the noblest subjects that could stimulate the faculties of man. It was
+invested with all that was religious and poetical.</p>
+
+<p>The spacious level and unclouded horizon of Chaldaea afforded peculiar
+facilities of observation; and its pastoral and contemplative
+inhabitants, uncontaminated by the vices and superstitions of subsequent
+ages, active-minded and fresh, discovered after a long observation of
+eclipses--some say extending over nineteen centuries--the cycle of two
+hundred and twenty-three lunations, which brings back the eclipses in
+the same order. Having once established their cycle, they laid the
+foundation for the most sublime of all the sciences. Callisthenes
+transmitted from Babylon to Aristotle a collection of observations of
+all the eclipses that preceded the conquests of Alexander, together with
+the definite knowledge which the Chaldaeans had collected about the
+motions of the heavenly bodies. Such knowledge was rude and simple, and
+amounted to little beyond the fact that there were spherical
+revolutions about an inclined axis, and that the poles pointed always to
+particular stars. The Egyptians also recorded their observations, from
+which it would appear that they observed eclipses at least sixteen
+hundred years before the beginning of our era,--which is not improbable,
+if the speculations of modern philosophers respecting the age of the
+world are entitled to credit. The Egyptians discovered by the rising of
+Sirius that the year consists of three hundred and sixty-five and
+one-quarter days; and this was their sacred year, in distinction from
+the civil, which consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days. They
+also had observed the courses of the planets, and could explain the
+phenomena of the stations and retrogradations; and it is asserted too
+that they regarded Mercury and Venus as satellites of the sun. Some have
+maintained that the obelisks which the Egyptians erected served the
+purpose of gnomons for determining the obliquity of the ecliptic, the
+altitude of the pole, and the length of the tropical year. It is thought
+even that the Pyramids, by the position of their sides toward the
+cardinal points, attest Egyptian acquaintance with a meridional line.
+The Chinese boast of having noticed and recorded a series of eclipses
+extending over a period of thirty-eight hundred and fifty-eight years;
+and it is probable that they anticipated the Greeks two thousand years
+in the discovery of the Metonic cycle,--or the cycle of nineteen years,
+at the end of which time the new moons fall on the same days of the
+year. The Chinese also determined the obliquity of the ecliptic eleven
+hundred years before our era. The Hindus at a remote antiquity
+represented celestial phenomena with considerable exactness, and
+constructed tables by which the longitude of the sun and moon were
+determined, and dials to measure time. Bailly thinks that thirty-one
+hundred and two years before Christ astronomy was cultivated in Siam
+which hardly yields in accuracy to that which modern science has built
+on the theory of universal gravitation.</p>
+
+<p>But the Greeks after all were the only people of antiquity who elevated
+astronomy to the dignity of a science. They however confessed that they
+derived their earliest knowledge from the Babylonian and Egyptian
+priests, while the priests of Thebes claimed to be the originators of
+exact astronomical observations. Diodorus asserts that the Chaldaeans
+used the Temple of Belus, in the centre of Babylon, for their survey of
+the heavens. But whether the Babylonians or the Egyptians were the
+earliest astronomers is of little consequence, although the pedants make
+it a grave matter of investigation. All we know is that astronomy was
+cultivated by both Babylonians and Egyptians, and that they made but
+very limited attainments. They approximated to the truth in reference
+to the solar year, by observing the equinoxes and solstices and the
+heliacal rising of particular stars.</p>
+
+<p>The early Greek philosophers who visited Egypt and the East in search of
+knowledge, found very little to reward their curiosity or industry,--not
+much beyond preposterous claims to a high antiquity, and to an esoteric
+wisdom which has not yet been revealed. Plato and Eudoxus spent thirteen
+years in Heliopolis for the purpose of extracting the scientific
+knowledge of the Egyptian priests, yet they learned but little beyond
+the fact that the solar year was a trifle beyond three hundred and
+sixty-five days. No great names have come down to us from the priests of
+Babylon or Egypt; no one gained an individual reputation. The Chaldaean
+and Egyptian priests may have furnished the raw material of observation
+to the Greeks, but the latter alone possessed the scientific genius by
+which undigested facts were converted into a symmetrical system. The
+East never gave valuable knowledge to the West; it gave the tendency to
+religious mysticism, which in its turn tended to superstition. Instead
+of astronomy, it gave astrology; instead of science, it gave magic,
+incantations, and dreams. The Eastern astronomers connected their
+astronomy with divination from the stars, and made their antiquity reach
+back to two hundred and seventy thousand years. There were soothsayers
+in the time of Daniel, and magicians, exorcists, and interpreters of
+signs. They were not men of scientific research, seeking truth; it was
+power they sought, by perverting the intellect of the people. The
+astrology of the East was founded on the principle that a star or
+constellation presided over the birth of an individual, and that it
+either portended his fate, or shed a good or bad influence upon his
+future life. The star which looked upon a child at the hour of his birth
+was called the &quot;horoscopus,&quot; and the peculiar influence of each planet
+was determined by the astrologers. The superstitions of Egypt and
+Chaldaea unfortunately spread among both the Greeks and Romans, and
+these were about all that the Western nations learned from the boastful
+priests of occult Oriental science. Whatever was known of real value
+among the ancients is due to the earnest inquiries of the Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>And yet their researches were very unsatisfactory until the time of
+Hipparchus. The primitive knowledge was almost nothing. The Homeric
+poems regarded the earth as a circular plain bounded by the heaven,
+which was a solid vault or hemisphere, with its concavity turned
+downward. This absurdity was believed until the time of Herodotus, five
+centuries after; nor was it exploded fully in the time of Aristotle. The
+sun, moon, and stars were supposed to move upon or with the inner
+surface of the heavenly hemisphere, and the ocean was thought to gird
+the earth around as a great belt, into which the heavenly bodies sank at
+night. Homer believed that the sun arose out of the ocean, ascended the
+heaven, and again plunged into the ocean, passing under the earth, and
+producing darkness. The Greeks even personified the sun as a divine
+charioteer driving his fiery steeds over the steep of heaven, until he
+bathed them at evening in the western waves. Apollo became the god of
+the sun, as Diana was the goddess of the moon. But the early Greek
+inquirers did not attempt to explain how the sun found his way from the
+west back again to the east; they merely took note of the diurnal
+course, the alternation of day and night, the number of the seasons, and
+their regular successions. They found the points of the compass by
+determining the recurrence of the equinoxes and solstices; but they had
+no conception of the ecliptic,--of that great circle in the heaven
+formed by the sun's annual course,--and of its obliquity when compared
+with our equator. Like the Egyptians and Babylonians, the Greeks
+ascertained the length of the year to be three hundred and sixty-five
+days; but perfect accuracy was lacking, for want of scientific
+instruments and of recorded observations of the heavenly bodies. The
+Greeks had not even a common chronological era for the designation of
+years. Herodotus informs us that the Trojan War preceded his time by
+eight hundred years: he merely states the interval between the event in
+question and his own time; he had certain data for distant periods. The
+Greeks reckoned dates from the Trojan War, and the Romans from the
+building of their city. The Greeks also divided the year into twelve
+months, and introduced the intercalary circle of eight years, although
+the Romans disused it afterward, until the calendar was reformed by
+Julius Caesar. Thus there was no scientific astronomical knowledge worth
+mentioning among the primitive Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>Immense research and learning have been expended by modern critics to
+show the state of scientific astronomy among the Greeks. I am amazed
+equally at the amount of research and its comparative worthlessness; for
+what addition to science can be made by an enumeration of the
+puerilities and errors of the Greeks, and how wasted and pedantic the
+learning which ransacks all antiquity to prove that the Greeks adopted
+this or that absurdity!<a name="FNanchor1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1"><sup>[1]</sup></a></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor1">[1]</a> The style of modern historical criticism is well
+exemplified in the discussions of the Germans whether the Arx on the
+Capitoline Hill occupied the northeastern or southwestern corner, which
+take up nearly one half of the learned article on the Capitoline in
+Smith's Dictionary.
+
+<p>The earliest historic name associated with astronomy in Greece was
+Thales, the founder of the Ionic school of philosophers. He is reported
+to have made a visit to Egypt, to have fixed the year at three hundred
+and sixty-five days, to have determined the course of the sun from
+solstice to solstice, and to have calculated eclipses. He attributed an
+eclipse of the moon to the interposition of the earth between the sun
+and moon, and an eclipse of the sun to the interposition of the moon
+between the sun and earth,--and thus taught the rotundity of the earth,
+sun, and moon. He also determined the ratio of the sun's diameter to its
+apparent orbit. As he first solved the problem of inscribing a
+right-angled triangle in a circle, he is the founder of geometrical
+science in Greece. He left, however, nothing to writing; hence all
+accounts of him are confused,--some doubting even if he made the
+discoveries attributed to him. His philosophical speculations, which
+science rejects,--such as that water is the principle of all
+things,--are irrelevant to a description of the progress of astronomy.
+That he was a great light no one questions, considering the ignorance
+with which he was surrounded.</p>
+
+<p>Anaximander, who followed Thales in philosophy, held to puerile
+doctrines concerning the motions and nature of the stars, which it is
+useless to repeat. His addition to science, if he made any, was in
+treating the magnitudes and distances of the planets. He constructed
+geographical charts, and attempted to delineate the celestial sphere,
+and to measure time with a gnomon, or time-pillar, by the motion of its
+shadow upon a dial.<a name="FNanchor2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2"><sup>[2]</sup></a></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor2">[2]</a> Dr. E.H. Knight, in his &quot;American Mechanical Dictionary&quot;
+(i. 692), cites the Scriptural account of the beautiful altar seen by
+King Ahaz of Jerusalem, in Damascus, when he went thither to greet
+Tiglath-Pileser, the Assyrian who had helped him against his Samarian
+enemy. Ahaz erected a similar altar at Jerusalem, and also a <i>sun-dial,</i>
+the same one mentioned in the account of the miraculous cure of his son
+Hezekiah. &quot;This,&quot; says Dr. Knight, &quot;was probably the first dial on
+record, and is one hundred and forty years before Thales, and nearly
+four hundred before Plato and Aristotle, and just a little previous to
+the lunar eclipses observed at Babylon, as recorded by Ptolemy.... The
+Hebrew word [for this dial] is said by Colonel White of the Bengal army
+to signify a <i>staircase</i>, which much strengthens the inference that it
+was like the equinoctial dial of the Indian nations and of Mesopotamia,
+from whence its pattern is assumed to have been derived.&quot;
+
+<p>Anaximenes of Miletus taught, like his predecessors, crude notions of
+the sun and stars, and speculated on the nature of the moon, but did
+nothing to advance his science on true grounds, except by the
+construction of sun-dials. The same may be said of Heraclitus,
+Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Anaxagoras: they were great men, but they
+gave to the world mere speculations, some of which are very puerile.
+They all held to the idea that the heavenly bodies revolved around the
+earth, and that the earth was a plain; but they explained eclipses, and
+supposed that the moon derived its light from the sun. Some of them
+knew the difference between the planets and the fixed stars. Anaxagoras
+scouted the notion that the sun was a god, and supposed it to be a mass
+of ignited stone,--for which he was called an atheist.</p>
+
+<p>Socrates, who belonged to another school, avoided all barren
+speculations concerning the universe, and confined himself to human
+actions and interests. He looked even upon geometry in a very practical
+way, valuing it only so far as it could be made serviceable to
+land-measuring. As for the stars and planets, he supposed it was
+impossible to arrive at a true knowledge of them, and regarded
+speculations upon them as useless.</p>
+
+<p>It must be admitted that the Greek astronomers, however barren were
+their general theories, laid the foundation of science. Pythagoras
+taught the obliquity of the ecliptic, probably learned in Egypt, and the
+identity of the morning and evening stars. It is supposed that he
+maintained that the sun was the centre of the universe, and that the
+earth revolved around it; but this he did not demonstrate, and his whole
+system was unscientific, assuming certain arbitrary principles, from
+which he reasoned deductively. &quot;He assumed that fire is more worthy than
+earth; that the more worthy place must be given to the more worthy; that
+the extremity is more worthy than the intermediate parts,--and hence,
+as the centre is an extremity, the place of fire is at the centre of the
+universe, and that therefore the earth and other heavenly bodies move
+round the fiery centre.&quot; But this was no heliocentric system, since the
+sun moved, like the earth, in a circle around the central fire. This was
+merely the work of the imagination, utterly unscientific, though bold
+and original. Nor did this hypothesis gain credit, since it was the
+fixed opinion of philosophers that the earth was the centre of the
+universe, around which the sun, moon, and planets revolved. But the
+Pythagoreans were the first to teach that the motions of the sun, moon,
+and planets are circular and equable. Their idea that the celestial
+bodies emitted a sound, and were combined into a harmonious symphony,
+was exceedingly crude, however beautiful &quot;The music of the spheres&quot;
+belongs to poetry, as well as to the speculations of Plato.</p>
+
+<p>Eudoxus, in the fifth century before Christ, contributed to science by
+making a descriptive map of the heavens, which was used as a manual of
+sidereal astronomy to the sixth century of our era.</p>
+
+<p>The error of only one hundred and ninety days in the periodic time of
+Saturn shows that there had been for a long time close observations.
+Aristotle--whose comprehensive intellect, like that of Bacon, took in
+all forms of knowledge--condensed all that was known in his day into a
+treatise concerning the heavens. He regarded astronomy as more
+intimately connected with mathematics than any other branch of science.
+But even he did not soar far beyond the philosophers of his day, since
+he held to the immobility of the earth,--the grand error of the
+ancients. Some few speculators in science (like Heraclitus of Pontus,
+and Hicetas) conceived a motion of the earth itself upon its axis, so as
+to account for the apparent motion of the sun; but they also thought it
+was in the centre of the universe.</p>
+
+<p>The introduction of the gnomon (time-pillar) and dial into Greece
+advanced astronomical knowledge, since they were used to determine the
+equinoxes and solstices, as well as parts of the day. Meton set up a
+sun-dial at Athens in the year 433 B.C., but the length of the hour
+varied with the time of the year, since the Greeks divided the day into
+twelve equal parts. Dials were common at Rome in the time of Plautus,
+224 B.C.; but there was a difficulty in using them, since they failed at
+night and in cloudy weather, and could not be relied on. Hence the
+introduction of water-clocks instead.</p>
+
+<p>Aristarchus is said to have combated (280 B.C.) the geocentric theory so
+generally received by philosophers, and to have promulgated the
+hypothesis &quot;that the fixed stars and the sun are immovable; that the
+earth is carried round the sun in the circumference of a circle of
+which the sun is the centre; and that the sphere of the fixed stars,
+having the same centre as the sun, is of such magnitude that the orbit
+of the earth is to the distance of the fixed stars as the centre of the
+sphere of the fixed stars is to its surface.&quot; Aristarchus also,
+according to Plutarch, explained the apparent annual motion of the sun
+in the ecliptic by supposing the orbit of the earth to be inclined to
+its axis. There is no evidence that this great astronomer supported his
+heliocentric theory with any geometrical proof, although Plutarch
+maintains that he demonstrated it. This theory gave great offence,
+especially to the Stoics; and Cleanthes, the head of the school at that
+time, maintained that the author of such an impious doctrine should be
+punished. Aristarchus left a treatise &quot;On the Magnitudes and Distances
+of the Sun and Moon;&quot; and his methods to measure the apparent diameters
+of the sun and moon are considered theoretically sound by modern
+astronomers, but practically inexact owing to defective instruments. He
+estimated the diameter of the sun at the seven hundred and twentieth
+part of the circumference of the circle which it describes in its
+diurnal revolution, which is not far from the truth; but in this
+treatise he does not allude to his heliocentric theory.</p>
+
+<p>Archimedes of Syracuse, born 287 B.C., is stated to have measured the
+distance of the sun, moon, and planets, and he constructed an orrery in
+which he exhibited their motions. But it was not in the Grecian colony
+of Syracuse, but of Alexandria, that the greatest light was shed on
+astronomical science. Here Aristarchus resided, and also Eratosthenes,
+who lived between the years 276 and 196 B.C. The latter was a native of
+Athens, but was invited by Ptolemy Euergetes to Alexandria, and placed
+at the head of the library. His great achievement was the determination
+of the circumference of the earth. This was done by measuring on the
+ground the distance between Syene, a city exactly under the tropic, and
+Alexandria, situated on the same meridian. The distance was found to be
+five thousand stadia. The meridional distance of the sun from the zenith
+of Alexandria he estimated to be 7&deg; 12', or a fiftieth part of the
+circumference of the meridian. Hence the circumference of the earth was
+fixed at two hundred and fifty thousand stadia,--which is not very
+different from our modern computation. The circumference being known,
+the diameter of the earth was easily determined. The moderns have added
+nothing to this method. He also calculated the diameter of the sun to be
+twenty-seven times greater than that of the earth, and the distance of
+the sun from the earth to be eight hundred and four million stadia, and
+that of the moon seven hundred and eighty thousand stadia,--a close
+approximation to the truth.</p>
+
+<p>Astronomical science received a great impulse from the school of
+Alexandria, the greatest light of which was Hipparchus, who flourished
+early in the second century before Christ. He laid the foundation of
+astronomy upon a scientific basis. &quot;He determined,&quot; says Delambre, &quot;the
+position of the stars by right ascensions and declinations, and was
+acquainted with the obliquity of the ecliptic. He determined the
+inequality of the sun and the place of its apogee, as well as its mean
+motion; the mean motion of the moon, of its nodes and apogee; the
+equation of the moon's centre, and the inclination of its orbit. He
+calculated eclipses of the moon, and used them for the correction of his
+lunar tables, and he had an approximate knowledge of parallax.&quot; His
+determination of the motions of the sun and moon, and his method of
+predicting eclipses evince great mathematical genius. But he combined
+with this determination a theory of epicycles and eccentrics which
+modern astronomy discards. It was however a great thing to conceive of
+the earth as a solid sphere, and to reduce the phenomena of the heavenly
+bodies to uniform motions in circular orbits. &quot;That Hipparchus should
+have succeeded in the first great steps of the resolution of the
+heavenly bodies into circular motions is a circumstance,&quot; says Whewell,
+&quot;which gives him one of the most distinguished places in the roll of
+great astronomers.&quot; But he did even more than this: he discovered that
+apparent motion of the fixed stars round the axis of the ecliptic, which
+is called the Precession of the Equinoxes,--one of the greatest
+discoveries in astronomy. He maintained that the precession was not
+greater than fifty-nine seconds, and not less than thirty-six seconds.
+Hipparchus also framed a catalogue of the stars, and determined their
+places with reference to the ecliptic by their latitudes and longitudes.
+Altogether he seems to have been one of the greatest geniuses of
+antiquity, and his works imply a prodigious amount of calculation.</p>
+
+<p>Astronomy made no progress for three hundred years, although it was
+expounded by improved methods. Posidonius constructed an orrery, which
+exhibited the diurnal motions of the sun, moon, and five planets.
+Posidonius calculated the circumference of the earth to be two hundred
+and forty thousand stadia, by a different method from Eratosthenes. The
+barrenness of discovery from Hipparchus to Ptolemy,--the Alexandrian
+mathematician, astronomer, and geographer in the second century of the
+Christian era,--in spite of the patronage of the royal Ptolemies of
+Egypt, was owing to the want of instruments for the accurate measure of
+time (like our clocks), to the imperfection of astronomical tables, and
+to the want of telescopes. Hence the great Greek astronomers were unable
+to realize their theories. Their theories however were magnificent, and
+evinced great power of mathematical combination; but what could they do
+without that wondrous instrument by which the human eye indefinitely
+multiplies its power? Moreover, the ancients had no accurate almanacs,
+since the care of the calendar belonged not so much to the astronomers
+as to the priests, who tampered with the computation of time for
+sacerdotal objects. The calendars of different communities differed.
+Hence Julius Caesar rendered a great service to science by the reform of
+the Roman calendar, which was exclusively under the control of the
+college of pontiffs, or general religious overseers. The Roman year
+consisted of three hundred and fifty-five days; and in the time of
+Caesar the calendar was in great confusion, being ninety days in
+advance, so that January was an autumn month. He inserted the regular
+intercalary month of twenty-three days, and two additional ones of
+sixty-seven days. These, together with ninety days, were added to three
+hundred and sixty-five days, making a year of transition of four hundred
+and forty-five days, by which January was brought back to the first
+month in the year after the winter solstice; and to prevent the
+repetition of the error, he directed that in future the year should
+consist of three hundred and sixty-five and one-quarter days, which he
+effected by adding one day to the months of April, June, September, and
+November, and two days to the months of January, Sextilis, and
+December, making an addition of ten days to the old year of three
+hundred and fifty-five. And he provided for a uniform intercalation of
+one day in every fourth year, which accounted for the remaining
+quarter of a day.</p>
+
+<p>Caesar was a student of astronomy, and always found time for its
+contemplation. He is said even to have written a treatise on the motion
+of the stars. He was assisted in his reform of the calendar by
+Sosigines, an Alexandrian astronomer. He took it out of the hands of the
+priests, and made it a matter of pure civil regulation. The year was
+defined by the sun, and not as before by the moon.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the Romans were the first to bring the scientific knowledge of the
+Greeks into practical use; but while they measured the year with a great
+approximation to accuracy, they still used sun-dials and water-clocks to
+measure diurnal time. Yet even these were not constructed as they should
+have been. The hour-marks on the sun-dial were all made equal, instead
+of varying with the periods of the day,--so that the length of the hour
+varied with the length of the day. The illuminated interval was divided
+into twelve equal parts; so that if the sun rose at five A.M., and set
+at eight P.M., each hour was equal to eighty minutes. And this rude
+method of measurement of diurnal time remained in use till the sixth
+century. Clocks, with wheels and weights, were not invented till the
+twelfth century.</p>
+
+<p>The last great light among the ancients in astronomical science was
+Ptolemy, who lived from 100 to 170 A.D., in Alexandria. He was
+acquainted with the writings of all the previous astronomers, but
+accepted Hipparchus as his guide. He held that the heaven is spherical
+and revolves upon its axis; that the earth is a sphere, and is situated
+within the celestial sphere, and nearly at its centre; that it is a mere
+point in reference to the distance and magnitude of the fixed stars, and
+that it has no motion. He adopted the views of the ancient astronomers,
+who placed Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars next under the sphere of the fixed
+stars, then the sun above Venus and Mercury, and lastly the moon next to
+the earth. But he differed from Aristotle, who conceived that the earth
+revolves in an orbit around the centre of the planetary system, and
+turns upon its axis,--two ideas in common with the doctrines which
+Copernicus afterward unfolded. But even Ptolemy did not conceive the
+heliocentric theory,--the sun the centre of our system. Archimedes and
+Hipparchus both rejected this theory.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to the practical value of the speculations of the ancient
+astronomers, it may be said that had they possessed clocks and
+telescopes, their scientific methods would have sufficed for all
+practical purposes. The greatness of modern discoveries lies in the
+great stretch of the perceptive powers, and the magnificent field they
+afford for sublime contemplation. &quot;But,&quot; as Sir G. Cornewall Lewis
+remarks, &quot;modern astronomy is a science of pure curiosity, and is
+directed exclusively to the extension of knowledge in a field which
+human interests can never enter. The periodic time of Uranus, the nature
+of Saturn's ring, and the occultation of Jupiter's satellites are as far
+removed from the concerns of mankind as the heliacal rising of Sirius,
+or the northern position of the Great Bear.&quot; This may seem to be a
+utilitarian view, with which those philosophers who have cultivated
+science for its own sake, finding in the same a sufficient reward, can
+have no sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>The upshot of the scientific attainments of the ancients, in the
+magnificent realm of the heavenly bodies, would seem to be that they
+laid the foundation of all the definite knowledge which is useful to
+mankind; while in the field of abstract calculation they evinced
+reasoning and mathematical powers that have never been surpassed.
+Eratosthenes, Archimedes, and Hipparchus were geniuses worthy to be
+placed by the side of Kepler, Newton, and La Place, and all ages will
+reverence their efforts and their memory. It is truly surprising that
+with their imperfect instruments, and the absence of definite data,
+they reached a height so sublime and grand. They explained the doctrine
+of the sphere and the apparent motions of the planets, but they had no
+instruments capable of measuring angular distances. The ingenious
+epicycles of Ptolemy prepared the way for the elliptic orbits and laws
+of Kepler, which in turn conducted Newton to the discovery of the law of
+gravitation,--the grandest scientific discovery in the annals of
+our race.</p>
+
+<p>Closely connected with astronomical science was geometry, which was
+first taught in Egypt,--the nurse and cradle of ancient wisdom. It arose
+from the necessity of adjusting the landmarks disturbed by the
+inundations of the Nile. There is hardly any trace of geometry among the
+Hebrews. Among the Hindus there are some works on this science, of great
+antiquity. Their mathematicians knew the rule for finding the area of a
+triangle from its sides, and also the celebrated proposition concerning
+the squares on the sides of the right-angled triangle. The Chinese, it
+is said, also knew this proposition before it was known to the Greeks,
+among whom it was first propounded by Thales. He applied a circle to the
+measurement of angles. Anaximander made geographical charts, which
+required considerable geometrical knowledge. Anaxagoras employed
+himself in prison in attempting to square the circle. Thales, as has
+been said, discovered the important theorem that in a right-angled
+triangle the squares on the sides containing the right angle are
+together equal to the square on the opposite side of it. Pythagoras
+discovered that of all figures having the same boundary, the circle
+among plane figures and the sphere among solids are the most capacious.
+Hippocrates treated of the duplication of the cube, and wrote elements
+of geometry, and knew that the area of a circle was equal to a triangle
+whose base is equal to its circumference and altitude equal to its
+radius. The disciples of Plato invented conic sections, and discovered
+the geometrical foci.</p>
+
+<p>It was however reserved for Euclid to make his name almost synonymous
+with geometry. He was born 323 B.C., and belonged to the Platonic sect,
+which ever attached great importance to mathematics. His &quot;Elements&quot; are
+still in use, as nearly perfect as any human production can be. They
+consist of thirteen books. The first four are on plane geometry; the
+fifth is on the theory of proportion, and applies to magnitude in
+general; the seventh, eighth, and ninth are on arithmetic; the tenth on
+the arithmetical characteristics of the division of a straight line; the
+eleventh and twelfth on the elements of solid geometry; the thirteenth
+on the regular solids. These &quot;Elements&quot; soon became the universal study
+of geometers throughout the civilized world; they were translated into
+the Arabic, and through the Arabians were made known to mediaeval
+Europe. There can be no doubt that this work is one of the highest
+triumphs of human genius, and it has been valued more than any single
+monument of antiquity; it is still a text-book, in various English
+translations, in all our schools. Euclid also wrote various other works,
+showing great mathematical talent.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps a greater even than Euclid was Archimedes, born 287 B.C. He
+wrote on the sphere and cylinder, terminating in the discovery that the
+solidity and surface of a sphere are two thirds respectively of the
+solidity and surface of the circumscribing cylinder. He also wrote on
+conoids and spheroids. &quot;The properties of the spiral and the quadrature
+of the parabola were added to ancient geometry by Archimedes, the last
+being a great step in the progress of the science, since it was the
+first curvilineal space legitimately squared.&quot; Modern mathematicians may
+not have the patience to go through his investigations, since the
+conclusions he arrived at may now be reached by shorter methods; but the
+great conclusions of the old geometers were reached by only prodigious
+mathematical power. Archimedes is popularly better known as the inventor
+of engines of war and of various ingenious machines than as a
+mathematician, great as were his attainments in this direction. His
+theory of the lever was the foundation of statics till the discovery of
+the composition of forces in the time of Newton, and no essential
+addition was made to the principles of the equilibrium of fluids and
+floating bodies till the time of Stevin, in 1608. Archimedes detected
+the mixture of silver in a crown of gold which his patron, Hiero of
+Syracuse, ordered to be made; and he invented a water-screw for pumping
+water out of the hold of a great ship which he had built. He contrived
+also the combination of pulleys, and he constructed an orrery to
+represent the movement of the heavenly bodies. He had an extraordinary
+inventive genius for discovering new provinces of inquiry and new points
+of view for old and familiar objects. Like Newton, he had a habit of
+abstraction from outward things, and would forget to take his meals. He
+was killed by Roman soldiers when Syracuse was taken; and the Sicilians
+so soon forgot his greatness that in the time of Cicero they did not
+know where his tomb was.</p>
+
+<p>Eratosthenes was another of the famous geometers of antiquity, and did
+much to improve geometrical analysis. He was also a philosopher and
+geographer. He gave a solution of the problem of the duplication of the
+cube, and applied his geometrical knowledge to the measurement of the
+magnitude of the earth,--being one of the first who brought
+mathematical methods to the aid of astronomy, which in our day is almost
+exclusively the province of the mathematician.</p>
+
+<p>Apollonius of Perga, probably about forty years younger than Archimedes,
+and his equal in mathematical genius, was the most fertile and profound
+writer among the ancients who treated of geometry. He was called the
+Great Geometer. His most important work is a treatise on conic sections,
+which was regarded with unbounded admiration by contemporaries, and in
+some respects is unsurpassed by any thing produced by modern
+mathematicians. He however made use of the labors of his predecessors,
+so that it is difficult to tell how far he is original. But all men of
+science must necessarily be indebted to those who have preceded them.
+Even Homer, in the field of poetry, made use of the bards who had sung
+for a thousand years before him; and in the realms of philosophy the
+great men of all ages have built up new systems on the foundations which
+others have established. If Plato or Aristotle had been contemporaries
+with Thales, would they have matured so wonderful a system of
+dialectics? Yet if Thales had been contemporaneous with Plato, he might
+have added to the great Athenian's sublime science even more than did
+Aristotle. So of the great mathematicians of antiquity; they were all
+wonderful men, and worthy to be classed with the Newtons and Keplers of
+our times. Considering their means and the state of science, they made
+as <i>great</i> though not as <i>fortunate</i> discoveries,--discoveries which
+show patience, genius, and power of calculation. Apollonius was one of
+these,--one of the master intellects of antiquity, like Euclid and
+Archimedes; one of the master intellects of all ages, like Newton
+himself. I might mention the subjects of his various works, but they
+would not be understood except by those familiar with mathematics.</p>
+
+<p>Other famous geometers could also be named, but such men as Euclid,
+Archimedes, and Apollonius are enough to show that geometry was
+cultivated to a great extent by the philosophers of antiquity. It
+progressively advanced, like philosophy itself, from the time of Thales
+until it had reached the perfection of which it was capable, when it
+became merged into astronomical science. It was cultivated more
+particularly by the disciples of Plato, who placed over his school this
+inscription: &quot;Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here.&quot; He believed
+that the laws by which the universe is governed are in accordance with
+the doctrines of mathematics. The same opinion was shared by Pythagoras,
+the great founder of the science, whose main formula was that <i>number</i>
+is the essence or first principle of all things. No thinkers ever
+surpassed the Greeks in originality and profundity; and mathematics,
+being highly prized by them, were carried to the greatest perfection
+their method would allow. They did not understand algebra, by the
+application of which to geometry modern mathematicians have climbed to
+greater heights than the ancients; but then it is all the more
+remarkable that without the aid of algebraic analysis they were able to
+solve such difficult problems as occupied the minds of Archimedes and
+Apollonius. No positive science can boast of such rapid development as
+geometry for two or three hundred years before Christ, and never was the
+intellect of man more severely tasked than by the ancient
+mathematicians.</p>
+
+<p>No empirical science can be carried to perfection by any one nation or
+in any particular epoch; it can only expand with the progressive
+developments of the human race itself. Nevertheless, in that science
+which for three thousand years has been held in the greatest honor, and
+which is one of the three great liberal professions of our modern times,
+the ancients, especially the Greeks, made considerable advance. The
+science of medicine, having in view the amelioration of human misery and
+the prolongation of life itself, was very early cultivated. It was,
+indeed, in old times another word for <i>physics</i>,--the science of
+Nature,--and the <i>physician</i> was the observer and expounder of physics.
+The physician was supposed to be acquainted with the secrets of
+Nature,--that is, the knowledge of drugs, of poisons, of antidotes to
+them, and the way to administer them. He was also supposed to know the
+process of preserving the body after death. Thus Joseph, seventeen
+hundred years before the birth of Christ, commanded his physician to
+embalm the body of his father; and the process of embalming was probably
+known to the Egyptians before the period when history begins. Helen, of
+Trojan fame, put into wine a drug that &quot;frees man from grief and anger,
+and causes oblivion of all ills.&quot; Solomon was a great botanist,--a realm
+with which the science of medicine is indissolubly connected. The origin
+of Hindu medicine is lost in remote antiquity. The Ayur Veda, written
+nine hundred years before Hippocrates was born, sums up the knowledge of
+previous periods relating to obstetric surgery, to general pathology, to
+the treatment of insanity, to infantile diseases, to toxicology, to
+personal hygiene, and to diseases of the generative functions.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Hippocrates, the father of European medicine, must have derived his
+knowledge not merely from his own observations, but from the writings of
+men unknown to us and from systems practised for an indefinite period.
+The real founders of Greek medicine are fabled characters, like Hercules
+and Aesculapius,--that is, benefactors whose fictitious names alone
+have descended to us. They are mythical personages, like Hermes and
+Chiron. Twelve hundred years before Christ temples were erected to
+Aesculapius in Greece, the priests of which were really physicians, and
+the temples themselves hospitals. In them were practised rites
+apparently mysterious, but which modern science calls by the names of
+mesmerism, hydropathy, the use of mineral springs, and other essential
+elements of empirical science. And these temples were also medical
+schools. That of Cos gave birth to Hippocrates, and it was there that
+his writings were begun. Pythagoras--for those old Grecian philosophers
+were the fathers of all wisdom and knowledge, in mathematics and
+empirical sciences as well as philosophy itself--studied medicine in the
+schools of Egypt, Phoenicia, Chaldaea, and India, and came in conflict
+with sacerdotal power, which has ever been antagonistic to new ideas in
+science. He travelled from town to town as a teacher or lecturer,
+establishing communities in which <i>medicine</i> as well as <i>numbers</i>
+was taught.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest name in medical science in ancient or in modern times, the
+man who did the most to advance it, the greatest medical genius of whom
+we have any early record, was Hippocrates, born on the island of Cos,
+460 B.C., of the great Aesculapian family. He received his instruction
+from his father. We know scarcely more of his life than we do of Homer
+himself, although he lived in the period of the highest splendor of
+Athens. Even his writings, like those of Homer, are thought by some to
+be the work of different men. They were translated into Arabic, and were
+no slight means of giving an impulse to the Saracenic schools of the
+Middle Ages in that science in which the Saracens especially excelled.
+The Hippocratic collection consists of more than sixty works, which were
+held in the highest estimation by the ancient physicians. Hippocrates
+introduced a new era in medicine, which before his time had been
+monopolized by the priests. He carried out a system of severe induction
+from the observation of facts, and is as truly the creator of the
+inductive method as Bacon himself. He abhorred theories which could not
+be established by facts; he was always open to conviction, and candidly
+confessed his mistakes; he was conscientious in the practice of his
+profession, and valued the success of his art more than silver and gold.
+The Athenians revered Hippocrates for his benevolence as well as genius.
+The great principle of his practice was <i>trust in Nature</i>; hence he was
+accused of allowing his patients to die. But this principle has many
+advocates among scientific men in our day; and some suppose that the
+whole successful practice of Homoeopathy rests on the primal principle
+which Hippocrates advanced, although the philosophy of it claims a
+distinctly scientific basis in the principle <i>similia similibus
+curantur</i>. Hippocrates had great skill in diagnosis, by which medical
+genius is most severely tested; his practice was cautious and timid in
+contrast with that of his contemporaries. He is the author of the
+celebrated maxim, &quot;Life is short and art is long.&quot; He divides the causes
+of disease into two principal classes,--the one comprehending the
+influence of seasons, climates, and other external forces; the other
+including the effects of food and exercise. To the influence of climate
+he attributes the conformation of the body and the disposition of the
+mind; to a vicious system of diet he attributes innumerable forms of
+disease. For more than twenty centuries his pathology was the foundation
+of all the medical sects. He was well acquainted with the medicinal
+properties of drugs, and was the first to assign three periods to the
+course of a malady. He knew but little of surgery, although he was in
+the habit of bleeding, and often employed the knife; he was also
+acquainted with cupping, and used violent purgatives. He was not aware
+of the importance of the pulse, and confounded the veins with the
+arteries. Hippocrates wrote in the Ionic dialect, and some of his works
+have gone through three hundred editions, so highly have they been
+valued. His authority passed away, like that of Aristotle, on the
+revival of science in Europe. Yet who have been greater ornaments and
+lights than these two distinguished Greeks?</p>
+
+<p>The school of Alexandria produced eminent physicians, as well as
+mathematicians, after the glory of Greece had departed. So highly was it
+esteemed that Galen in the second century,--born in Greece, but famous
+in the service of Rome,--went there to study, five hundred years after
+its foundation. It was distinguished for inquiries into scientific
+anatomy and physiology, for which Aristotle had prepared the way. Galen
+was the Humboldt of his day, and gave great attention to physics. In
+eight books he developed the general principles of natural science known
+to the Greeks. On the basis of the Aristotelian researches, the
+Alexandrian physicians carried out extensive inquiries in physiology.
+Herophilus discovered the fundamental principles of neurology, and
+advanced the anatomy of the brain and spinal cord.</p>
+
+<p>Although the Romans had but little sympathy with science or philosophy,
+being essentially political and warlike in their turn of mind, yet when
+they had conquered the world, and had turned their attention to arts,
+medicine received a good share of their attention. The first physicians
+in Rome were Greek slaves. Of these was Asclepiades, who enjoyed the
+friendship of Cicero. It is from him that the popular medical theories
+as to the &quot;pores&quot; have descended. He was the inventor of the
+shower-bath. Celsus wrote a work on medicine which takes almost equal
+rank with the Hippocratic writings.</p>
+
+<p>Medical science at Rome culminated in Galen, as it did at Athens in
+Hippocrates. Galen was patronized by Marcus Aurelius, and availed
+himself of all the knowledge of preceding naturalists and physicians. He
+was born at Pergamos about the year 130 A.D., where he learned, under
+able masters, anatomy, pathology, and therapeutics. He finished his
+studies at Alexandria, and came to Rome at the invitation of the
+Emperor. Like his imperial patron, Galen was one of the brightest
+ornaments of the heathen world, and one of the most learned and
+accomplished men of any age. He left five hundred treatises, most of
+them relating to some branch of medical science, which give him the name
+of being one of the most voluminous of authors. His celebrity is founded
+chiefly on his anatomical and physiological works. He was familiar with
+practical anatomy, deriving his knowledge from dissection. His
+observations about health are practical and useful; he lays great stress
+on gymnastic exercises, and recommends the pleasures of the chase, the
+cold bath in hot weather, hot baths for old people, the use of wine, and
+three meals a day. The great principles of his practice were that
+disease is to be overcome by that which is contrary to the disease
+itself,--hence the name Allopathy, invented by the founder of
+Homoeopathy to designate the fundamental principle of the general
+practice,--and that nature is to be preserved by that which has relation
+with nature. His &quot;Commentaries on Hippocrates&quot; served as a treasure of
+medical criticism, from which succeeding annotators borrowed. No one
+ever set before the medical profession a higher standard than Galen
+advanced, and few have more nearly approached it. He did not attach
+himself to any particular school, but studied the doctrines of each. The
+works of Galen constituted the last production of ancient Roman
+medicine, and from his day the decline in medical science was rapid,
+until it was revived among the Arabs.</p>
+
+<p>The physical sciences, it must be confessed, were not carried by the
+ancients to any such length as geometry and astronomy. In physical
+geography they were particularly deficient. Yet even this branch of
+knowledge can boast of some eminent names. When men sailed timidly along
+the coasts, and dared not explore distant seas, the true position and
+characteristics of countries could not be ascertained with the
+definiteness that it is at present. But geography was not utterly
+neglected in those early times, nor was natural history.</p>
+
+<p>Herodotus gives us most valuable information respecting the manners and
+customs of Oriental and barbarous nations; and Pliny wrote a Natural
+History in thirty-seven books, which is compiled from upwards of two
+thousand volumes, and refers to twenty thousand matters of importance.
+He was born 23 A.D., and was fifty-six when the eruption of Vesuvius
+took place, which caused his death. Pliny cannot be called a scientific
+genius in the sense understood by modern savants; nor was he an original
+observer,--his materials being drawn up second-hand, like a modern
+encyclopaedia. Nor did he evince great judgment in his selection: he had
+a great love of the marvellous, and his work was often unintelligible;
+but it remains a wonderful monument of human industry. His Natural
+History treats of everything in the natural world,--of the heavenly
+bodies, of the elements, of thunder and lightning, of the winds and
+seasons, of the changes and phenomena of the earth, of countries and
+nations, of seas and rivers, of men, animals, birds, fishes, and plants,
+of minerals and medicines and precious stones, of commerce and the fine
+arts. He is full of errors, but his work is among the most valuable
+productions of antiquity. Buffon pronounced his Natural History to
+contain an infinity of knowledge in every department of human
+occupation, conveyed in a dress ornate and brilliant. It is a literary
+rather than a scientific monument, and as such it is wonderful. In
+strict scientific value, it is inferior to the works of modern research;
+but there are few minds, even in these times, who have directed
+inquiries to such a variety of subjects as are treated in Pliny's
+masterpiece.</p>
+
+<p>If we would compare the geographical knowledge of the ancients with that
+of the moderns, we confess to the immeasurable inferiority of
+the ancients.</p>
+
+<p>Eratosthenes, though more properly an astronomer, and the most
+distinguished among the ancients, was also a considerable writer on
+geography, indeed, the first who treated the subject systematically,
+although none of his writings have reached us. The improvements he
+pointed out were applied by Ptolemy himself. His work was a presentation
+of the geographical knowledge known in his day, so far as geography is
+the science of determining the position of places on the earth's
+surface. When Eratosthenes began his labors, in the third century before
+Christ, it was known that the surface of the earth was spherical; he
+established parallels of latitude and longitude, and attempted the
+difficult undertaking of measuring the circumference of the globe by the
+actual measurement of a segment of one of its great circles.</p>
+
+<p>Hipparchus (beginning of second century before Christ) introduced into
+geography a great improvement; namely, the relative situation of
+places, by the same process that he determined the positions of the
+heavenly bodies. He also pointed out how longitude might be determined
+by observing the eclipses of the sun and moon. This led to the
+construction of maps; but none have reached us except those that were
+used to illustrate the geography of Ptolemy. Hipparchus was the first
+who raised geography to the rank of a science. He starved himself to
+death, being tired of life.</p>
+
+<p>Posidonius, who was nearly a century later, determined the arc of a
+meridian between Rhodes and Alexandria to be a forty-eighth part of the
+whole circumference,--an enormous calculation, yet a remarkable one in
+the infancy of astronomical science. His writings on history and
+geography are preserved only in quotations by Cicero, Strabo,
+and others.</p>
+
+<p>Geographical knowledge however was most notably advanced by Strabo, who
+lived in the Augustan era; although his researches were chiefly confined
+to the Roman empire. Strabo was, like Herodotus, a great traveller, and
+much of his geographical information is the result of his own
+observations. It is probable he was much indebted to Eratosthenes, who
+preceded him by three centuries. The authorities of Strabo were chiefly
+Greek, but his work is defective from the imperfect notions which the
+ancients had of astronomy; so that the determination of the earth's
+figure by the measure of latitude and longitude, the essential
+foundation of geographical description, was unknown. The enormous
+strides which all forms of physical science have made since the
+discovery of America throw all ancient descriptions and investigations
+into the shade, and Strabo appears at as great disadvantage as Pliny or
+Ptolemy; yet the work of Strabo, considering his means, and the
+imperfect knowledge of the earth's surface and astronomical science in
+his day, was really a great achievement. He treats of the form and
+magnitude of the earth, and devotes eight books to Europe, six to Asia,
+and one to Africa. The description of places belongs to Strabo, whose
+work was accepted as the text-book of the science till the fifteenth
+century, for in his day the Roman empire had been well surveyed. He
+maintained that the earth is spherical, and established the terms
+<i>longitude</i> and <i>latitude</i>, which Eratosthenes had introduced, and
+computed the earth to be one hundred and eighty thousand stadia in
+circumference, and a degree to be five hundred stadia in length, or
+sixty-two and a-half Roman miles. His estimates of the length of a
+degree of latitude were nearly correct; but he made great errors in the
+degrees of longitude, making the length of the world from east to west
+too great, which led to the belief in the practicability of a western
+passage to India. He also assigned too great length to the
+Mediterranean, arising from the difficulty of finding the longitude with
+accuracy. But it was impossible, with the scientific knowledge of his
+day, to avoid errors, and we are surprised that he made so few.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may be said of the accuracy of the great geographer of
+antiquity, it cannot be denied that he was a man of immense research and
+learning. His work in seventeen books is one of the most valuable that
+have come down from antiquity, both from the discussions which run
+through it, and the curious facts which can be found nowhere else. It is
+scarcely fair to estimate the genius of Strabo by the correctness and
+extent of his geographical knowledge. All men are comparatively ignorant
+in science, because science is confessedly a progressive study. The
+great scientific lights of our day may be insignificant, compared with
+those who are to arise, if profundity and accuracy of knowledge be made
+the test. It is the genius of the ancients, their grasp and power of
+mind, their original labors, which we are to consider.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it would seem that among the ancients, in those departments of
+science which are inductive, there were not sufficient facts, well
+established, from which to make sound inductions; but in those
+departments which are deductive, like pure mathematics, and which
+require great reasoning powers, there were lofty attainments,--which
+indeed gave the foundation for the achievements of modern science.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>AUTHORITIES.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>An exceedingly learned work (London, 1862) on the Astronomy of the
+Ancients, by Sir George Cornewall Lewis, though rather ostentatious in
+the parade of authorities, and minute on points which are not of much
+consequence, is worth consulting. Delambre's History of Ancient
+Astronomy has long been a classic, but is richer in materials for a
+history than a history itself. There is a valuable essay in the
+Encyclopaedia Britannica, which refers to a list of special authors.
+Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences may also be consulted with
+profit. Dunglison's History of Medicine is a standard, giving much
+detailed information, and Leclerc among the French and Speugel among the
+Germans are esteemed authorities. Strabo's Geography is the most
+valuable of antiquity; see also Polybius: both of these have been
+translated and edited for English readers.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="MATERIAL_LIFE_OF_THE_ANCIENTS."></a>MATERIAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>MECHANICAL AND USEFUL ARTS.</p>
+
+<p>4000-50 B.C.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>While the fine arts made great progress among the cultivated nations of
+antiquity, and with the Greeks reached a refinement that has never since
+been surpassed, the ancients were far behind modern nations in
+everything that has utility for its object. In implements of war, in
+agricultural instruments, in the variety of manufactures, in machinery,
+in chemical compounds, in domestic utensils, in grand engineering works,
+in the comfort of houses, in modes of land-travel and transportation, in
+navigation, in the multiplication of books, in triumphs over the forces
+of Nature, in those discoveries and inventions which abridge the labors
+of mankind and bring races into closer intercourse,--especially by such
+wonders as are wrought by steam, gas, electricity, gunpowder, the
+mariner's compass, and the art of printing,--the modern world feels its
+immense superiority to all the ages that have gone before. And yet,
+considering the infancy of science and the youth of nations, more was
+accomplished by the ancients for the comfort and convenience and luxury
+of man than we naturally might suppose.</p>
+
+<p>Egypt was the primeval seat of what may be called material civilization,
+and many arts and inventions were known there when the rest of the world
+was still in ignorance and barbarism. More than four thousand years ago
+the Egyptians had chariots of war and most of the military weapons known
+afterward to the Greeks,--especially the spear and bow, which were the
+most effective offensive weapons known to antiquity or the Middle Ages.
+Some of their warriors were clothed in coats of brass equal to the steel
+or iron cuirass worn by the Mediaeval knights of chivalry. They had the
+battle-axe, the shield, the sword, the javelin, the metal-headed arrow.
+One of the early Egyptian kings marched against his enemies with six
+hundred thousand infantry, twenty thousand cavalry, and twenty-three
+thousand chariots of war, each drawn by two horses. The saddles and
+bridles of their horses were nearly as perfect as ours are at the
+present time; the leather they used was dyed in various colors, and
+adorned with metal edges. The wheels of their chariots were bound with
+hoops of metal, and had six spokes. Umbrellas to protect from the rays
+of the sun were held over the heads of their women of rank when they
+rode in their highly-decorated chariots. Walls of solid masonry, thick
+and high, surrounded their principal cities, while an attacking or
+besieging army used movable towers. Their disciplined troops advanced to
+battle in true military precision, at the sound of the trumpet.</p>
+
+<p>The public works of Egyptian kings were on a grand scale. They united
+rivers with seas by canals which employed hundreds of thousands of
+workmen. They transported heavy blocks of stone, of immense weight and
+magnitude, for their temples, palaces, and tombs. They erected obelisks
+in single shafts nearly one hundred feet in height, and they engraved
+the sides of these obelisks from top to bottom with representations of
+warriors, priests, and captives. They ornamented their vast temples with
+sculptures which required the hardest metals. Rameses the Great, the
+Sesostris of the Greeks, had a fleet of four hundred vessels in the
+Arabian Gulf, and the rowers wore quilted helmets. His vessels had
+sails, which implies the weaving of flax and the twisting of heavy
+ropes; some of his war-galleys were propelled by forty-four oars, and
+were one hundred and twenty feet in length.</p>
+
+<p>Among their domestic utensils the Egyptians used the same kind of
+buckets for wells that we find to-day among the farmhouses of New
+England. Skilful gardeners were employed in ornamenting grounds and in
+raising fruits and vegetables. The leather cutters and dressers were
+famous for their skill, as well as workers in linen. Most products of
+the land, as well as domestic animals, were sold by weight in carefully
+adjusted scales. Instead of coins, money was in rings of gold, silver,
+and copper. The skill used by the Egyptians in rearing fowls, geese, and
+domestic animals greatly surpassed that known to modern farmers.
+According to Wilkinson, they caught fish in nets equal to the seines
+employed by modern fishermen. Their houses as well as their monuments
+were built of brick, and were sometimes four or five stories in height,
+and secured by bolts on the doors. Locks and keys were also in use, made
+of iron; and the doorways were ornamented. Some of the roofs of their
+public buildings were arched with stone. In their mills for grinding
+wheat circular stones were used, resembling in form those now employed,
+generally turned by women, but sometimes so large that asses and mules
+were employed in the work. The walls and ceilings of their buildings
+were richly painted, the devices being as elaborate as those of the
+Greeks. Besides town-houses, the rich had villas and gardens, where they
+amused themselves with angling and spearing fish in the ponds. The
+gardens were laid in walks shaded with trees, and were well watered from
+large tanks. Vines were trained on trellis-work supported by pillars,
+and sometimes in the form of bowers. For gathering fruit, baskets were
+used somewhat similar to those now employed. Their wine-presses showed
+considerable ingenuity, and after the necessary fermentation the wine
+was poured into large earthen jars, corresponding to the amphorae of the
+Romans, and covered with lids made air-tight by resin and bitumen. The
+Egyptians had several kinds of wine, highly praised by the ancients; and
+wine among them was cheap and abundant. Egypt was also renowned for
+drugs unknown to other nations, and for beer made of barley, as well as
+wine. As for fruits, they had the same variety as we have at the present
+day, their favorite fruit being dates. &quot;So fond were the Egyptians of
+trees and flowers that they exacted a contribution from the nations
+tributary to them of their rarest plants, so that their gardens bloomed
+with flowers of every variety in all seasons of the year.&quot; Wreaths and
+chaplets were in common use from the earliest antiquity. It was in their
+gardens, abounding with vegetables as well as with fruits and flowers,
+that the Egyptians entertained their friends.</p>
+
+<p>In Egyptian houses were handsome chairs and fauteuils, stools and
+couches, the legs of which were carved in imitation of the feet of
+animals; and these were made of rare woods, inlaid with ivory, and
+covered with rich stuffs. Some of the Egyptian chairs were furnished
+with cushions and covered with the skins of leopards and lions; the
+seats were made of leather, painted with flowers. Footstools were
+sometimes made of elegant patterns, inlaid with ivory and precious
+woods. Mats were used in the sitting-rooms. The couches were of every
+variety of form, and utilized in some instances as beds. The tables were
+round, square, and oblong, and were sometimes made of stone and highly
+ornamented with carvings. Bronze bedsteads were used by the
+wealthy classes.</p>
+
+<p>In their entertainments nothing was omitted by the Egyptians which would
+produce festivity,--music, songs, dancing, and games of chance. The
+guests arrived in chariots or palanquins, borne by servants on foot, who
+also carried parasols over the heads of their masters. Previous to
+entering the festive chamber water was brought for the feet and hands,
+the ewers employed being made often of gold and silver, of beautiful
+form and workmanship. Servants in attendance anointed the head with
+sweet-scented ointment from alabaster vases, and put around the heads of
+the guests garlands and wreaths in which the lotus was conspicuous; they
+also perfumed the apartments with myrrh and frankincense, obtained
+chiefly from Syria. Then wine was brought, and emptied into
+drinking-cups of silver or bronze, and even of porcelain, beautifully
+engraved, one of which was exclusively reserved for the master of the
+house. While at dinner the party were enlivened with musical
+instruments, the chief of which were the harp, the lyre, the guitar, the
+tambourine, the pipe, the flute, and the cymbal. Music was looked upon
+by the Egyptians as an important science, and was diligently studied and
+highly prized; the song and the dance were united with the sounds of
+musical instruments. Many of the ornamented vases and other vessels used
+by the Egyptians in their banquets were not inferior in elegance of form
+and artistic finish to those made by the Greeks at a later day. The
+Pharaoh of the Jewish Exodus had drinking-vessels of gold and silver,
+exquisitely engraved and ornamented with precious stones.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the bronze vases found at Thebes and other parts of Egypt show
+great skill in the art of compounding metals, and were highly polished.
+Their bronze knives and daggers had an elastic spring, as if made of
+steel. Wilkinson expresses his surprise at the porcelain vessels
+recently discovered, as well as admiration of them, especially of their
+rich colors and beautiful shapes. There is a porcelain bowl of exquisite
+workmanship in the British Museum inscribed with the name of Rameses
+II., proving that the arts of pottery were carried to great perfection
+two thousand years before Christ. Boxes of elaborate workmanship, made
+of precious woods finely carved and inlaid with ivory, are also
+preserved in the different museums of Europe, all dating from a remote
+antiquity. These boxes are of every form, with admirably fitting lids,
+representing fishes, birds, and animals. The rings, bracelets, and other
+articles of jewelry that have been preserved show great facility on the
+part of the Egyptians in cutting the hardest stones. The skill displayed
+in the sculptures on the hard obelisks and granite monuments of Egypt
+was remarkable, since they were executed with hardened bronze.</p>
+
+<p>Glass-blowing was another art in which the Egyptians excelled. Fifteen
+hundred years before Christ they made ornaments of glass, and glass
+vessels of large size were used for holding wine. Such was their skill
+in the manufacture of glass that they counterfeited precious stones with
+a success unknown to the moderns. We read of a counterfeited emerald six
+feet in length. Counterfeited necklaces were sold at Thebes which
+deceived strangers. The uses to which glass was applied were in the
+manufacture of bottles, beads, mosaic work, and drinking-cups, and their
+different colors show considerable knowledge of chemistry. The art of
+cutting and engraving stones was doubtless learned by the Israelites in
+their sojourn in Egypt. So perfect were the Egyptians in the arts of
+cutting precious stones that they were sought by foreign merchants, and
+they furnished an important material in commerce.</p>
+
+<p>From the earliest times the Egyptians were celebrated for their
+manufacture of linen, which was one of the principal articles of
+commerce; and cotton and woollen cloths as well as linen were woven.
+Cotton was used not only for articles of dress, but for the covering of
+chairs and other kinds of furniture. The great mass of the mummy cloths
+is of coarse texture; but the &quot;fine linen&quot; spoken of in the Scripture
+was as fine as muslin, in some instances containing more than five
+hundred threads to an inch, while the finest productions of the looms of
+India have only one hundred threads to the inch. Not only were the
+threads of linen cloth of extraordinary fineness, but the dyes were
+equally remarkable, and were unaffected by strong alkalies. Spinning was
+principally the occupation of women, who also practised the art of
+embroidery, in which gold thread was used, supposed to be beaten out by
+the hammer; but in the arts of dyeing and embroidery the Egyptians were
+surpassed by the Babylonians, who were renowned for their cloths of
+various colors.</p>
+
+<p>The manufacture of paper was another art for which the Egyptians were
+famous, made from the papyrus, a plant growing in the marsh-land of the
+Nile. The papyrus was also applied to the manufacture of sails, baskets,
+canoes, and parts of sandals. Some of the papyri, on which is
+hieroglyphic writing dating from two thousand years before our era, are
+in good preservation. Sheep-skin parchment also was used for writing.</p>
+
+<p>The Egyptians were especially skilled in the preparation of leather for
+sandals, shields, and chairs. The curriers used the same semicircular
+knife which is now in use. The great consumption of leather created a
+demand far greater than could be satisfied by the produce of the
+country, and therefore skins from foreign countries were imported as
+part of the tribute laid on conquered nations or tribes.</p>
+
+<p>More numerous than the tanners in Egypt were the potters, among whom the
+pottery-wheel was known from a remote antiquity, previous to the arrival
+of Joseph from Canaan, and long before the foundation of the Greek
+Athens. Earthenware was used for holding wine, oils, and other liquids;
+but the finest production of the potter were the vases, covered with a
+vitreous glaze and modelled in every variety of forms, some of which
+were as elegant as those made later by the Greeks, who excelled in this
+department of art.</p>
+
+<p>Carpenters and cabinet-makers formed a large class of Egyptian workmen
+for making coffins, boxes, tables, chairs, doors, sofas, and other
+articles of furniture, frequently inlaid with ivory and rare woods.
+Veneering was known to these workmen, probably arising from the scarcity
+of wood. The tools used by the carpenters, as appear from the
+representations on the monuments, were the axe, the adze, the hand-saw,
+the chisel, the drill, and the plane. These tools were made of bronze,
+with handles of acacia, tamarisk, and other hard woods. The hatchet, by
+which trees were felled, was used by boat-builders. The boxes and other
+articles of furniture were highly ornamented with inlaid work.</p>
+
+<p>Boat-building in Egypt also employed many workmen. Boats were made of
+the papyrus plant, deal, cedar, and other woods, and were propelled both
+by sails and oars. One ship-of-war built for Ptolemy Philopater is said
+by ancient writers to have been 478 feet long, to have had forty banks
+of oars, and to have carried 400 sailors, 4,000 rowers, and 3,000
+soldiers. This is doubtless an exaggeration, but indicates great
+progress in naval architecture. The construction of boats varied
+according to the purpose for which they were intended. They were built
+with ribs as at the present day, with small keels, square sails, with
+spacious cabins in the centre, and ornamented sterns; there was usually
+but one mast, and the prows terminated in the heads of animals. The
+boats of burden were somewhat similar to our barges; the sails were
+generally painted with rich colors. The origin of boat-building was
+probably the raft, and improvement followed improvement until the
+ship-of-war rivalled in size our largest vessels, while Egyptian
+merchant vessels penetrated to distant seas, and probably doubled the
+Cape of Good Hope.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to agriculture the Egyptians were the most advanced of the
+nations of antiquity, since the fertility of their soil made the
+occupation one of primary importance. Irrigation was universally
+practised, the Nile furnishing water for innumerable canals. The soil
+was often turned up with the hoe rather than the plough. The grain was
+sown broadcast, and was trodden in by goats. Their plough was very
+simple, and was drawn by oxen; the yoke being attached to the horns.
+Although the soil was rich, manures were frequently used. The chief
+crops were those of wheat, barley, beans, peas, lentils, vetches,
+lupines, clover, rice, indigo, cotton, lettuce, flax, hemp, cumin,
+coriander, poppy, melons, cucumbers, onions, and leeks. We do not read
+of carrots, cabbages, beets, or potatoes, which enter so largely into
+modern husbandry. Oil was obtained from the olive, the castor-berry,
+simsin, and coleseed. Among the principal trees which were cultivated
+were the vine, olive, locust, acacia, date, sycamore, pomegranate, and
+tamarisk. Grain, after harvest, was trodden out by oxen, and the straw
+was used as provender. To protect the fields from inundation dykes
+were built.</p>
+
+<p>All classes in Egypt delighted in the sports of the field, especially in
+the hunting of wild animals, in which the arrow was most frequently
+used. Sometimes the animals were caught in nets, in enclosed places near
+water-brooks. The Egyptians also had numerous fish-ponds, since they
+were as fond of angling as they were of hunting. Hunting in Egypt was an
+amusement, not an occupation as among nomadic people. Not only was
+hunting for pleasure a great amusement among Egyptians, but also among
+Babylonians and Persians, who coursed the plains with dogs. They used
+the noose or lasso also to catch antelopes and wild cattle, which were
+hunted with lions; the bow used in the chase was similar to that
+employed in war. All the subjects of the chase were sculptured on the
+monuments with great spirit and fidelity, especially the stag, the ibex,
+the porcupine, the wolf, the hare, the lion, the fox, and the giraffe.
+The camel is not found among the Egyptian sculptures, nor the bear. Of
+the birds found in their sculptures were vultures, eagles, kites, hawks,
+owls, ravens, larks, swallows, turtle-doves, quails, ostriches, storks,
+plovers, snipes, geese, and ducks, many of which were taken in nets. The
+Nile and Lake Birket el Keroun furnished fish in great abundance. The
+profits of the fisheries were enormous, and were farmed out by the
+government.</p>
+
+<p>The Egyptians were very fond of ornaments in dress, especially the
+women. They paid great attention to their sandals; they wore their hair
+long and plaited, bound round with an ornamented fillet fastened by a
+lotus bud; they wore ear-rings and a profusion of rings on the fingers
+and bracelets for the arms, made of gold and set with precious stones.
+The scarabaeus, or sacred beetle, was the adornment of rings and
+necklaces; even the men wore necklaces and rings and chains. Both men
+and women stained the eyelids and brows. Pins and needles were among the
+articles of the toilet, usually made of bronze; also metallic mirrors
+finely polished. The men carried canes or walking-sticks,--the wands of
+Moses and Aaron.</p>
+
+<p>As the Egyptians paid great attention to health, physicians were held in
+great repute; and none were permitted to practise but in some particular
+branch, such as diseases of the eye, the ear, the head, the teeth, and
+the internal maladies. They were paid by government, and were skilled in
+the knowledge of drugs. The art of curing diseases originated, according
+to Pliny, in Egypt. Connected with the healing art was the practice of
+embalming dead bodies, which was carried to great perfection.</p>
+
+<p>In elegance of life the Greeks and Romans, however, far surpassed any
+of the nations of antiquity, if not in luxury itself, which was confined
+to the palaces of kings. In social refinements the Greeks were not
+behind any modern nation, as one infers from reading Becker's Charicles.
+Among the Greeks was the network of trades and professions, as in Paris
+and London, and a complicated social life in which all the amenities
+known to the modern world were seen, especially in Athens and Corinth
+and the Ionian capitals. What could be more polite and courteous than
+the intercourse carried on in Greece among cultivated and famous people?
+When were symposia more attractive than when the <i>&eacute;lite</i> of Athens, in
+the time of Pericles, feasted and communed together? When was art ever
+brought in support of luxury to greater perfection? We read of libraries
+and books and booksellers, of social games, of attractive gardens and
+villas, as well as of baths and spectacles, of markets and fora in
+Athens. The common life of a Pericles or a Cicero differed but little
+from that of modern men of rank and fortune.</p>
+
+<p>In describing the various arts which marked the nations of antiquity, we
+cannot but feel that in a material point of view the ancient
+civilization in its important features was as splendid as our own. In
+the decoration of houses, in social entertainments, in cookery, the
+Romans were our equals. The mosaics, the signet rings, cameos,
+bracelets, bronzes, vases, couches, banqueting-tables, lamps, colored
+glass, potteries, all attest great elegance and beauty. The tables of
+thuga root and Delian bronze were as expensive as modern sideboards;
+wood and ivory were carved in Rome as exquisitely as in Japan and China;
+mirrors were made of polished silver. Glass-cutters could imitate the
+colors of precious stones so well that the Portland vase, from the tomb
+of Alexander Severus, was long considered as a genuine sardonyx. The
+palace of Nero glittered with gold and jewels; perfumes and flowers were
+showered from ivory ceilings. The halls of Heliogabalus were hung with
+cloth of gold, enriched with jewels; his beds were silver, and his
+tables of gold. A banquet dish of Drusillus weighed five hundred pounds
+of silver. Tunics were embroidered with the figures of various animals;
+sandals were garnished with precious stones. Paulina wore jewels, when
+she paid visits, valued at $800,000. Drinking-cups were engraved with
+scenes from the poets; libraries were adorned with busts, and presses of
+rare woods; sofas were inlaid with tortoise-shell, and covered with
+gorgeous purple. The Roman grandees rode in gilded chariots, bathed in
+marble baths, dined from golden plate, drank from crystal cups, slept on
+beds of down, reclined on luxurious couches, wore embroidered robes,
+and were adorned with precious stones. They ransacked the earth and the
+seas for rare dishes for their banquets, and ornamented their houses
+with carpets from Babylon, onyx cups from Bithynia, marbles from
+Numidia, bronzes from Corinth, statues from Athens,--whatever, in short,
+was precious or rare or curious in the most distant countries.</p>
+
+<p>What a concentration of material wonders was to be seen in all the
+countries that bordered on the Mediterranean,--not merely in Italy and
+Greece, but in Sicily and Asia Minor, and even in Gaul and Spain! Every
+country was dotted with cities, villas, and farms. Every country was
+famous for oil, or fruit, or wine, or vegetables, or timber, or flocks,
+or pastures, or horses. More than two hundred and fifty cities or towns
+in Italy alone are historical, and some were famous.</p>
+
+<p>The excavations of Pompeii attest great luxury and elegance of life.
+Cortona, Clusium, Veii, Ancona, Ostia, Praeneste, Antium, Misenum,
+Baiae, Puteoli, Neapolis, Brundusium, Sybaris, were all celebrated.</p>
+
+<p>And still more remarkable were the old capitals of Greece, Asia Minor,
+and Africa. Syracuse was older than Rome, and had a fortress of a mile
+and a half in length. Carthage, under the emperors, nearly equalled its
+ancient magnificence. Athens was never more splendid than in the time of
+the Roman Antonines. In spite of successive conquests, there still
+towered upon the Acropolis the most wonderful temple of antiquity, built
+of Pentelic marble, and adorned with the sculptures of Phidias. Corinth
+was richer and more luxurious than Athens, and possessed the most
+valuable pictures of Greece, as well as the finest statues; a single
+street for three miles was adorned with costly edifices. And even the
+islands which were colonized by Greeks were seats of sculpture and
+painting, as well as of schools of learning. Still grander were the
+cities of Asia Minor. Antioch had a street four miles in length, with
+double colonnades; and its baths, theatres, museums, and temples excited
+universal admiration. At Ephesus was the grand temple of Diana, four
+times as large as the Parthenon at Athens, covering as much ground as
+Cologne Cathedral, with one hundred and twenty-eight columns sixty feet
+high. The Ephesian theatre was capable of seating sixty thousand
+spectators. Tarsus, the birthplace of Paul, was no mean city; and
+Damascus, the old capital of Syria, was both beautiful and rich.</p>
+
+<p>Laodicea was famous for tapestries, Hierapolis for its iron wares,
+Cybara for its dyes, Sardis for its wines, Smyrna for its beautiful
+monuments, Delos for its slave-trade, Cyrene for its horses, Paphos for
+its temple of Venus, in which were a hundred altars. Seleucia, on the
+Tigris, had a population of four hundred thousand. Caesarea in
+Palestine, founded by Herod the Great, and the principal seat of
+government to the Roman prefects, had a harbor equal in size to the
+renowned Piraeus, and was secured against the southwest winds by a mole
+of such massive construction that the blocks of stone, sunk under the
+water, were fifty feet in length, eighteen in width, and nine in
+thickness. The city itself was constructed of polished stone, with an
+agora, a theatre, a circus, a praetorium, and a temple to Caesar. Tyre,
+which had resisted for seven months the armies of Alexander, remained to
+the fall of the empire a great emporium of trade; it monopolized the
+manufacture of imperial purple. Sidon was equally celebrated for its
+glass and embroidered robes. The Sidonians cast glass mirrors, and
+imitated precious stones. But the glory of both Tyre and Sidon was in
+ships, which visited all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and even
+penetrated to Britain and India.</p>
+
+<p>But greater than Tyre or Antioch, or any eastern city, was Alexandria,
+the capital of Egypt. Egypt even in its decline was still a great
+monarchy; and when the sceptre of three hundred kings passed from
+Cleopatra the last of the Ptolemies, to Augustus Caesar the conqueror at
+Actium, the military force of Egypt is said to have amounted to seven
+hundred thousand men. The annual revenues of this State under the
+Ptolemies amounted to about seventeen million dollars in gold and
+silver, besides the produce of the earth. A single feast cost
+Philadelphus more than half a million of pounds sterling, and he had
+accumulated treasures to the amount of seven hundred and forty thousand
+talents, or about eight hundred and sixty million dollars. What European
+monarch ever possessed such a sum? The kings of Egypt, even when
+tributary to Rome, were richer in gold and silver than was Louis XIV. in
+the proudest hour of his life.</p>
+
+<p>The ground-plan of Alexandria was traced by Alexander himself, but it
+was not completed until the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Its
+circumference was about fifteen miles; the streets were regular, and
+crossed one another at right angles, being wide enough for free passage
+of both carriages and foot passengers. Its harbor could hold the largest
+fleet ever congregated; its walls and gates were constructed with all
+the skill and strength known to antiquity; its population numbered six
+hundred thousand, and all nations were represented in its crowded
+streets. The wealth of the city may be inferred from the fact that in
+one year sixty-two hundred and fifty talents, or more than six million
+dollars, were paid to the public treasury for port dues. The library was
+the largest in the world, numbering over seven hundred thousand
+volumes; and this was connected with a museum, a menagerie, a botanical
+garden, and various halls for lectures, altogether forming the most
+famous university in the Roman empire. The inhabitants were chiefly
+Greek, and had all the cultivated tastes and mercantile thrift of that
+quick-witted people. In a commercial point of view Alexandria was the
+most important city in the world, and its ships whitened every sea.
+Unlike most commercial cities, it was intellectual, and its schools of
+poetry, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, and theology were more
+renowned than even those of Athens during the third and fourth
+centuries. Alexandria, could it have been transported in its former
+splendor to our modern world, would be a great capital in these times.</p>
+
+<p>And all these cities were connected with one another and with Rome by
+magnificent roads, perfectly straight, and paved with large blocks of
+stone. They were originally constructed for military purposes, but were
+used by travellers, and on them posts were regularly established; they
+crossed valleys upon arches, and penetrated mountains; in Italy,
+especially, they were great works of art, and connected all the
+provinces. There was an uninterrupted communication from the wall of
+Antoninus through York, London, Sandwich, Boulogne, Rheims, Lyons,
+Milan, Rome, Brundusium, Dyrrachium, Byzantium, Ancyra, Tarsus,
+Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem,--a distance of thirty-seven hundred and forty
+miles; and these roads were divided by milestones, and houses for
+travellers erected upon them at points of every five or six miles.</p>
+
+<p>Commerce under the Roman emperors was not what it now is, but still was
+very considerable, and thus united the various provinces together. The
+most remote countries were ransacked to furnish luxuries for Rome; every
+year a fleet of one hundred and twenty vessels sailed from the Red Sea
+for the islands of the Indian Ocean. But the Mediterranean, with the
+rivers which flowed into it, was the great highway of the ancient
+navigator. Navigation by the ancients was even more rapid than in modern
+times before the invention of steam, since oars were employed as well as
+sails. In summer one hundred and sixty-two Roman miles were sailed over
+in twenty-four hours; this was the average speed, or about seven knots.
+From the mouth of the Tiber vessels could usually reach Africa in two
+days, Massilia in three, and the Pillars of Hercules in seven; from
+Puteoli the passage to Alexandria had been effected, with moderate
+winds, in nine days. These facts, however, apply only to the summer, and
+to favorable winds. The Romans did not navigate in the inclement
+seasons; but in summer the great inland sea was white with sails. Great
+fleets brought corn from Gaul, Spain, Sardinia, Africa, Sicily, and
+Egypt. This was the most important trade; but a considerable commerce
+was carried on also in ivory, tortoise-shell, cotton and silk fabrics,
+pearls and precious stones, gums, spices, wines, wool, and oil. Greek
+and Asiatic wines, especially the Chian and Lesbian, were in great
+demand at Rome. The transport of earthenware, made generally in the
+Grecian cities, of wild animals for the amphitheatre, of marble, of the
+spoils of eastern cities, of military engines and stores, and of horses,
+required very large fleets and thousands of mariners, which probably
+belonged chiefly to great maritime cities. These cities with their
+dependencies required even more vessels for communication with one
+another than for Rome herself,--the great central object of enterprise
+and cupidity.</p>
+
+<p>In this survey of ancient cities I have not yet spoken of the great
+central city,--the City of the Seven Hills, to which all the world was
+tributary. Whatever was costly or rare or beautiful, in Greece or Asia
+or Egypt, was appropriated by her citizen kings, since citizens were
+provincial governors. All the great highways, from the Atlantic to the
+Tigris, converged to the capital,--all roads led to Rome; all the ships
+of Alexandria and Carthage and Tarentum, and other commercial capitals,
+were employed in furnishing her with luxuries or necessities. Never was
+there so proud a city as this &quot;Epitome of the Universe.&quot; London, Paris,
+Vienna, Constantinople, St. Petersburg, Berlin, are great centres of
+fashion and power; but they are rivals, and excel only in some great
+department of human enterprise and genius, as in letters, or fashions,
+or commerce, or manufactures,--centres of influence and power in the
+countries of which they are capitals, yet they do not monopolize the
+wealth and energies of the world. London may contain more people than
+did ancient Rome, and may possess more commercial wealth; but London
+represents only the British monarchy, not a universal empire. Rome,
+however, monopolized every thing, and controlled all nations and
+peoples; she could shut up the schools of Athens, or disperse the ships
+of Alexandria, or regulate the shops of Antioch. What Lyons and Bordeaux
+are to Paris, Corinth and Babylon were to Rome,--mere dependent cities.
+Paul, condemned at Jerusalem, stretched out his arms to Rome, and Rome
+protected him. The philosophers of Greece were the tutors of Roman
+nobility. The kings of the East resorted to the palaces of Mount
+Palatine for favors or safety; the governors of Syria and Egypt,
+reigning in the palaces of ancient kings, returned to Rome to squander
+the riches they had accumulated. Senators and nobles took their turn as
+sovereign rulers of all the known countries of the world. The halls in
+which Darius and Alexander and Pericles and Croesus and Solomon and
+Cleopatra had feasted, became the witness of the banquets of Roman
+proconsuls. Babylon, Thebes, and Athens were only what Delhi and
+Calcutta are to the English of our day,--cities to be ruled by the
+delegates of the imperial Senate. Rome was the only &quot;home&quot; of the proud
+governors who reigned on the banks of the Thames, of the Seine, of the
+Rhine, of the Nile, of the Tigris. After they had enriched themselves
+with the spoils of the ancient monarchies they returned to their estates
+in Italy, or to their palaces on the Aventine. What a concentration of
+works of art on the hills, and around the Forum, and in the Campus
+Martius, and other celebrated quarters! There were temples rivalling
+those of Athens and Ephesus; baths covering more ground than the
+Pyramids, surrounded with Corinthian columns, and filled with the
+choicest treasures ransacked from the cities of Greece and Asia; palaces
+in comparison with which the Tuileries and Versailles are small;
+theatres which seated a larger audience than any present public
+buildings in Europe; amphitheatres more extensive and costly than
+Cologne, Milan, and York Minster cathedrals combined, and seating eight
+times as many spectators as could be crowded into St. Peter's Church;
+circuses where, it is said, three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+persons could witness the games and chariot-races at a time; bridges,
+still standing, which have furnished models for the most beautiful at
+Paris and London; aqueducts carried over arches one hundred feet in
+height, through which flowed the surplus water of distant lakes; drains
+of solid masonry in which large boats could float; pillars more than one
+hundred feet in height, coated with precious marbles or plates of brass,
+and covered with bas-reliefs; obelisks brought from Egypt; fora and
+basilicas connected together, and extending more than three thousand
+feet in length, every part of which was filled with &quot;animated busts&quot; of
+conquerors, kings, statesmen, poets, publicists, and philosophers;
+mausoleums greater and more splendid than that Artemisia erected to the
+memory of her husband; triumphal arches under which marched in stately
+procession the victorious armies of the Eternal City, preceded by the
+spoils and trophies of conquered empires.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the proud capital,--a city of palaces, a residence of nobles
+who were virtually kings, enriched with the accumulated treasures of
+ancient civilization. Great were the capitals of Greece and Asia, but
+how pre-eminent was Rome, since all were subordinate to her! How
+bewildering and bewitching to a traveller must have been the varied
+wonders of the city! Go where he would, his eye rested on something
+which was both a study and a marvel. Let him drive or walk about the
+suburbs,--there were villas, tombs, aqueducts looking like our railroads
+on arches, sculptured monuments, and gardens of surpassing beauty and
+luxury. Let him approach the walls,--they were great fortifications
+extending twenty-one miles in circuit, according to the measurement of
+Ammon as adopted by Gibbon, and forty-five miles according to other
+authorities. Let him enter any of the various gates that opened into the
+city from the roads which radiated to all parts of Italy and the
+world,--they were of monumental brass covered with bas-reliefs, on which
+the victories of generals for a thousand years were commemorated. Let
+him pass through any of the crowded thoroughfares,--he saw houses
+towering scarcely ever less than seventy feet, as tall as those of
+Edinburgh in its oldest sections. Most of the houses in which this vast
+population lived, according to Strabo, possessed pipes which gave a
+never-failing supply of water from the rivers that flowed into the city
+through the aqueducts and out again through the sewers into the Tiber.
+Let the traveller walk up the Via Sacra,--that short street, scarcely
+half a mile in length,--and he passed the Flavian Amphitheatre, the
+Temple of Venus and Rome, the Arch of Titus, the Temples of Peace, of
+Vesta, and of Castor, the Forum Romanum, the Basilica Julia, the Arch
+of Severus, the Temple of Saturn, and stood before the majestic ascent
+to the Capitoline Jupiter, with its magnificent portico and ornamented
+pediment, surpassing the fa&ccedil;ade of any modern church. On his left, as he
+emerged from beneath the sculptured Arch of Titus, was the Palatine
+Mount, nearly covered by the palace of the Caesars, the magnificent
+residences of the higher nobility, and various temples, of which that of
+Apollo was the most magnificent, built by Augustus, of solid white
+marble from Luna. Here were the palaces of Vaccus, of Flaccus, of
+Cicero, of Catiline, of Scaurus, of Antoninus, of Clodius, of Agrippa,
+and of Hortensius. Still on his left, in the valley between the Palatine
+and the Capitoline, though he could not see it, concealed from view by
+the great Temples of Vesta and of Castor, and the still greater edifice
+known as the Basilica Julia, was the quarter called the Velabrum,
+extending to the river, where the Pons Aemilius crossed it,--a low
+quarter of narrow streets and tall houses where the rabble lived and
+died. On his right, concealed from view by the Aedes Divi Julii and the
+Forum Romanum, was that magnificent series of edifices extending from
+the Temple of Peace to the Temple of Trajan, including the Basilica
+Pauli, the Forum Julii, the Forum Augusti, the Forum Trajani, the
+Basilica Ulpia,--a space more than three thousand feet in length, and
+six hundred in breadth, almost entirely surrounded by porticos and
+colonnades, and filled with statues and pictures,--displaying on the
+whole probably the grandest series of public buildings clustered
+together ever erected, especially if we include the Forum Romanum and
+the various temples and basilicas which connected the whole,--a forest
+of marble pillars and statues. Ascending the steps which led from the
+Temple of Concord to the Temple of Juno Moneta upon the Arx, or Tarpeian
+Rock, on the southwestern summit of the hill, itself one of the most
+beautiful temples in Rome, erected by Camillus on the spot where the
+house of M. Manlius Capitolinus had stood, and one came upon the Roman
+mint. Near this was the temple erected by Augustus to Jupiter Tonans,
+and that built by Domitian to Jupiter Custos. But all the sacred
+edifices which crowned the Capitoline were subordinate to the Templum
+Jovis Capitolini, standing on a platform of eight thousand square feet,
+and built of the richest materials. The portico which faced the Via
+Sacra consisted of three rows of Doric columns, the pediment profusely
+ornamented with the choicest sculptures, the apex of the roof surmounted
+by the bronze horses of Lysippus, and the roof itself covered with
+gilded tiles. The temple had three separate cells, though covered with
+one roof; in front of each stood colossal statues of the three deities
+to whom it was consecrated. Here were preserved what was most sacred in
+the eyes of Romans, and it was itself the richest of all the temples
+of the city.</p>
+
+<p>What a beautiful panorama was presented to the view from the summit of
+this consecrated hill, only mounted by a steep ascent of one hundred
+steps! To the south was the Via Sacra extending to the Colosseum, and
+beyond it the Appia Via, lined with monuments as far as the eye could
+reach. A little beyond the fora to the east was the Carinae, a
+fashionable quarter of beautiful shops and houses, and still farther off
+were the Baths of Titus, extending from the Carinae to the Esquiline
+Mount. To the northeast were the Viminal and Quirinal hills, after the
+Palatine the most ancient part of the city, the seat of the Sabine
+population, abounding in fanes and temples, the most splendid of which
+was the Temple of Quirinus, erected originally to Romulus by Numa, but
+rebuilt by Augustus, with a double row of columns on each of its sides,
+seventy-six in number. Near by was the house of Atticus, and the gardens
+of Sallust in the valley between the Quirinal and Pincian, afterward the
+property of the Emperor. Far back on the Quirinal, near the wall of
+Servius, were the Baths of Diocletian, and still farther to the east the
+Pretorian Camp established by Tiberius, and included within the wall of
+Aurelian. To the northeast the eye lighted on the Pincian Hill covered
+with the gardens of Lucullus, to possess which Messalina caused the
+death of Valerius Asiaticus, into whose possession they had fallen. In
+the valley which lay between the fora and the Quirinal was the
+celebrated Subura, the quarter of shops, markets, and artificers,--a
+busy, noisy, vulgar section, not beautiful, but full of life and
+enterprise and wickedness. The eye then turned to the north, and the
+whole length of the Via Flamina was exposed to view, extending from the
+Capitoline to the Flaminian gate, perfectly straight, the finest street
+in Rome, and parallel to the modern Corso; it was the great highway to
+the north of Italy. Monuments and temples and palaces lined this
+celebrated street; it was spanned by the triumphal arches of Claudius
+and Marcus Aurelius. To the west of it was the Campus Martius, with its
+innumerable objects of interest,--the Baths of Agrippa, the Pantheon,
+the Thermae Alexandrinae, the Column of Marcus Aurelius, and the
+Mausoleum of Augustus. Beneath the Capitoline on the west, toward the
+river, was the Circus Flaminius, the Portico of Octavius, the Theatre of
+Balbus, and the Theatre of Pompey, where forty thousand spectators were
+accommodated. Stretching beyond the Thermae Alexandrinae, near the
+Pantheon, was the magnificent bridge which crossed the Tiber, built by
+Hadrian when he founded his Mausoleum, to which it led, still standing
+under the name of the Ponte S. Angelo. The eye took in eight or nine
+bridges over the Tiber, some of wood, but generally of stone, of
+beautiful masonry, and crowned with statues. In the valley between the
+Palatine and the Aventine, was the great Circus Maximus, founded by the
+early Tarquin; it was the largest open space, inclosed by walls and
+porticos, in the city; it seated three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+spectators. How vast a city, which could spare nearly four hundred
+thousand of its population to see the chariot-races! Beyond was the
+Aventine itself. This also was rich in legendary monuments and in the
+palaces of the great, though originally a plebeian quarter. Here dwelt
+Trajan before he was emperor, and Ennius the poet, and Paula the friend
+of Saint Jerome. Beneath the Aventine, and a little south of the Circus
+Maximus, were the great Baths of Caracalla, the ruins of which, next to
+those of the Colosseum, made on my mind the strongest impression of all
+I saw that pertains to antiquity, though these were not so large as
+those of Diocletian. The view south took in the Caelian Hill, the
+ancient residence of Tullus Hostilius. This hill was the residence of
+many distinguished Romans, among whose palaces was that of Claudius
+Centumalus, which towered ten or twelve stories into the air. But
+grander than any of these palaces was that of Plautius Lateranus, on
+whose site now stands the basilica of St. John Lateran,--the gift of
+Constantine to the bishop of Rome,--one of the most ancient of the
+Christian churches, in which, for fifteen hundred years, daily services
+have been performed.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the objects of interest and grandeur that met the eye as it
+was turned toward the various quarters of the city, which contained
+between three and four millions of people. Lipsius estimates four
+millions as the population, including slaves, women, children, and
+strangers. Though this estimate is regarded as too large by Merivale and
+others, yet how enormous must have been the number of the people when
+there were nine thousand and twenty-five baths, and when those of
+Diocletian could accommodate thirty-two hundred bathers at a time! The
+wooden theatre of Scaurus contained eighty thousand seats; that of
+Marcellus twenty thousand; the Colosseum would seat eighty-seven
+thousand persons, and give standing space for twenty-two thousand more.
+The Circus Maximus would hold three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+spectators. If only one person out of four of the free population
+witnessed the games and spectacles at a time, we thus must have four
+millions of people altogether in the city. The Aurelian walls are now
+only thirteen miles in circumference, but Lipsius estimates the
+original circumference at forty-five miles, and Vopiscus at nearly
+fifty. The diameter of the city must have been eleven miles, since
+Strabo tells us that the actual limit of Rome was at a place between the
+fifth and sixth milestone from the column of Trajan in the Forum,--the
+central and most conspicuous object in the city except the capitol.</p>
+
+<p>Modern writers, taking London and Paris for their measure of material
+civilization, seem unwilling to admit that Rome could have reached such
+a pitch of glory and wealth and power. To him who stands within the
+narrow limits of the Forum, as it now appears, it seems incredible that
+it could have been the centre of a much larger city than Europe can now
+boast of. Grave historians are loath to compromise their dignity and
+character for truth by admitting statements which seem, to men of
+limited views, to be fabulous, and which transcend modern experience.
+But we should remember that most of the monuments of ancient Rome have
+entirely disappeared. Nothing remains of the Palace of the Caesars,
+which nearly covered the Palatine Hill; little of the fora which,
+connected together, covered a space twice as large as that inclosed by
+the palaces of the Louvre and Tuileries, with all their galleries and
+courts; almost nothing of the glories of the Capitoline Hill; and little
+comparatively of those Thermae which were a mile in circuit. But what
+does remain attests an unparalleled grandeur,--the broken pillars of the
+Forum; the lofty columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius; the Pantheon,
+lifting its spacious dome two hundred feet into the air; the mere
+vestibule of the Baths of Agrippa; the triumphal arches of Titus and
+Trajan and Constantine; the bridges which span the Tiber; the aqueducts
+which cross the Campagna; the Cloaca Maxima, which drained the marshes
+and lakes of the infant city; and, above all, the Colosseum. What glory
+and shame are associated with that single edifice! That alone, if
+nothing else remained of Pagan antiquity, would indicate a grandeur and
+a folly such as cannot now be seen on earth. It reveals a wonderful
+skill in masonry and great architectural strength; it shows the wealth
+and resources of rulers who must have had the treasures of the world at
+their command; it shows the restless passions of the people for
+excitement, and the necessity on the part of government of yielding to
+this taste. What leisure and indolence marked a city which could afford
+to give up so much time to the demoralizing sports! What facilities for
+transportation were afforded, when so many wild beasts could be brought
+to the capitol from the central parts of Africa without calling out
+unusual comment! How imperious a populace that compels the government to
+provide such expensive pleasures! The games of Titus, on the dedication
+of the Colosseum, lasted one hundred days, and five thousand wild beasts
+were slaughtered in the arena. The number of the gladiators who fought
+surpasses belief. At the triumph of Trajan over the Dacians, ten
+thousand gladiators were exhibited, and the Emperor himself presided
+under a gilded canopy, surrounded by thousands of his lords. Underneath
+the arena, strewed with yellow sand and sawdust, was a solid pavement,
+so closely cemented that it could be turned into an artificial lake, on
+which naval battles were fought. But it was the conflict of gladiators
+which most deeply stimulated the passions of the people. The benches
+were crowded with eager spectators, and the voices of one hundred
+thousand were raised in triumph or rage as the miserable victims sank
+exhausted in the bloody sport.</p>
+
+<p>Yet it was not the gladiatorial sports of the amphitheatre which most
+strikingly attested the greatness and splendor of the city; nor the
+palaces, in which as many as four hundred slaves were sometimes
+maintained as domestic servants for a single establishment,--twelve
+hundred in number according to the lowest estimate, but probably five
+times as numerous, since every senator, every knight, and every rich man
+was proud to possess a residence which would attract attention; nor the
+temples, which numbered four hundred and twenty-four, most of which
+were of marble, filled with statues, the contributions of ages, and
+surrounded with groves; nor the fora and basilicas, with their porticos,
+statues, and pictures, covering more space than any cluster of public
+buildings in Europe, a mile and a half in circuit; nor the baths, nearly
+as large, still more completely filled with works of art; nor the Circus
+Maximus, where more people witnessed the chariot races at a time than
+are nightly assembled in all the places of public amusement in Paris,
+London, and New York combined,--more than could be seated in all the
+cathedrals of England and France. It is not these which most
+impressively make us feel the amazing grandeur of the old capital of the
+world. The triumphal processions of the conquering generals were still
+more exciting to behold, for these appealed more directly to the
+imagination, and excited those passions which urged the Romans to a
+career of conquest from generation to generation. No military review of
+modern times equalled those gorgeous triumphs, even as no scenic
+performance compares with the gladiatorial shows; the sun has never
+shone upon any human assemblage so magnificent and so grand, so imposing
+and yet so guilty. Not only were displayed the spoils of conquered
+kingdoms, and the triumphal cars of generals, but the whole military
+strength of the capital; an army of one hundred thousand men, flushed
+with victory, followed the gorgeous procession of nobles and princes.
+The triumph of Aurelian, on his return from the East, gives us some idea
+of the grandeur of that ovation to conquerors. &quot;The pomp was opened by
+twenty elephants, four royal tigers, and two hundred of the most curious
+animals from every climate, north, south, east, and west. These were
+followed by sixteen hundred gladiators, devoted to the cruel amusement
+of the amphitheatre. Then were displayed the arms and ensigns of
+conquered nations, the plate and wardrobe of the Syrian queen. Then
+ambassadors from all parts of the earth, all remarkable in their rich
+dresses, with their crowns and offerings. Then the captives taken in the
+various wars,--Goths, Vandals, Samaritans, Alemanni, Franks, Gauls,
+Syrians, and Egyptians, each marked by their national costume. Then the
+Queen of the East, the beautiful Zenobia, confined by fetters of gold,
+and fainting under the weight of jewels, preceding the beautiful chariot
+in which she had hoped to enter the gates of Rome. Then the chariot of
+the Persian king. Then the triumphal car of Aurelian himself, drawn by
+elephants. Finally the most illustrious of the Senate and the army
+closed the solemn procession, amid the acclamations of the people, and
+the sound of musical instruments. It took from dawn of day until the
+ninth hour for the procession to pass to the capitol; and the festival
+was protracted by theatrical representations, the games of the circus,
+the hunting of wild beasts, combats of gladiators, and naval
+engagements.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Such were the material wonders of the ancient civilizations, culminating
+in their latest and greatest representative, and displayed in its proud
+capital,--nearly all of which became later the spoil of barbarians, who
+ruthlessly marched over the classic world, having no regard for its
+choicest treasures. Those old glories are now indeed succeeded by a
+prouder civilization,--the work of nobler races after sixteen hundred
+years of new experiments. But why such an eclipse of the glory of man?
+The reason is apparent if we survey the internal state of the ancient
+empires, especially of society as it existed under the Roman emperors.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>AUTHORITIES.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Titus Livius,
+Pausanias, on the geography and resources of the ancient nations. See an
+able chapter on Mediterranean prosperity in Louis Napoleon's History of
+Caesar. Smith's Dictionary of Ancient Geography is exhaustive. Wilkinson
+has revealed the civilization of ancient Egypt. Professor Becker's
+Handbook of Rome, as well as his Gallus and Charicles shed much light on
+manners and customs. Dyer's History of the City of Rome is the fullest
+description of its wonders that I have read. Niebuhr, Bunsen, and
+Platner, among the Germans, have written learnedly, but also have
+created much doubt about things supposed to be established. Mommsen,
+Curtius, and Merivale are also great authorities. Nor are the
+magnificent chapters of Gibbon to be disregarded by the student of Roman
+history, notwithstanding his elaborate and inflated style.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="THE_MILITARY_ART."></a>THE MILITARY ART.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>WEAPONS, ENGINES, DISCIPLINE.</p>
+
+<p>1300-100 A.D.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>In surveying the nations of antiquity nothing impresses us more forcibly
+than the perpetual wars in which they were engaged, and the fact that
+military art and science seem to have been among the earliest things
+that occupied the thoughts of men. Personal strife and tribal warfare
+are coeval with the earliest movements of humanity.</p>
+
+<p>The first recorded act in the Hebraic history of the world after the
+expulsion of Adam from Paradise is a murder. In patriarchal times we
+read of contentions between the servants of Abraham and of Lot, and
+between the petty kings and chieftains of the countries where they
+journeyed. Long before Abraham was born, violence was the greatest evil
+with which the world was afflicted. Before his day mighty conquerors
+arose and founded kingdoms. Babylon and Egypt were powerful military
+States in pre-historic times. Wars more or less fierce were waged before
+nations were civilized. The earliest known art, therefore, was the art
+of destruction, growing out of the wicked and brutal passions of
+men,--envy and hatred, ambition and revenge; in a word, selfishness.
+Race fought with race, kingdom with kingdom, and city with city, in the
+very infancy of society. In secular history the greatest names are those
+of conquerors and heroes in every land under the sun; and it was by
+conquerors that those grand monuments were erected the ruins of which
+astonish every traveller, especially in Egypt and Assyria.</p>
+
+<p>But wars in the earliest ages were not carried on scientifically, or
+even as an art. There was little to mark them except brute force. Armies
+were scarcely more than great collections of armed men, led by kings,
+either to protect their States from hostile invaders, or to acquire new
+territory, or to exact tribute from weaker nations. We do not read of
+military discipline, or of skill in strategy and tactics. A battle was
+lost or won by individual prowess; it was generally a hand-to-hand
+encounter, in which the strongest and bravest gained the victory.</p>
+
+<p>One of the earliest descriptions of war is to be found in the Iliad of
+Homer, where individual heroes fought with one another, armed with the
+sword, the lance, and the javelin, protected by shields, helmets, and
+coats of mail. They fought on foot, or from chariots, which were in use
+before cavalry. The war-horse was driven before he was ridden in Egypt
+or Palestine; but the Aryan barbarians in their invasion rode their
+horses, and fought on horseback, like the modern Cossacks.</p>
+
+<p>Until the Greeks became familiar with war as an art, armies were usually
+very large, as if a great part of the population of a country followed
+the sovereign who commanded them. Rameses the Great, the Sesostris of
+the Greeks, according to Herodotus led nearly a million of men in his
+expeditions. He was the most noted of ancient warriors until Cyrus the
+Persian arose, and was nearly contemporaneous with Moses. The Trojan war
+is supposed to have taken place during the period when the Israelites
+were subject to the Ammonites; and about the time that the Philistines
+were defeated by David, the Greeks were forced by war to found colonies
+in Asia Minor.</p>
+
+<p>After authentic history begins, war is the main subject with which it
+has to deal; and for three thousand years history is simply the record
+of the feats of warriors and generals, of their conquests and defeats,
+of the rise and fall of kingdoms and cities, of the growth or decline of
+military virtues. No arts of civilization have preserved nations from
+the sword of the conqueror, and war has been both the amusement and the
+business of kings. From the earliest ages, the most valued laurels have
+been bestowed for success in war, and military fame has eclipsed all
+other glories. The cry of the mourner has been unheeded in the blaze of
+conquest; even the aspirations of the poet and the labors of the artist
+have been as nought, except to celebrate the achievements of heroes.</p>
+
+<p>It is interesting then to inquire how far the ancients advanced in the
+arts of war, which include military weapons, movements, the structure of
+camps, the discipline of armies, the construction of ships and of
+military engines, and the concentration and management of forces under a
+single man. What was that mighty machinery by which nations were
+subdued, or rose to greatness on the ruin of States and Empires? The
+conquests of Rameses, of David, of Nebuchadnezzar, of Cyrus, of
+Alexander, of Hannibal, of Caesar, and other heroes are still the
+subjects of contemplation among statesmen and schoolboys. The exploits
+of heroes are the pith of history.</p>
+
+<p>The art of war must have made great progress in the infancy of
+civilization, when bodily energies were most highly valued, when men
+were fierce, hardy, strong, and uncorrupted by luxury; when mere
+physical forces gave law alike to the rich and the poor, to the learned
+and the ignorant; and when the avenue to power led across the field
+of battle.</p>
+
+<p>We must go to Egypt for the earliest development of art and science in
+all departments; and so far as the art of war consists in the
+organization of physical forces for conquest or defence, under the
+direction of a single man, it was in Egypt that this was first
+accomplished, about seventeen hundred years before Christ, as
+chronologists think, by Rameses the Great.</p>
+
+<p>This monarch, according to Wilkinson, the greatest and most ambitious of
+the Egyptian kings, to whom the Greeks gave the name of Sesostris,
+showed great ability in collecting together large bodies of his
+subjects, and controlling them by a rigid military discipline. He
+accustomed them to heat and cold, hunger and thirst, fatigue, and
+exposure to danger. With bodies thus rendered vigorous by labor and
+discipline, they were fitted for distant expeditions. Rameses first
+subdued the Arabians and Libyans, and annexed them to the Egyptian
+monarchy. While he inured his subjects to fatigue and danger, he was
+careful to win their affections by acts of munificence and clemency. He
+then made his preparations for the conquest of the known world, and
+collected an army, according to Diodorus Siculus, of six hundred
+thousand infantry, twenty-four thousand cavalry, and twenty-seven
+thousand war-chariots. It is difficult to understand how a small country
+like Egypt could furnish such an immense force. If the account of the
+historian be not exaggerated, Rameses must have enrolled the conquered
+Libyans and Arabians and other nations among his soldiers. He subjected
+his army to a stern discipline and an uncomplaining obedience to
+orders,--the first principle in the science of war, which no successful
+general in the world's history has ever disregarded, from Alexander to
+Napoleon. With this powerful army his march was irresistible. Ethiopia
+was first subdued, and an exaction made from the conquered of a tribute
+of gold, ivory, and ebony. In those ancient times a conquering army did
+not resettle or colonize the territories it had subdued, but was
+contented with overrunning the country and exacting tribute from the
+people. Such was the nature of the Babylonian and Persian conquests.
+After overrunning Ethiopia and some other countries near the Straits of
+Babelmandeb, the conqueror proceeded to India, which he overran beyond
+the Ganges, and ascended the high table-land of Central Asia; then
+proceeding westward, he entered Europe, nor halted in his devastating
+career until he reached Thrace. From thence he marched to Asia Minor,
+conquering as he went, and invaded Assyria, seating himself on the
+throne of Ninus and Semiramis. Then, laden with booty from the Eastern
+world, he returned to Egypt after an absence of thirty years and
+consolidated his empire, building those vast structures at Thebes, which
+for magnitude have never been surpassed. Thus was Egypt enriched with
+the spoil of nations, and made formidable for a thousand years. Rameses
+was the last of the Pharaohs who pursued the phantom of military renown,
+or sought glory in distant expeditions.</p>
+
+<p>We are in ignorance as to the details of the conquests and the generals
+who served under Rameses. There is doubtless some exaggeration in the
+statements of the Greek historian, but there is no doubt that this
+monarch was among the first of the great conquerors to establish a
+regular army, and to provide a fleet to co-operate with his land forces.</p>
+
+<p>The strength of the Egyptian army consisted mainly in archers. They
+fought either on foot or in chariots; cavalry was not much relied upon,
+although mention is frequently made of horsemen as well as of chariots.
+The Egyptian infantry was divided into regiments, and Wilkinson tells us
+that they were named according to the arms they bore,--as &quot;bowmen,
+spearmen, swordsmen, clubmen, slingers.&quot; These regiments were divided
+into battalions and companies, commanded by their captains. The
+infantry, heavily armed with spears and shields, formed a phalanx almost
+impenetrable of twelve men deep, who marched with great regularity. Each
+company had its standard-bearer, who was an officer of approved valor;
+the royal standards were carried by the royal princes or by persons of
+the royal household. The troops were summoned by the sound of trumpet,
+and also by the drum, both used from the earliest period. The offensive
+weapons were the bow, the spear, the javelin, the sword, the club, or
+mace, and the battle-axe. The chief defensive weapon was the shield,
+about three feet in length, covered with bull's hide, having the hair
+outward and studded with nails. The shape of the bow was not essentially
+different from that used in Europe in the Middle Ages, being about five
+feet and a half long, round, and tapering at the ends; the bowstring was
+of hide or catgut. The arrows of the archers averaged about thirty
+inches in length, and were made of wood or reeds, tipped with a metal
+point, or flint, and winged with feathers. Each bowman was furnished
+with a plentiful supply of arrows. When arrows were exhausted, the
+bowman fought with swords and battle-axes; his defensive armor was
+confined chiefly to the helmet and a sort of quilted coat. The spear was
+of wood, with a metal head, was about five or six feet in length, and
+used for thrusting. The javelin was lighter, for throwing. The sling was
+a thong of plaited leather, broad in the middle, with a loop at the end.
+The sword was straight and short, between two and three feet in length,
+with a double edge, tapering to a sharp point, and used for either cut
+or thrust; the handle was frequently inlaid with precious stones. The
+metal used in the manufacture of swords and spear-heads was bronze,
+hardened by a process unknown to us. The battle-axe had a handle about
+two-and a-half feet in length, and was less ornamented than other
+weapons. The cuirass, or coat of armor, was made of horizontal rows of
+metal plate, about an inch in breadth, well secured together by bronze
+pieces. The Egyptian chariot held two persons,--the charioteer, and the
+warrior armed with his bow-and-arrow and wearing a cuirass, or coat of
+mail. The warrior carried also other weapons for close encounter, when
+he should descend from his chariot to fight on foot. The chariot was of
+wood, the body of which was light, strengthened with metal; the pole was
+inserted in the axle; the two wheels usually had six spokes, but
+sometimes only four; the wheel revolved on the axle, and was secured by
+a lynch-pin. The leathern harness and housings were simple, and the
+bridles, or reins, were nearly the same as are now in use.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Egyptian chariot corps, like the infantry,&quot; says Wilkinson, &quot;were
+divided into light and heavy troops, both armed with bows,--the former
+chiefly employed in harassing the enemy with missiles; the latter called
+upon to break through opposing masses of infantry.&quot; The infantry, when
+employed in the assault of fortified towns, were provided with shields,
+under cover of which they made their approaches to the place to be
+attacked. In their attack they advanced under cover of the arrows of the
+bowmen, and instantly applied the scaling-ladder to the ramparts. The
+testudo, a wooden shelter, was also used, large enough to contain
+several men. The battering-ram and movable towers resembled those of the
+Romans a thousand years later.</p>
+
+<p>It would thus appear that the ancient Egyptians, in the discipline of
+armies, in military weapons offensive and defensive, in chariots and
+horses, and in military engines for the reduction of fortified towns,
+were scarcely improved upon by the Greeks and Romans, or by the
+Europeans in the Middle Ages. Yet the Egyptians were an ingenious rather
+than a warlike people, fond of peace, and devoted to agricultural
+pursuits.</p>
+
+<p>More warlike than they were the Assyrians and the Persians, although we
+fail to discover any essential difference in the organization of armies,
+or in military weapons. The great difference between the Persian and the
+Egyptian armies was in the use of cavalry. From their earliest
+settlements the Persians were skilful horsemen, and these formed the
+guard of their kings. Under Cyrus, the Persians became the masters of
+the world, but they rapidly degenerated, not being able to withstand the
+luxurious life of the conquered Babylonians; and when they were
+marshalled against the Greeks, and especially against the disciplined
+forces of Alexander, they were disgracefully routed in spite of their
+enormous armies, which could not be handled, and became mere mobs of
+armed men.</p>
+
+<p>The art of war made a great advance under the Greeks, although we do
+not notice any striking superiority of arms over the Eastern armies led
+by Sesostris or Cyrus. The Greeks were among the most warlike of all the
+races of men; they had a genius for war. The Grecian States were engaged
+in perpetual strifes with one another, and constant contention developed
+military strength; and yet the Greeks, until the time of Philip, had no
+standing armies. They relied for offence and defence on the volunteer
+militia, which was animated by intense patriotic ideas. All armies in
+the nature of things are more or less machines, moved by one commanding
+will; but the Greek armies owed much of their success to the individual
+bravery of their troops, who were citizens of States under
+constitutional forms of government.</p>
+
+<p>The most remarkable improvement in the art of war was made by the
+Spartans, who, in addition to their strict military discipline,
+introduced the <i>phalanx</i>,--files of picked soldiers, eight deep, heavily
+armed with spear, sword, and shield, placed in ranks of eight, at
+intervals of about six feet apart. This phalanx of eight files and eight
+ranks,--sixty-four men,--closely locked when the soldiers received or
+advanced to attack, proved nearly impregnable and irresistible. It
+combined solidity and the power of resistance with mobility. The picked
+men were placed in the front and rear; for in skilful evolutions the
+front often became the rear, and the rear became the front. Armed with
+spears projecting beyond the front, and with their shields locked
+together, the phalanx advanced to meet the enemy with regular step, and
+to the cadence of music; if beaten, it retired in perfect order. After
+battle, each soldier was obliged to produce his shield as a proof that
+he had fought or retired as a soldier should. The Athenian phalanx was
+less solid than that of Sparta,--Miltiades having decreased the depth to
+four ranks, in order to lengthen his front,--but was more efficient in a
+charge against the enemy. The Spartan phalanx was stronger in defence,
+the Athenian more agile in attack. The attack was nearly irresistible,
+as the soldiers advanced with accelerated motion, corresponding to the
+double-quick time of modern warfare. This was first introduced by
+Miltiades at Marathon.</p>
+
+<p>Philip of Macedon adopted the Spartan phalanx, but made it sixteen deep,
+which gave it greater solidity, and rendered it still more effective. He
+introduced the large oval buckler and a larger and heavier spear. When
+the phalanx was closed for action, each man occupied but three square
+feet of ground: as the pikes were twenty-four feet in length, and
+projected eighteen feet beyond the front, the formation presented an
+array of points such as had never been seen before. The greatest
+improvement effected by Philip, however, was the adoption of standing
+armies instead of the militia heretofore in use throughout the Grecian
+States. He also attached great importance to his cavalry, which was
+composed of the flower of the nobility, about twelve hundred in number,
+all covered with defensive armor; these he formed into eight squadrons,
+and constituted them his body-guard. The usual formation of the regular
+cavalry was in the form of a wedge, so as to penetrate and break the
+enemy's line,--a manoeuvre probably learned from Epaminondas of Thebes,
+a great master in the art of war, who defeated the Spartan phalanx by
+forming his columns upon a front less than their depth, thus enabling
+him to direct his whole force against a given point. By these tactics he
+gained the great victory at Leuctra, as Napoleon likewise prevailed over
+the Austrians in his Italian campaign. In like manner Philip's son
+Alexander, following the example of Epaminondas, concentrated his forces
+upon the enemy's centre, and easily defeated the Persian hosts by
+creating a panic. There was no resisting a phalanx sixteen files deep,
+with their projecting pikes, aided by the heavily armed cavalry, all
+under the strictest military discipline and animated by patriotic ardor.
+This terrible Macedonian phalanx was a great advance over the early
+armies of the Greeks, who fought without discipline in a hand to hand
+encounter, with swords and spears, after exhausting their arrows. They
+had learned two things of great importance,--a rigid discipline, and a
+concentration of forces which made an army a machine. Under Alexander,
+the grand phalanx consisted of 16,384 men, made up of four divisions and
+smaller phalanxes.</p>
+
+<p>In Roman armies we see a still further advance in the military art, as
+it existed in the time of Augustus, which required centuries to perfect.
+The hardy physique and stern nature of the Romans, exercised and
+controlled by their organizing genius, evolved the Roman legion, which
+learned to resist the impetuous assaults of the elephants of the East,
+the phalanx of the Greeks, and the Teutonic barbarians. The indomitable
+courage of the Romans, trained under severest discipline and directed by
+means of an organization divided and subdivided and officered almost as
+perfectly as our modern corps and divisions and brigades and regiments
+and companies and squads, marched over and subdued the world.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman soldier was trained to march twenty miles a day, under a
+burden of eighty pounds; to swim rivers, to climb mountains, to
+penetrate forests, and to encounter every kind of danger. He was taught
+that his destiny was to die in battle: death was at once his duty and
+his glory. He enlisted in the army with little hope of revisiting his
+home; he crossed seas and deserts and forests with the idea of spending
+his life in the service of his country. His pay was only a denarius
+daily, equal to about sixteen cents of our money. Marriage for him was
+discouraged or forbidden. However insignificant the legionary was as a
+man, he gained importance from the great body with which he was
+identified: he was both the servant and the master of the State. He had
+an intense <i>esprit de corps</i>; he was bound up in the glory of his
+legion. Both religion and honor bound him to his standards; the golden
+eagle which glittered in his front was the object of his fondest
+devotion. Nor was it possible to escape the penalty of cowardice or
+treachery or disobedience; he could be chastised with blows by his
+centurion, and his general could doom him to death. Never was the
+severity of military discipline relaxed; military exercises were
+incessant, in winter as in summer. In the midst of peace the Roman
+troops were familiarized with the practice of war.</p>
+
+<p>It was the spirit which animated the Roman legions, and the discipline
+to which they were inured that gave them their irresistible strength.
+When we remember that they had not our firearms, we can but be surprised
+at their efficiency, especially in taking strongly fortified cities.
+Jerusalem was defended by a triple wall, the most elaborate
+fortifications, and twenty-four thousand soldiers, besides the aid
+received from the citizens; and yet it fell in little more than four
+months before an army of eighty thousand under Titus. How great must
+have been the military science that could reduce a place of such
+strength, in so short a time, without the aid of other artillery than
+the ancient catapult and battering-ram! Whether the military science of
+the Romans was superior or inferior to our own, no one can question that
+it was as perfect as it could be, lacking any knowledge of gunpowder; we
+surpass them only in the application of this great invention, especially
+in artillery. There can be no doubt that a Roman army was superior to a
+feudal army in the brightest days of chivalry. The world has produced no
+generals greater than Caesar, Pompey, Sulla, and Marius. No armies ever
+won greater victories over superior numbers than the Roman, and no
+armies of their size ever retained in submission so vast an empire, and
+for so long a time. At no period in the history of the Roman empire were
+the armies so large as those sustained by France in time of peace. Two
+hundred thousand legionaries, and as many more auxiliaries, controlled
+diverse nations and powerful monarchies. The single province of Syria
+once boasted of a military force equal in the number of soldiers to that
+wielded by the Emperor Tiberius. Twenty-five Roman legions made the
+conquest of the world, and retained that conquest for five hundred
+years. The self-sustained energy of Caesar in Gaul puts to the blush
+the efforts of all modern generals, unless we except Frederic II.,
+Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Grant, Sherman, and a few other great
+geniuses whom warlike crises have developed; nor is there a better
+text-book on the art of war than that furnished by Caesar himself in his
+Commentaries. The great victories of the Romans over barbarians, over
+Gauls, over Carthaginians, over Greeks, over Syrians, over Persians,
+were not the result of a short-lived enthusiasm, like those of Attila
+and Tamerlane, but extended over a thousand years.</p>
+
+<p>The Romans were essentially military in all their tastes and habits.
+Luxurious senators and nobles showed the greatest courage and skill in
+the most difficult campaigns. Antony, Caesar, Pompey, and Lucullus at
+home were enervated and self-indulgent, but at the head of their legions
+they were capable of any privation and fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman legion was a most perfect organization, a great mechanical
+force, and could sustain furious attacks after vigor, patriotism, and
+public spirit had fled. For three hundred years a vast empire was
+sustained by mechanism alone. The legion is coeval with the foundation
+of Rome, but the number of the troops of which it was composed varied at
+different periods. It rarely exceeded six thousand men; Gibbon estimates
+the number at six thousand eight hundred and twenty-six men. For many
+centuries it was composed exclusively of Roman citizens. Up to the year
+B.C. 107, no one was permitted to serve among the regular troops except
+those who were regarded as possessing a strong personal interest in the
+stability of the republic. Marius admitted all orders of citizens; and
+after the close of the Social War, B.C. 87, the whole free population of
+Italy was allowed to serve in the regular army. Claudius incorporated
+with the legion the vanquished Goths, and after him the barbarians
+filled up the ranks on account of the degeneracy of the times. But
+during the period when the Romans were conquering the world every
+citizen was trained to arms, like the Germans of the present day, and
+was liable to be called upon to serve in the armies. In the early age of
+the republic the legion was disbanded as soon as the special service was
+performed, and was in all essential respects a militia. For three
+centuries we have no record of a Roman army wintering in the field; but
+when Southern Italy became the seat of war, and especially when Rome was
+menaced by foreign enemies, and still more when a protracted foreign
+service became inevitable, the same soldiers remained in activity for
+several years. Gradually the distinction between the soldier and the
+civilian was entirely obliterated. The distant wars of the
+republic--such as the prolonged operations of Caesar in Gaul, and the
+civil contests--made a standing army a necessity. During the civil wars
+between Caesar and Pompey the legions were forty in number; under
+Augustus, but twenty-five. Alexander Severus increased them to
+thirty-two. This was the standing force of the empire,--from one hundred
+and fifty thousand to two hundred and forty thousand men, stationed in
+the various provinces.</p>
+
+<p>The main dependence of the legion was on the infantry, which wore heavy
+armor consisting of helmet, breastplate, greaves on the right leg, and
+on the left arm a buckler, four feet in length and two and a half in
+width. The helmet was originally made of leather or untanned skin,
+strengthened and adorned by bronze or gold, and surmounted by a crest
+which was often of horse-hair, and so made as to give an imposing look.
+The crests served not only for ornament, but to distinguish the
+different centurions. The breastplate, or cuirass, was generally made of
+metal, and sometimes was highly ornamented. Chain-mail was also used.
+The greaves were of bronze or brass, with a lining of leather or felt,
+and reached above the knees. The shield worn by the heavy-armed infantry
+was not round, like that of the early Greeks, but oval or oblong,
+adapted to the shape of the body, such as was adopted by Philip and
+Alexander, and was made of wood or wicker-work. The weapons were a light
+spear, a pilum, or javelin, over six feet long, terminated by a steel
+point, and a short cut-and-thrust sword with a double edge. Besides the
+armor and weapons of the legionary, he usually carried on the marches
+provisions for two weeks, three or four stakes used in forming the
+palisade of the camp, besides various tools,--altogether a burden of
+sixty or eighty pounds per man. The legion was drawn up eight deep, and
+three feet intervened between rank and file, which disposition gave
+great activity, and made it superior to the Macedonian phalanx, the
+strength of which depended on sixteen ranks of long pikes wedged
+together. The general period of service for the infantry was twenty
+years, after which the soldier received a discharge, together with a
+bounty in money or land.</p>
+
+<p>The cavalry attached to each legion consisted of three hundred men, who
+originally were selected from the leading men in the State. They were
+mounted at the expense of the State, and formed a distinct order. The
+cavalry was divided into ten squadrons. To each legion was attached also
+a train of ten military engines of the largest size, and fifty-five of
+the smaller,--all of which discharged stones and darts with great
+effect. This train corresponded with our artillery.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman legion--whether it was composed of four thousand men, as in
+the early ages of the republic, or six thousand, as in the time of
+Augustus--was divided into ten cohorts, and each cohort was composed of
+Hastati (raw troops), Principes (trained troops), Triarii (veterans),
+and Velites (light troops, or skirmishers). The soldiers of the first
+line, called Hastati, consisted of youths in the bloom of manhood, who
+were distributed into fifteen companies, or maniples. Each company
+contained sixty privates, two centurions, and a standard-bearer. Two
+thirds were heavily armed, and bore the long shield; the remainder
+carried only a spear and light javelins. The second line, the Principes,
+was composed of men in the full vigor of life, divided also into fifteen
+companies, all heavily armed, and distinguished by the splendor of their
+equipments. The third body, the Triarii, was composed of tried veterans,
+in fifteen companies, the least trustworthy of which were placed in the
+rear; these formed three lines. The Velites were light-armed troops,
+employed on out-post duty, and mingled with the horsemen. The Hastati
+were so called because they were armed with the <i>hasta</i>, or spear; the
+Principes for being placed so near to the front; the Triarii, from
+having been arrayed behind the first two lines as a body of reserve. The
+Triarii were armed with the pilum, thicker and stronger than the Grecian
+lance, four and a half feet long, of wood, with a barbed head of
+iron,--so that the whole length of the weapon was six feet nine inches.
+It was used either to throw or thrust with, and when it pierced the
+enemy's shield the iron head was bent, and the spear, owing to the twist
+in the iron, still held to the shield. Each soldier carried two of these
+weapons, and threw the heavy pilum over the heads of their comrades in
+front, in order to break the enemy's line. In the time of the empire,
+when the legion was modified, the infantry wore cuirasses and helmets,
+and carried a sword and dagger. The select infantry were armed with a
+long spear and a shield; the rest, with a pilum. Each man carried a saw,
+a basket, a mattock, a hatchet, a leather strap, a hook, a chain, and
+provisions for three days. The Equites (cavalry) wore helmets and
+cuirasses, like the infantry, having a broadsword at the right side, and
+in the hand a long pole. A buckler swung at the horse's flank. They were
+also furnished with a quiver containing three or four javelins.</p>
+
+<p>The artillery were used both for hurling missiles in battle, and for the
+attack on fortresses. The <i>tormentum</i>, which was an elastic instrument,
+discharged stones and darts, and was held in general use until the
+discovery of gunpowder. In besieging a city, the ram was employed for
+destroying the lower part of a wall, and the <i>balista,</i> which discharged
+stones, was used to overthrow the battlements. The balista would project
+a stone weighing from fifty to three hundred pounds. The <i>aries</i>, or
+battering-ram, consisted of a large beam made of the trunk of a tree,
+frequently one hundred feet in length, to one end of which was fastened
+a mace of iron or bronze resembling in form the head of a ram; it was
+often suspended by ropes from a beam fixed transversely over it, so that
+the soldiers were relieved from supporting its weight, and were able to
+give it a rapid and forcible swinging motion backward and forward. When
+this machine was further perfected by rigging it upon wheels, and
+constructing over it a roof, so as to form a <i>testudo</i>, which protected
+the besieging party from the assaults of the besieged, there was no
+tower so strong, no wall so thick, as to resist a long-continued attack,
+the great length of the beam enabling the soldiers to work across the
+defensive ditch, and as many as one hundred men being often employed
+upon it. The Romans learned from the Greeks the art of building this
+formidable engine, which was used with great effect by Alexander, but
+with still greater by Titus in the siege of Jerusalem; it was first used
+by the Romans in the siege of Syracuse. The <i>vinea</i> was a sort of roof
+under which the soldiers protected themselves when they undermined
+walls. The <i>helepolis</i>, also used in the attack on cities, was a square
+tower furnished with all the means of assault. This also was a Greek
+invention; and the one used by Demetrius at the siege of Rhodes, B. C.
+306, was one hundred and thirty-five feet high and sixty-eight wide,
+divided into nine stories. The <i>turris</i>, a tower of the same class, was
+used both by Greeks and Romans, and even by Asiatics. Mithridates used
+one at the siege of Cyzicus one hundred and fifty feet in height. These
+most formidable engines were generally made of beams of wood covered on
+three sides with iron and sometimes with rawhides. They were higher than
+the walls and all the other fortifications of a besieged place, and
+divided into stories pierced with windows; in and upon them were
+stationed archers and slingers, and in the lower story was a
+battering-ram. The soldiers in the turris were also provided with
+scaling-ladders, sometimes on wheels; so that when the top of the wall
+was cleared by means of the turris, it might be scaled by means of the
+ladders. It was impossible to resist these powerful engines except by
+burning them, or by undermining the ground upon which they stood, or by
+overturning them with stones or iron-shod beams hung from a mast on the
+wall, or by increasing the height of the wall, or by erecting temporary
+towers on the wall beside them.</p>
+
+<p>Thus there was no ancient fortification capable of withstanding a long
+siege when the besieged city was short of defenders or provisions. With
+forces equal between the combatants an attack was generally a failure,
+for the defenders had always a great advantage; but when the number of
+defenders was reduced, or when famine pressed, the skill and courage of
+the assailants would ultimately triumph. Some ancient cities made a most
+obstinate resistance, like Tarentum; like Carthage, which stood a siege
+of four years; like Numantia in Spain, and like Jerusalem. When cities
+were of immense size, population, and resources, like Rome when besieged
+by Alaric, it was easier to take them by cutting off all ingress and
+egress, so as to produce famine. Tyre was taken by Alexander only by
+cutting off the harbor. Cyrus could not have taken Babylon by assault,
+since the walls were of such enormous height, and the ditch was too wide
+for the use of battering-rams; he resorted to an expedient of which the
+blinded inhabitants of that doomed city never dreamed, which rendered
+their impregnable fortifications useless. Nor probably would the Romans
+have prevailed against Jerusalem had not famine decimated and weakened
+its defenders. Fortified cities, though scarcely ever impregnable, were
+yet more in use in ancient than modern times, and greatly delayed the
+operations of advancing armies; and it was probably the fortified camp
+of the Romans, which protected an army against surprises and other
+misfortunes, that gave such permanent efficacy to the legions.</p>
+
+<p>The chief officers of the legion were the Tribunes; and originally
+there was one in each legion from the three tribes,--the Ramnes,
+Luceres, and Tities. In the time of Polybius the number in each legion
+was six. Their authority extended equally over the whole legion; but to
+prevent confusion, it was the custom for them to divide into three
+sections of two, and each pair undertook the routine duties for two
+months out of six; they nominated the centurions, and assigned each to
+the company to which he belonged. These tribunes at first were chosen
+the commanders-in-chief, by the kings and consuls; but during the palmy
+days of the republic, when the patrician power was pre-eminent, they
+were elected by the people, that is, the citizens. Later they were
+named, half by the Senate and half by the consuls. No one was eligible
+to this great office who had not served ten years in the infantry or
+five in the cavalry. The tribunes were distinguished by their dress from
+the common soldier. Next in rank to the tribunes, who corresponded to
+the rank of brigadiers and colonels in our times, were the Centurions,
+of whom there were sixty in each legion,--men who were more remarkable
+for calmness and sagacity than for courage and daring valor; men who
+would keep their posts at all hazards. It was their duty to drill the
+soldiers, to inspect arms, clothing, and food, to visit the sentinels
+and regulate the conduct of the men. They had the power of inflicting
+corporal punishment. They were chosen for merit solely, until the later
+ages of the empire, when their posts were bought, as is the case to some
+extent to-day in the English army. The centurions were of unequal
+rank,--those of the Triarii before those of the Principes, and those of
+the Principes before those of the Hastati. The first centurion of the
+first maniple of the Triarii stood next in rank to the tribunes, and had
+a seat in the military councils. His office was very lucrative. To his
+charge was intrusted the eagle of the legion. As the centurion might
+rise from the ranks by regular gradation through the different maniples
+of the Hastati, Principes, and Triarii, there was great inducement held
+out to the soldiers. It would, however, appear that the centurion
+received only twice the pay of the ordinary legionary. There was not
+therefore so much difference in rank between a private and a captain as
+there is in our day. There were no aristocratic distinctions in the
+ancient world so marked as those existing in the modern. In the Roman
+legion there was nevertheless a regular gradation of rank, although
+there were but few distinct offices. The gradation was determined not by
+length of service, but for merit alone, of which the tribunes were the
+sole judges; hence the tribune in a Roman legion had more power than
+that of a modern colonel. As the tribunes named the centurions, so the
+centurions appointed their lieutenants, who were called sub-centurions.
+Still below these were two sub-officers, or sergeants, and the
+<i>decanus</i>, or corporal, to every ten men.</p>
+
+<p>There was a change in the constitution and disposition of the legion
+after the time of Marius, until the fall of the republic. The legions
+were thrown open to men of all grades; they were all armed and equipped
+alike; the lines were reduced to two, with a space between every two
+cohorts, of which there were five in each line; the young soldiers were
+placed in the rear; the distinction between Hastati, Principes, and
+Triarii ceased; the Velites disappeared, their work being done by the
+foreign mercenaries; the cavalry ceased to be part of the legion, and
+became a distinct body; and the military was completely severed from the
+rest of the State. Formerly no one could aspire to office who had not
+completed ten years of military service, but in the time of Cicero a man
+could pass through all the great dignities of the State with a very
+limited experience of military life. Cicero himself did military service
+in but one campaign.</p>
+
+<p>Under the emperors there were still other changes. The regular army
+consisted of legions and supplementa,--the latter being subdivided into
+the imperial guards and the auxiliary troops.</p>
+
+<p>The Auxiliaries (<i>Socii</i>) consisted of troops from the States in
+alliance with Rome, or those compelled to furnish subsidies. The
+infantry of the allies was generally more numerous than that of the
+Romans, while the cavalry was three times as numerous. All the
+auxiliaries were paid by the State; their infantry received the same pay
+as the Roman infantry, but their cavalry received only two thirds of
+what was paid to the Roman cavalry. The common foot-soldier received in
+the time of Polybius three and a half asses a day, equal to about three
+cents; the horseman three times as much. The praetorian cohorts received
+twice as much as the legionaries. Julius Caesar allowed about six asses
+a day as the pay of the legionary, and under Augustus the daily pay was
+raised to ten asses,--little more than eight cents per day. Domitian
+raised the stipend still higher. The soldier, however, was fed and
+clothed by the government.</p>
+
+<p>The Praetorian Cohort was a select body of troops instituted by Augustus
+to protect his person, and consisted of ten cohorts, each of one
+thousand men, chosen from Italy. This number was increased by Vitellius
+to sixteen thousand, and they were assembled by Tiberius in a permanent
+camp, which was strongly fortified. They had peculiar privileges, and
+when they had served sixteen years received twenty thousand sesterces,
+or more than one hundred pounds sterling. Each praetorian had the rank
+of a centurion in the regular army. Like the body-guard of Louis XIV.
+they were all gentlemen, and formed gradually a great power, like the
+Janissaries at Constantinople, and frequently disposed of the
+purple itself.</p>
+
+<p>Our notice of the Roman legion would be incomplete without some
+description of the camp in which the soldier virtually lived. A Roman
+army never halted for a single night without forming a regular
+intrenchment capable of holding all the fighting men, the beasts of
+burden, and the baggage. During the winter months, when the army could
+not retire into some city, it was compelled to live in the camp, which
+was arranged and fortified according to a uniform plan, so that every
+company and individual had a place assigned. We cannot tell when this
+practice of intrenchment began; it was matured gradually, like all other
+things pertaining to all arts. The system was probably brought to
+perfection during the wars with Hannibal. Skill in the choice of ground,
+giving facilities for attack and defence, and for procuring water and
+other necessities, was of great account with the generals. An area of
+about five thousand square feet was allowed for a company of infantry,
+and ten thousand feet for a troop of thirty dragoons. The form of a camp
+was an exact square, the length of each side being two thousand and
+seventeen feet; there was a space of two hundred feet between the
+ramparts and the tents to facilitate the marching in and out of
+soldiers, and to guard the cattle and booty; the principal street was
+one hundred feet wide, and was called Principia. The defences of the
+camp consisted of a ditch, the earth from which was thrown inward, and
+of strong palisades of wooden stakes driven into the top of the
+earthwork so formed; the ditch was sometimes fifteen feet deep, and the
+<i>vallum</i>, or rampart, ten feet in height. When the army encamped for the
+first time the tribunes administered an oath to each individual,
+including slaves, to the effect that they would steal nothing out of the
+camp. Every morning at daybreak the centurions and the equites presented
+themselves before the tents of the tribunes, and the tribunes in like
+manner presented themselves before the praetorian, to learn the orders
+of the consuls, which through the centurions were communicated to the
+soldiers. Four companies took charge of the principal street, to see
+that it was properly cleaned and watered; one company took charge of the
+tent of the tribune; a strong guard attended to the horses, and another
+of fifty men stood beside the tent of the general, that he might be
+protected from open danger and secret treachery. The <i>velites</i> mounted
+guard the whole night and day along the whole extent of the vallum, and
+each gate was guarded by ten men; the <i>equites</i> were intrusted with the
+duty of acting as sentinels during the night, and most ingenious
+measures were adopted to secure their watchfulness and fidelity. The
+watchword for the night was given by the commander-in-chief. &quot;On the
+first signal being given by the trumpet, the tents were all struck and
+the baggage packed; at the second signal, the baggage was placed upon
+the beasts of burden; and at the third, the whole army began to move.
+Then the herald, standing at the right hand of the general, demands
+thrice if they are ready for war, to which they all respond with loud
+and repeated cheers that they are ready, and for the most part, being
+filled with martial ardor, anticipate the question, 'and raise their
+right hands on high with a shout.'&quot; <a name="FNanchor3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3"><sup>[3]</sup></a></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor3">[3]</a> Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, article &quot;Castra.&quot;
+
+<p>From what has come down to us of Roman military life, it appears to have
+been full of excitement, toil, danger, and hardship. The pecuniary
+rewards of the soldier were small; he was paid in glory. No profession
+brought so much honor as the military; and it was from the undivided
+attention of a great people to this profession, that it was carried to
+all the perfection which could be attained before the great invention of
+gunpowder changed the art of war. It was not the number of men employed
+in the Roman armies which particularly arrests attention, but the genius
+of organization which controlled and the spirit which animated them.
+The Romans loved war, but so reduced it to a science that it required
+comparatively small armies to conquer the world. Sulla defeated
+Mithridates with only thirty thousand men, while his adversary
+marshalled against him over one hundred thousand. Caesar had only ten
+legions to effect the conquest of Gaul, and none of these were of
+Italian origin. At the great decisive battle of Pharsalia, when most of
+the available forces of the empire were employed on one side or the
+other, Pompey commanded a legionary army of forty-five thousand men, and
+his cavalry amounted to seven thousand more, but among them were
+included the flower of the Roman nobility; the auxiliary force has not
+been computed, although it was probably numerous. In the same battle
+Caesar had under him only twenty-two thousand legionaries and one
+thousand cavalry. But every man in both armies was prepared to conquer
+or die. The forces were posted on the open plain, and the battle was
+really a hand-to-hand encounter, in which the soldiers, after hurling
+their lances, fought with their swords chiefly; and when the cavalry of
+Pompey rushed upon the legionaries of Caesar, no blows were wasted on
+the mailed panoply of the mounted Romans, but were aimed at the face
+alone, as that only was unprotected. The battle was decided by the
+coolness, bravery, and discipline of Caesar's veterans, inspired by the
+genius of the greatest general of antiquity. Less than one hundred
+thousand men, in all probability, were engaged in one of the most
+memorable conflicts which the world has seen.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was by blended art and heroism that the Roman legions prevailed
+over the armies of the ancient world. But this military power was not
+gained in a say; it took nearly two hundred years, after the expulsion
+of the kings, to regain supremacy over the neighboring people, and
+another century to conquer Italy. The Romans did not contend with
+regular armies until they were brought in conflict with the king of
+Epirus and the phalanx of the Greeks, &quot;which improved their military
+tactics, and introduced between the combatants those mutual regards of
+civilized nations which teach men to honor their adversaries, to spare
+the vanquished, and to lay aside wrath when the struggle is ended.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After the consolidation of Roman power in Italy, it took but one hundred
+and fifty years more to complete the conquest of the world,--of Northern
+Africa, Spain, Gaul, Illyria, Epirus, Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor,
+Pontus, Syria, Egypt, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pergamus, and the islands of
+the Mediterranean. The conquest of Carthage left Rome without a rival in
+the Mediterranean, and promoted intercourse with the Greeks. The
+Illyrian wars opened to the Romans the road to Greece and Asia, and
+destroyed the pirates of the Adriatic. The invasion of Cisalpine Gaul,
+now that part of Italy which is north of the Apennines, protected Italy
+from the invasion of barbarians. The Macedonian War against Philip put
+Greece under the protection of Rome, and that against Antiochus laid
+Syria at her mercy; when these kingdoms were reduced to provinces, the
+way was opened to further conquests in the East, and the Mediterranean
+became a Roman lake.</p>
+
+<p>But these conquests introduced luxury, wealth, pride, and avarice, which
+degrade while they elevate. Successful war created great generals, and
+founded great families; increased slavery, and promoted inequalities.
+Meanwhile the great generals struggled for supremacy; civil wars
+followed in the train of foreign conquests; Marius, Sulla, Pompey,
+Caesar, Antony, Augustus, sacrificed the State to their own ambitions.
+Good men lamented and protested, and hid themselves; Cato, Cicero,
+Brutus, spoke in vain. Degenerate morals kept pace with civil contests.
+Rome revelled in the spoils of all kingdoms and countries, was
+intoxicated with power, became cruel and tyrannical, and after
+sacrificing the lives of citizens to fortunate generals, yielded at last
+her liberties, and imperial despotism began its reign. War had added
+empire, but undermined prosperity; it had created a great military
+monarchy, but destroyed liberty; it had brought wealth, but introduced
+inequalities; it had filled the city with spoils, but sown the vices of
+self-interest. The machinery remained perfect, but life had fled. It
+henceforth became the labor of Emperors to keep together their vast
+possessions with this machinery, which at last wore out, since there was
+neither genius to repair it nor patriotism to work it. It lasted three
+hundred years, but was broken to pieces by the barbarians.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>AUTHORITIES.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>Wilkinson is the best authority pertaining to Egyptian armies. The
+highest authority in relation to the construction of an army is
+Polybius, contemporary with Scipio, when Roman discipline was most
+perfect. The eighth chapter of Livy is also very much prized. Salmasius
+and Lepsius wrote learned treatises. Tacitus, Sallust, Livy, Dion
+Cassius, Pliny, and Caesar reveal incidentally much that we wish to
+know, the last giving us the liveliest idea of the military habits and
+tactics of the Romans. Gibbon gives some important facts. The subject of
+ancient machines is treated by Folard's Commentary attached to his
+translation of Polybius. Josephus describes with great vividness the
+siege of Jerusalem. Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities is full of details
+in everything pertaining to the weapons, the armor, the military
+engines, the rewards and punishments of the soldiers. The articles
+&quot;Exercitus,&quot; in Smith's Dictionary, and &quot;Army,&quot; in the Encyclopedia
+Britannica, give a practical summary of the best writers.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="CICERO."></a>CICERO.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>106-43 B.C.</p>
+
+<p>ROMAN LITERATURE.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>Marcus Tullius Cicero is one of the great lights of history, because his
+genius and influence were directed to the conservation of what was most
+precious in civilization among the cultivated nations of antiquity.</p>
+
+<p>He was not a warrior, like so many of the Roman Senators, but his
+excellence was higher than that of a conqueror. &quot;He was doomed, by his
+literary genius, to an immortality,&quot; and was confessedly the most
+prominent figure in the political history of his time, next to Caesar
+and Pompey. His influence was greater than his power, reaching down to
+our time; and if his character had faults, let us remember that he was
+stained by no crimes and vices, in an age of violence and wickedness.
+Until lately he has received almost unmixed praise. The Fathers of the
+Church revered him. To Erasmus, as well as to Jerome and Augustine, he
+was an oracle.</p>
+
+<p>In presenting this immortal benefactor, I have no novelties to show.
+Novelties are for those who seek to upturn the verdicts of past ages by
+offering something new, rather than what is true.</p>
+
+<p>Cicero was born B.C. 106, in the little suburban town of Arpinum, about
+fifty miles from Rome,--the town which produced Marius. The period of
+his birth was one of marked national prosperity. Great military roads
+were built, which were a marvel of engineering skill; canals were dug;
+sails whitened the sea; commerce was prosperous; the arts of Greece were
+introduced, and its literature also; elegant villas lined the shores of
+the Mediterranean; pictures and statues were indefinitely
+multiplied,--everything indicated an increase of wealth and culture.
+With these triumphs of art and science and literature, we are compelled
+to notice likewise a decline in morals. Money had become the god which
+everybody worshipped. Religious life faded away; there was a general
+eclipse of faith. An Epicurean life produced an Epicurean philosophy.
+Pleasure-seeking was universal, and even revolting in the sports of the
+Amphitheatre. Sensualism became the convertible word for utilities. The
+Romans were thus rapidly &quot;advancing&quot; to a materialistic millennium,--an
+outward progress of wealth and industries, but an inward decline in
+&quot;those virtues on which the strength of man is based,&quot; accompanied with
+seditions among the people, luxury and pride among the nobles, and
+usurpations on the part of successful generals,--when Cicero began his
+memorable career.</p>
+
+<p>He was well-born, but not of noble ancestors. The great peculiarity of
+his youth was his precocity. He was an intellectual prodigy,--like Pitt,
+Macaulay, and Mill. Like them, he had a wonderful memory. He early
+mastered the Greek language; he wrote poetry, studied under eminent
+professors, frequented the Forum, listened to the speeches of different
+orators, watched the posture and gestures of actors, and plunged into
+the mazes of literature and philosophy. He was conscious of his
+marvellous gifts, and was, of course, ambitious of distinction.</p>
+
+<p>There were only three ways at Rome in which a man could rise to eminence
+and power. One was by making money, like army contractors and merchants,
+such as the Equites, to whose ranks he belonged; the second was by
+military service; and the third by the law,--an honorable profession.
+Like Caesar, a few years younger than he, Cicero selected the law. But
+he was a <i>new man</i>,--not a patrician, as Caesar was,--and had few
+powerful friends. Hence his progress was not rapid in the way of
+clients. He was twenty-five years of age before he had a case. He was
+twenty-seven when he defended Roscius, which seems to have brought him
+into notice,--even as the fortune of Erskine was made in the Greenwich
+Hospital case and that of Daniel Webster in the case of Dartmouth
+College. To have defended Roscius against all the influence of Sulla,
+then the most powerful man in Rome, was considered bold and audacious.
+His fame for great logical power rests on his defence of Milo,--the
+admiration of all lawyers.</p>
+
+<p>Cicero was not naturally robust. His figure was tall and spare, his neck
+long and slender, and his mouth anything but sensual. He looked more
+like an elegant scholar than a popular public speaker. Yet he was
+impetuous, ardent, and fiery, like Demosthenes, resorting to violent
+gesticulations. The health of such a young man could not stand the
+strain on his nervous system, and he was obliged to leave Rome for
+recreation; he therefore made the tour of Greece and Asia Minor, which
+every fashionable and cultivated man was supposed to do. Yet he did not
+abandon himself to the pleasures of cities more fascinating than Rome
+itself, but pursued his studies in rhetoric and philosophy under eminent
+masters, or &quot;professors&quot; as we should now call them. He remained abroad
+two years, returning when he was thirty years of age and settling down
+in his profession, taking at first but little part in politics. He
+married Terentia, with whom he lived happily for thirty years.</p>
+
+<p>But the Roman lawyer was essentially a politician, looking ultimately to
+political office, since only through the great public offices could he
+enter the Senate,--the object of ambition to all distinguished Romans,
+as a seat in Parliament is the goal of an Englishman. The Roman lawyer
+did not receive fees, like modern lawyers, but derived his support from
+presents and legacies. When he became a political leader, a man of
+influence with the great, his presents were enormous. Cicero
+acknowledged, late in life, to have received what would now be equal to
+more than a million of dollars from legacies alone. The great political
+leaders and orators were the stipendiaries of Eastern princes and nobles
+who wanted favors from the Senate, and who knew as well how to reward
+such services as do the railway kings in our times.</p>
+
+<p>Before Cicero, then, could be a Senator, he must pass through those
+great public offices which were in the gift of the people. The first
+step on the ladder of advancement was the office of quaestor, which
+entailed the duty of collecting revenues in one of the provinces. This
+office he was sufficiently influential to secure, being sent to Sicily,
+where he distinguished himself for his activity and integrity. At the
+end of a year he renewed his practice in the courts at Rome,--being
+hardly anything more than a mere lawyer for five years, when he was
+elected an Aedile, to whom the care of the public buildings was
+intrusted.</p>
+
+<p>It was while he was aedile-elect that Cicero appeared as the public
+prosecutor of Verres. This was one of the great cases of antiquity, and
+the one from which the orator's public career fairly dates. His
+residence in Sicily had prepared him for this duty; and he secured the
+conviction of this great criminal, whose peculations and corruptions
+would amaze our modern New Yorkers and all the &quot;rings&quot; of our great
+cities combined. But the Praetor of Sicily was a provincial
+governor,--more like Warren Hastings than Tweed. For this public service
+Cicero gained more <i>&eacute;clat</i> than Burke did for his prosecution of
+Hastings; since Hastings, though a corrupt man, laid, after Clive, the
+foundation of the English empire in India, and was a man of immense
+talents,--greater than those of any who has since filled his place.
+Hence the nation screened Hastings. But Verres had no virtues and no
+great abilities; he was an outrageous public robber, and hoped, from his
+wealth and powerful connections, to purchase immunity for his crimes. In
+the hands of such an orator as Cicero he could not escape the penalty of
+the law, powerful as he was, even at Rome. This case placed Cicero above
+Hortensius, hitherto the leader of the Roman bar.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this period that the extant correspondence of Cicero began,
+which is the best picture we have of the manners and habits of the Roman
+aristocracy at the time. History could scarcely spare those famous
+letters, especially to Atticus, in which also the private life and
+character of Cicero shine to the most advantage, revealing no vices, no
+treacheries,--only egotism, vanity, and vacillation, and a way that some
+have of speaking about people in private very differently from what they
+say in public, which looks like insincerity. In these letters Cicero
+appears as a very frank man, genial, hospitable, domestic, witty, whose
+society and conversation must have been delightful. In no modern
+correspondence do we see a higher perfection in the polished courtesies
+and urbanities of social life, with the alloy of vanity, irony, and
+discontent. But in these letters he also evinces a friendship which is
+immortal; and what is nobler than the capacity of friendship? In these
+he not only shines as a cultivated scholar, but as a great statesman and
+patriot, living for the good of his country, though not unmindful of the
+luxuries of home and the charms of country retirement, and those
+enjoyments which are ever associated with refined and favored life. We
+read here of pictures, books, medals, statues, curiosities of every
+kind, all of which adorned his various villas, as well as his
+magnificent palace on Mount Palatine, which cost him what would be equal
+in our money to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. To keep up this
+town house, and some fifteen villas in different parts of Italy, and to
+feast the greatest nobles, like Pompey and Caesar, would imply that his
+income was enormous, much greater than that of any modern professional
+man. And yet he seems to have lived, like Bacon and our Webster, beyond
+his income, and was in debt the greater part of his life,--another flaw
+in his character; for I do not wish to paint him without faults, but
+only as a good as well as a great man, for his times. His private
+character was as lofty as that of Chatham or Canning,--if we could
+forget his vanity, which after all is not so offensive as the
+intellectual pride of Burke and Pitt, and of sundry other great lights
+who might be mentioned, conscious of their gifts and attainments. There
+is something very different in the egotism of a silly and self-seeking
+aristocrat from that of a great benefactor who has something to be proud
+of, and with whose private experiences the greatest national deeds are
+connected. I speak of this fault because it has been handled too
+severely by modern critics. What were the faults of Cicero, compared
+with those of Theodosius or Constantine, to say nothing of his
+contemporaries, like Caesar, before whom so much incense has
+been burned?</p>
+
+<p>At the age of forty Cicero became Praetor, or Supreme Judge. This
+office, when it expired, entitled him to a provincial government,--the
+great ultimate ambition of a senator; since the administration of a
+province, even for a single year, usually secured an enormous fortune.
+But this tempting offer he resigned, since he felt he could not be
+spared from Rome in such a crisis of public affairs, when the fortunate
+generals were grasping power and the demagogues were almost preparing
+the way for despotism. Some might say he was a far-sighted and ambitious
+statesman, who could not afford to weaken his chances of being made
+Consul by absence from the capital.</p>
+
+<p>This great office, the consulship, the highest in the gift of the
+people,--which gave supreme executive control,--was rarely conferred,
+although elective, upon any but senators of ancient family and enormous
+wealth. It was as difficult for a &quot;new man&quot; to reach this dignity, under
+an aristocratic Constitution, as for a commoner a hundred years ago to
+become prime minister of England. Transcendent talents and services
+scarcely sufficed. Only generals who had won great military fame, or the
+highest of the nobles, stood much chance. For a lawyer to aim at the
+highest office in the State, without a great family to back him, would
+have been deemed as audacious as for such a man as Burke to aspire to a
+seat in the cabinet during the reign of George III. A lawyer at Rome,
+like a lawyer in London, might become a lord chancellor or praetor, but
+not easily a prime minister: he would be defeated by aristocratic
+influence and jealousies. Although the people had the right of election,
+they voted at the dictation of those who had money and power. Yet Cicero
+obtained the consulship, probably with the aid of senators, which he
+justly regarded as a great triumph. It was a very unusual thing. It was
+more marvellous than for a Jew to reign in Great Britain, or, like
+Mordecai, in the court of a Persian king.</p>
+
+<p>The most distinguished service of Cicero as consul was to ferret out the
+conspiracy of Catiline. Now, this traitor belonged to the very highest
+rank in a Senate of nobles; he was like an ancient duke in the British
+House of Peers. It was no easy thing for a plebeian consul to bring to
+justice so great a culprit. He was more formidable than Essex in the
+reign of Elizabeth, or Bassompierre in the time of Richelieu. He was a
+man of profligate life, but of marked ability and boundless ambition. He
+had a band of numerous and faithful followers, armed and desperate. He
+was also one of those oily and aristocratic demagogues who bewitch the
+people,--not, as in our times, by sophistries, but by flatteries. He was
+as debauched as Mirabeau, but without his patriotism, though like him he
+aimed to overturn the Constitution by allying himself with the
+democracy. The people, whom he despised, he gained by his money and
+promises; and he had powerful confederates of his own rank, so that he
+was on the point of deluging Rome with blood, his aim being nothing less
+than the extermination of the Senate and the magistrates by
+assassination, and a general division of the public treasure, with
+personal assumption of public power.</p>
+
+<p>But all his schemes were foiled by Cicero, who added unwearied activity
+to extraordinary penetration. For this great and signal service Cicero
+received the highest tribute the State could render. He was called the
+savior of his country; and he succeeded in staving off for a time the
+fall of his country's liberties. It was a mournful sight to him to see
+the ascendency which demagogues had already gained, since it betokened
+the approaching destruction of the Constitution, which, good or bad, was
+dear to him, and which as an aristocrat he sought to conserve.</p>
+
+<p>Cicero's evil star was not Catiline, but Clodius,--another aristocratic
+demagogue whose crimes he exposed, although he failed to bring him to
+justice. Clodius was shielded by his powerful connections; and he was,
+besides, a popular favorite, as well as a petted scion of one of the
+greatest families. Clodius showed his hostility to Cicero, and sought
+revenge by artfully causing the people to pass or revive a law that
+whoever had inflicted capital punishment on a citizen without a trial
+should be banished. This seemed to the people to be a protection to
+their liberties. Now Cicero, when consul, had executed some of the
+conspirators associated with Catiline, for which he was called the
+savior of his country. But by the law which was now passed or revived by
+the influence of Clodius, Cicero was himself a culprit, and it would
+seem that all the influence of the Senate and his friends could not
+prevent his exile. He appealed to his friend Pompey, but Pompey turned a
+deaf ear; and also to Caesar, but Caesar was then outside the walls of
+the city in command of an army. In fact, both these generals wished him
+out of the way, although they equally admired and feared him; for each
+of them was bent on being the supreme ruler of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>So it was permitted for the most illustrious patriot which Rome then
+held to go into exile. What a comment on the demoralization of the
+times! Here was the best, the most gifted, and the most accomplished man
+of the Republic,--a man who had rendered invaluable and acknowledged
+services, that man of consular dignity and one of the leaders of the
+Senate,--sent into inglorious banishment, on a mere technicality and for
+an act which saved the State. And the &quot;magnanimous&quot; Caesar and the
+&quot;illustrious&quot; Pompey allowed him to go! Where was salvation to a
+Republic which banished its savior, and for having saved it? The heart
+sickens over such a fact, although it occurred two thousand years ago.
+When the citizens of Rome saw that great man depart mournfully from
+among them, and to all appearance forever, for having rescued them from
+violence and slaughter, and by their own act,--they ought to have known
+that the days of the Republic were numbered. But this only a few
+far-seeing patriots felt. And not only was Cicero banished, but his
+palace was burned and his villas confiscated. He was not only disgraced,
+but ruined; he was an exile and a pauper. What a fall! What an unmerited
+treatment!</p>
+
+<p>Very few people conceive what a dreadful punishment it was in Greece and
+Rome to be banished; or, as the formula went, &quot;to be interdicted from
+fire and water,&quot;--the sacred fire of the hearth, the lustral water which
+served for sacrifices. The exile was deprived of these by being forced
+to extinguish the hearth-fire,--the elemental, fundamental religion of a
+Greek and Roman. &quot;He could not, deprived of this, hold property; having
+no longer a worship, he had no longer a family. He ceased to be a
+husband and father; his sons were no longer in his power, his wife was
+no longer his wife, and when he died he had not the right to be buried
+in the tombs of his ancestors.&quot; <a name="FNanchor4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4"><sup>[4]</sup></a></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor4">[4]</a> Coulanges: Ancient City.
+
+<p>Is it to be wondered at that even so good and great a man as Cicero
+should bitterly feel his disgrace and misfortunes? Is it surprising
+that, philosopher as he was, he should have given way to grief and
+despondency. He would have been more than human not to have lost his
+spirits and his hopes. How natural were grief and despair, in such
+complicated miseries, especially to a religious man! Chrysostom could
+support <i>his</i> exile with dignity; for Christianity had abolished the
+superstitions of Greece and Rome as to household gods. Cicero could not:
+he was not great enough for such a martyrdom. It is true we should have
+esteemed him higher, had he accepted his fate with resignation: no man
+should yield to despair. Had he been as old as Socrates, and had he
+accomplished his mission, possibly he would have shown more equanimity.
+But his work was not yet done. He was cut off in his prime and in the
+midst of usefulness from his home, his religion, his family, his honor,
+and his influence; he was utterly ruined. I think the critics make too
+much of the grief and misery of Cicero in his banishment. We may be
+disappointed that Cicero was not equal to his circumstances; but we need
+not be hard on him. My surprise is, not that he was overwhelmed with
+grief, but that he did not attempt to drown his grief in books and
+literature. His sole relief was in pathetic and unmanly letters.</p>
+
+<p>The great injustice of this punishment naturally produced a reaction.
+Nor could the Romans afford to lose the services of their greatest
+orator. They also craved the excitement of his speeches, more thrilling
+and delightful than the performance of any actor. So he was recalled.
+Cicero ought to have anticipated this; it seems, however, he had that
+unfortunate temperament which favors alternate depression and
+exhilaration of spirits, without measure or reason.</p>
+
+<p>His return was a triumph,--a grand ovation, an unbounded tribute to his
+vanity. His palace was rebuilt at the expense of the State, and his
+property was restored. His popularity was regained. In fact, his
+influence was never lost; and, because it was so great, his enemies
+wished him out of the way. He was one of the few who retain influence
+after they have lost power.</p>
+
+<p>The excess of his joy on his restoration to home and friends and
+property and fame and position, was as great as the excess of his grief
+in his short exile. But this is a defect in temperament, in his mental
+constitution, rather than a flaw in his character. We could have wished
+more placidity and equanimity; but to condemn him because he was not
+great in everything is unjust.</p>
+
+<p>On his return to Rome Cicero resumed his practice in the courts with
+greater devotion than ever. He was now past fifty years of age, in the
+prime of his strength and in the height of his forensic fame. But,
+notwithstanding his success and honors, his life was saddened by the
+growing dissensions between Caesar and Pompey, the decline of public
+spirit, and the approaching fall of the institutions in which he
+gloried. It was clear that one or the other of these fortunate generals
+would soon become the master of the Roman world, and that liberty was
+about to perish. His eloquence now became sad; he sings the death-song
+of departing glories; he wails his Jeremiads over the demoralization
+which was sweeping away not merely liberty, but religion, and
+extinguishing faith in the world. To console himself he retired to one
+of his beautiful villas and wrote that immortal essay, &quot;De Oratore,&quot;
+which has come down to us entire. His literary genius now blazed equally
+with his public speeches in the Forum and in the Senate. Literature was
+his solace and amusement, not a source of profit, or probably of
+contemporary fame. He wrote treatises on the same principles that he
+talked with friends, or that Fra Angelico painted pictures. He renewed
+his attempts in poetry, but failed. His poetry is in the transcendent
+rhythm of his prose compositions, like that of Madame de Sta&euml;l, and
+Macaulay, and Rousseau.</p>
+
+<p>But he was dragged from his literary and forensic life to accept the
+office of a governor of a province. It was forced upon him,--an honor to
+him without a charm. Had he been venal and unscrupulous, he would have
+seized it with avidity. He was too conscientious to enrich himself by
+public corruption, as other Senators did, and unless he could accumulate
+a fortune the command of a distant province was an honorable exile. He
+was fifty-six years of age when he became Proconsul of Cilicia, an
+Eastern province; and all historians have united in praising his
+proconsulate for its justice, its integrity, and its ability. He
+committed no extortions, and returned home, when his term of office
+expired, as poor as when he went. One of the highest praises which can
+be given to a public man who has chances of enriching himself is, that
+he remains poor. When a member of Congress, known not to be worth ten
+thousand dollars, returns to his home worth one hundred thousand
+dollars, the public have an instinct that he has, somehow or other, been
+untrue to himself and his country. When a great man returns home from
+Washington poorer than when he went, his influence is apt to survive his
+power; and this perpetuated influence is the highest glory of a public
+man,--the glory of Jefferson, of Hamilton, of Washington, like the voice
+of Gladstone during his retirement. Now Cicero had pre-eminently this
+influence as long as he lived; and it was ever exerted for the good of
+his country. Had his country been free, he would have died in honor. But
+his country was enslaved, and his voice was drowned, and he had to pay
+the penalty of speaking the truth about those unscrupulous men who
+usurped authority.</p>
+
+<p>On his return to Rome the state of public affairs was most alarming.
+Caesar and Pompey were in antagonism. He must choose between them, and
+he distrusted both. Caesar was the more able, accomplished, and
+magnanimous, but he was the more unscrupulous and dangerous. He had
+ventured to cross the Rubicon,--the first general who ever dared thus
+openly to assail his country's liberties. Pompey was pompous, overrated,
+and proud, and had been fortunate in the East. But then he sided with
+the Constitutional authorities,--that is, with the Senate,--so far as
+his ambition allowed. So Cicero took his side feebly, reluctantly, as
+the least of the evils he had to choose, but not without vacillation,
+which is one of the popular charges against him. &quot;His distraction almost
+took the form of insanity.&quot; &quot;His inconsistency was an incoherence.&quot;
+Never did a more wretched man than Cicero resort to Pompey's camp, where
+he remained until his cause was lost. He returned, after the battle of
+Pharsalia, a suppliant at the feet of Caesar, the conqueror. This, to
+me, is one of his weakest acts. It would have been more lofty and heroic
+to have perished in the camp of Pompey's sons.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of these public misfortunes which saddened his soul, his
+private miseries began. He was now prematurely an old man, under sixty
+years of age, almost broken down with grief. His beloved daughter
+Tullia, with whom his life was bound up, died; and he was divorced from
+his wife Terentia,--a proceeding the cause of which remains a mystery.
+Neither in his most confidential letters, nor in his conversations with
+most intimate friends, does it appear that he ever unbosomed himself,
+although he was the frankest and most social of men. In his impressive
+silence he has set one of the noblest examples of a man afflicted with
+domestic infelicities. He buries his conjugal troubles in eternal
+silence; although he is forced to give vent to sorrows, so plaintive and
+bitter that both friend and foe were constrained to pity. He expects no
+sympathy, even at Rome, for the sundering of conjugal relations, and he
+communicates no secrets. In his grief and sadness he does, however, a
+most foolish thing: he marries a young lady one-third his age. She
+accepted him for his name and rank; he sought her for her beauty, her
+youth, and her fortune. This union of May with December was of course a
+failure. Both parties were soon disenchanted and disappointed. Neither
+party found happiness, only discontent and chagrin. The everlasting
+incongruities of such a relation--he sixty and she nineteen--soon led to
+another divorce. <i>He</i> expected his young wife to mourn with him the loss
+of his daughter Tullia. <i>She</i> expected that her society and charms
+would be a compensation for all that he had lost; yea, more, enough to
+make him the most fortunate and happy of mortals. In truth, he was too
+old a man to have married a young woman whatever were the inducements.
+It was the great folly of his life; an illustration of the fact that, as
+a general thing, the older a man grows the greater fool he becomes, so
+far as women are concerned; a folly that disgraced and humiliated the
+two wisest and greatest men who ever sat on the Jewish throne.</p>
+
+<p>In his accumulated sorrows Cicero now plunged for relief into literary
+labors. It was thus that his private sorrows were the means which
+Providence employed to transmit his precious thoughts and experiences to
+future ages, as the most valued inheritance he could bestow on
+posterity. What a precious legacy to the mind of the world was the book
+of &quot;Ecclesiastes,&quot; yet by what bitter experiences was its wisdom earned!</p>
+
+<p>It was in the short period when Caesar rejoiced in the mighty power
+which he transmitted to the Roman Emperors that Cicero wrote, in
+comparative retirement, his history of &quot;Roman Eloquence,&quot; his inquiry as
+to the &quot;Greatest Good and Evil,&quot; his &quot;Cato,&quot; his &quot;Orator,&quot; his &quot;Nature
+of the Gods,&quot; and his treatises on &quot;Glory,&quot; on &quot;Fate,&quot; on &quot;Friendship,&quot;
+on &quot;Old Age,&quot; and his grandest work of all, the &quot;Offices.&quot;--the best
+manual in ethics which has come down to us from heathen antiquity. In
+his studious retirement he reminds us of Bacon after his fall, when on
+his estate, surrounded with friends, and in the enjoyment of elegant
+leisure, he penned the most valued of his immortal compositions. And in
+those degenerate days at Rome, when liberty was crushed under foot
+forever, it is beautiful to see the greatest of Roman statesmen and
+lawyers consoling himself and instructing posterity by his exhaustive
+treatises on the fundamental principles of law, of morality, and of
+philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>The assassination of Caesar by Roman senators, which Cicero seems to
+have foreseen, and in which he rejoiced, at this time shocked and
+disturbed the world. For nearly two thousand years the verdict of the
+civilized world respecting this great conqueror has been unanimous. But
+Mr. Froude has attempted to reverse this verdict, as he has in reference
+to Henry VIII., and as Carlyle--another idolater of force--has attempted
+in the cases of Oliver Cromwell and Frederick II. This remarkable
+word-painter, in his Life of Caesar,--which is, however, interesting
+from first to last, as everything he writes is interesting,--has
+presented him as an object of unbounded admiration, as I have already
+noticed in my lecture on Caesar. Whether in his eagerness to say
+something new, or from an ill-concealed hostility to aristocratic and
+religious institutions, or from an admiration of imperialism, or disdain
+of the people in their efforts at self-government, this able special
+pleader seems to hail the Roman conqueror as a benefactor to the cause
+of civilization. But imperialism crushed all alike,--the people, no
+longer able to send their best men to the Senate through the higher
+offices perchance to represent their interests, and the nobles, shorn of
+the administration of the Empire. Soldiers, not civilians, henceforth
+were to rule the world,--a dreary thought to a great lawyer like Cicero,
+or a landed proprietor like Brutus. Even if such a terrible revolution
+as occurred in Rome under Caesar may have been ordered wisely by a
+Superintending Power for those degenerate times, and as a preservation
+of the peace of the world, that Christianity might take root and spread
+in countries where all religions were dead,--still, the prostration of
+what was dearest to the hearts of all true citizens by the sword was a
+crime; and men are not to be commended for crime, even if those crimes
+may be palliated. &quot;It must need be that offences come, but woe to those
+by whom they come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Cicero was now sixty-three, prematurely old, discouraged, and
+heart-broken. And yet he braced himself up for one more grand
+effort,--for a life and death struggle with Antony, one of the ablest
+of Caesar's generals; a demagogue, eloquent and popular, but
+outrageously cruel and unscrupulous, and with unbridled passions. Had it
+not been for his infatuated love of Cleopatra, he probably would have
+succeeded to the imperial sceptre, for it was by the sword that he too
+sought to suppress the liberties of the Senate and people. Against him,
+as the enemy of his country, Cicero did not scruple to launch forth the
+most terrible of his invectives. In thirteen immortal philippics--some
+of which, however, were merely written and never delivered, after the
+fashion of Demosthenes, with whom as an orator and a patriot he can
+alone be compared--he denounced the unprincipled demagogue and general
+with every offensive epithet the language afforded,--unveiling his
+designs, exposing his forgeries, and proving his crimes. Nobler
+eloquence was never uttered, and wasted, than that with which Cicero
+pursued, in passionate vengeance, the most powerful and the most
+unscrupulous man in the Roman Empire. And Cicero must have anticipated
+the fate which impended over him if Antony were not decreed a public
+enemy. But the protests of the orator were in vain. He lived to utter
+them, as a witness of truth; and nothing was left to him but to die.</p>
+
+<p>Of course Antony, when he became Triumvir,--when he made a bargain that
+he never meant to keep with Octavius and Lepidus for a division of the
+Empire between them,--would not spare such an enemy as Cicero. The
+broken-hearted patriot fled mechanically, with a vacillating mind, when
+his proscription became known to him,--now more ready to die than live,
+since all hope in his country's liberties was utterly crushed. Perhaps
+he might have escaped to some remote corner of the Empire. But he did
+not wish for life, any more than did Socrates when summoned before his
+judges. Desponding, uncertain, pursued, he met his fate with the heroism
+of an ancient philosopher. He surrendered his wearied and exhausted body
+to the hand of the executioner, and his lofty soul to the keeping of
+that personal and supreme God in whom he believed as firmly as any man,
+perhaps, of Pagan antiquity. And surely of him, more than of any other
+Roman, could it be said,--as Sir Walter Scott said of Pitt, and as
+Gladstone quoted, and applied to Sir Robert Peel,--</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;Now is the stately column broke,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The <i>beacon light</i> is quenched in smoke;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The trumpet's silver voice is still,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The warder silent on the hill.&quot;<br>
+
+<p>With the death--so sad--of the most illustrious of the Romans whose fame
+was not earned on the battlefield, I should perhaps close my lecture.
+Yet it would be incomplete without a short notice of those services
+which--as statesman, orator, and essayist--he rendered to his country
+and to future ages and nations.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to his services as a statesman, they were rendered chiefly to
+his day and generation, for he elaborated no system of political wisdom
+like Burke, which bears (except casually and indirectly) on modern
+governments and institutions. It was his aim, as a statesman, to
+continue the Roman Constitution and keep the people from civil war. Nor
+does he seem to have held, like Rousseau, the <i>vox populi</i> as the voice
+of God. He could find no language sufficiently strong to express his
+abhorrence of those who led the people for their own individual
+advancement. He was equally severe on corrupt governors and venal
+judges. He upheld morality and justice as the only guides in public
+affairs. He loved popularity, but he loved his country better. He hated
+anarchy as much as did Burke. Like Bright, he looked upon civil war as
+the greatest of national calamities. He advocated the most enlightened
+views, based on the principles of immutable justice. He wished to
+preserve his country equally from unscrupulous generals and unprincipled
+politicians.</p>
+
+<p>As for his orations, they also were chiefly designed for his own
+contemporaries. They are not particularly valuable to us, except as
+models of rhetorical composition and transcendent beauty and grace of
+style. They are not so luminous with fundamental principles as they are
+vivid with invective, sarcasm, wit, and telling exaggeration,--sometimes
+persuasive and working on the sensibilities, and at other times full of
+withering scorn. They are more like the pleadings of an advocate than an
+appeal to universal reason. He lays down no laws of political
+philosophy, nor does he soar into the region of abstract truth, evolving
+great deductions in morals. But as an orator he was transcendently
+effective, like Demosthenes, though not equal to the Greek in force. His
+sentences are perhaps too involved for our taste; yet he always swayed
+an audience, whether the people from the rostrum, or the judges at the
+bar, or the senators in the Curia. He seldom lost a case; no one could
+contend with him successfully. He called out the admiration of critics,
+and even of actors. He had a wonderful electrical influence; his very
+tones and gestures carried everything before him; his action was superb;
+and his whole frame quivered from real (or affected) emotion, like
+Edward Everett in his happiest efforts. He was vehement in gesture, like
+Brougham and Mirabeau. He was intensely earnest and impressive, like
+Savonarola. He had exceeding tact, and was master of the passions of his
+audience. There was an irresistible music in his tones of voice, like
+that of St. Bernard when he fanned crusades. He was withering in his
+denunciations, like Wendell Phillips, whom in person he somewhat
+resembled. He was a fascination like Pericles, and the people could not
+long spare him from the excitement he produced. It was their desire to
+hear him speak which had no small share in producing his recall from
+banishment. They crowded around him as the people did around Chrysostom
+in Antioch. He amused like an actor, and instructed like a sage. His
+sentences are not short, terse, epigrammatic, and direct, but elaborate
+and artificial. Yet with all his arts of eloquence his soul, fired with
+great sentiments, rose in its inspired fervor above even the melody of
+voice, the rhythm of language, and the vehemence of action. A listener,
+who was not a critic, might fancy it was gesture, voice, and language
+combined; but, after all, it was the <i>man</i> communicating his soul to
+those who hung upon his lips, and securing conviction by his sincerity
+and appeals to conscience. He must have had a natural gift for oratory,
+aside from his learning and accomplishments and rhetorical arts,--a
+talent very rare and approaching to creative genius. But to his natural
+gifts--like Luther, or Henry Clay, born an orator--he added marvellous
+attainments. He had a most retentive memory. He was versed in the whole
+history of the world. He was always ready with apt illustrations, which
+gave interest and finish to his discourses. He was the most industrious
+and studious man of his age. His attainments were prodigious. He was
+master of all the knowledge then known, like Gladstone of our day. He
+was not so learned a man as Varro; but Varro's works have perished, as
+the great monuments of German scholars are perhaps destined to perish,
+for lack of style. Cicero's style embalmed his thoughts and made them
+imperishable. No writer is immortal who is not an artist; Cicero was a
+consummate artist, and studied the arrangement of sentences, like the
+historian Tacitus and the Grecian Thucydides.</p>
+
+<p>But greater than as an artist was he in the loftiness of his mind. He
+appealed to what is noblest in the soul. Transcendent eloquence ever
+&quot;raises mortals to the skies&quot; and never &quot;pulls angels down.&quot; Love of
+country, love of home, love of friends, love of nature, love of law,
+love of God, is brought out in all his discourses, exalting the noblest
+sentiments which move the human soul. He was the first to give to the
+Latin language beauty and artistic finish. He added to its richness,
+copiousness, and strength; he gave it music. For style alone he would be
+valued as one of the immortal classics. All men of culture have admired
+it, from Augustine to Bossuet, and acknowledged their obligations to
+him. We accord to the great poets the formation of languages,--Homer,
+Dante, Chaucer, Shakspeare; but I doubt if either Virgil or Horace
+contributed to the formation of the Latin language more than Cicero.
+Certainly they have not been more studied and admired. In every
+succeeding age the Orations of Cicero have been one of the first books
+which have been used as textbooks in colleges. Is it not something to
+have been one of the acknowledged masters of human composition? What a
+great service did Cicero render to the education of the Teutonic races!
+Whatever the Latin language has done for the modern world, Cicero comes
+in for a large share of the glory. More is preserved of his writings
+than of any other writer of antiquity.</p>
+
+<p>But not for style alone--seen equally in his essays and in his
+orations--is he admirable. His most enduring claim on the gratitude of
+the world is the noble tribute he rendered to those truths which save
+the world. His testimony, considering he was a pagan, is remarkable in
+reference to what is sound in philosophy and morals. His learning, too,
+is seen to most advantage in his ethical and philosophical writings. It
+is true he did not originate, like Socrates and Plato; but he condensed
+and sifted the writings of the Greeks, and is the best expounder of
+their philosophy. Who has added substantially to what the Greeks worked
+out of their creative brain? I know that no Roman ever added to the
+domain of speculative thought, yet what Roman ever showed such a
+comprehension and appreciation of Greek philosophy as did Cicero? He was
+profoundly versed in all the learning the Grecians ever taught. Like
+Socrates, he had a contempt for physical science, because science in his
+day was based on imperfect inductions. There were not facts enough known
+of the material world to construct sound theories. Physical science at
+that time was the most uncertain of all knowledge, although there were
+great pretenders then, as now, who maintained it was the only certainty.
+But the speculations of scientists disgusted him, for he saw nothing in
+them upon which to base incontrovertible truth. They were mere dreams
+and baseless theories on the origin of the universe. They were even
+puerile; and they were then, as now, atheistic in their tendency. They
+mocked the consciousness of mankind. They annihilated faith and
+Providence. At best, they made all things subject to necessity, to an
+immutable fate, not to an intelligent and ever-present Creator. But
+Cicero, like Socrates, believed in God and in providential
+interference,--in striking contrast with Caesar, who believed nothing.
+He taught moral obligation, on the basis of accountability to God. He
+repudiated expediency as the guide in life, and fell back on the
+principles of eternal right. As an ethical writer he was profounder and
+more enlightened than Paley. He did not seek to overturn the popular
+religion, like Grecian Sophists, only (like Socrates) to overturn
+ignorance, before a sound foundation could be laid for any system of
+truth. Nor did he ridicule religion, as Lucian did in after-times, but
+soared to comprehend it, like the esoteric priests of Egypt in the time
+of Moses or Pythagoras. He cherished as lofty views of God and his moral
+government as any moralist of antiquity. And all these lofty views he
+taught in matchless language,--principles of government, principles of
+law, of ethics, of theology, giving consolation not only to the men of
+his day, but to Christian sages in after-times. And there is nothing
+puerile or dreamy or demoralizing in his teachings; they all are
+luminous for learning as well as genius. He rivalled Bacon in the
+variety and profundity of his attainments. He gloried in the certitudes
+which consciousness reveals, as well as in the facts which experience
+and history demonstrate. With these he consoled himself in trouble; on
+these he reposed in the hour of danger. Like Pascal he meditated on the
+highest truths which task the intellect of man, but, unlike him, did not
+disdain those weapons which <i>reason</i> forged, and which no one used more
+triumphantly than Pascal himself. And these great meditations he
+transmitted for all ages to ponder, as among the most precious of the
+legacies of antiquity.</p>
+
+<p>Thus did he live, a shining light in a corrupt and godless age, in spite
+of all the faults which modern critics have enlarged upon in their
+ambitious desire for novelties, or in their thoughtless or malignant
+desire? to show up human frailties. He was a patriot, taking the side of
+his country's highest interests; a statesman, seeking to conserve the
+wisdom of his ancestors; an orator, exposing vices and defending the
+innocent; a philosopher, unfolding the wisdom of the Greeks; a moralist,
+laying down the principles of immutable justice; a sage, pondering the
+mysteries of life; ever active, studious, dignified; the charm and
+fascination of cultivated circles; as courteous and polished as the
+ornaments of modern society; revered by friends, feared by enemies,
+adored by all good people; a kind father, an indulgent husband, a
+generous friend; hospitable, witty, magnificent,--a most accomplished
+gentleman, one of the best men of all antiquity. What if he was vain and
+egotistical and vacillating, and occasionally weak? Can you expect
+perfection in him who &quot;is born of a woman&quot;? We palliate the backslidings
+of Christians; we excuse the crimes of a Constantine, a Theodosius, a
+Cromwell: shall we have no toleration for the frailties of a Pagan, in
+one of the worst periods of history? I have no patience with those
+critics who would hurl him from the pedestal on which he has stood for
+two thousand years. Contrast him with other illustrious men. How few
+Romans or Greeks were better than he! How few have rendered such exalted
+services! And even if he has not perpetuated a faultless character, he
+has yet bequeathed a noble example; and, more, has transmitted a legacy
+in the richness of which we forget the faults of the testator,--a legacy
+of imperishable thought, clothed in the language of imperishable art,--a
+legacy so valuable that it is the treasured inheritance of all civilized
+nations, and one which no nation can afford to lose.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>AUTHORITIES.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>Plutarch's Life of Cicero, Appian, Dion Cassius, Villeius Paterculus,
+are the original authorities,--next to the writings of Cicero himself,
+especially his Letters and Orations. Middleton's Life is full, but
+one-sided. Forsyth takes the opposite side in his Life. The last work in
+English is that of Anthony Trollope. In Smith's Biographical Dictionary
+is an able article. Dr. Vaughan has written an interesting lecture.
+Merivale has elaborately treated this great man in his valuable History
+of the Romans. Colley Cibber's Character and Conduct of Cicero,
+Drumann's Roman History, Rollin's Ancient History, Biographic
+Universelle. Mr. Froude alludes to Cicero in his Life of Caesar, taking
+nearly the same view as Forsyth.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="CLEOPATRA."></a>CLEOPATRA.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>69-30 B.C.</p>
+
+<p>THE WOMAN OF PAGANISM.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>It is my object in this lecture to present the condition of woman under
+the influences of Paganism, before Christianity enfranchised and
+elevated her. As a type of the Pagan woman I select Cleopatra, partly
+because she was famous, and partly because she possessed traits and
+accomplishments which made her interesting in spite of the vices which
+degraded her. She was a queen, the heir of a long line of kings, and
+ruled over an ancient and highly civilized country. She was
+intellectual, accomplished, beautiful, and fascinating. She lived in one
+of the most interesting capitals of the ancient world, and by birth she
+was more Greek than she was African or Oriental. She lived, too, in a
+great age, when Rome had nearly conquered the world; when Roman senators
+and generals had more power than kings; when Grecian arts and literature
+were copied by the imperial Romans; when the rich and fortunate were
+luxurious and ostentatious beyond all precedent; when life had reached
+the highest point of material splendor, and yet when luxury had not
+destroyed military virtues or undermined the strength of the empire. The
+&quot;eternal city&quot; then numbered millions of people, and was the grandest
+capital ever seen on this earth, since everything was there
+concentrated,--the spoils of the world, riches immeasurable, literature
+and art, palaces and temples, power unlimited,--the proudest centre of
+civilization which then existed, and a civilization which in its
+material aspects has not since been surpassed. The civilized world was
+then most emphatically Pagan, in both spirit and forms. Religion as a
+controlling influence was dead. Only a very few among speculative
+philosophers believed in any god, except in a degrading sense,--as a
+blind inexorable fate, or an impersonation of the powers of Nature. The
+future state was a most perplexing uncertainty. Epicurean
+self-indulgence and material prosperity were regarded as the greatest
+good; and as doubt of the darkest kind hung over the future, the body
+was necessarily regarded as of more value than the soul. In fact, it was
+only the body which Paganism recognized as a reality; the soul, God, and
+immortality were virtually everywhere ignored.</p>
+
+<p>It was in this godless, yet brilliant, age that Cleopatra appears upon
+the stage, having been born sixty-nine years before Christ,--about a
+century before the new revolutionary religion was proclaimed in Judea.
+Her father was a Ptolemy, and she succeeded him on the throne of Egypt
+when quite young,--the last of a famous dynasty that had reigned nearly
+three hundred years. The Ptolemies, descended from one of Alexander's
+generals, reigned in great magnificence at Alexandria, which was the
+commercial centre of the world, whose ships whitened the
+Mediterranean,--that great inland lake, as it were, in the centre of the
+Roman Empire, around whose shores were countless cities and villas and
+works of art. Alexandria was a city of schools, of libraries and
+museums, of temples and of palaces, as well as a mart of commerce. Its
+famous library was the largest in the world, and was the pride of the
+age and of the empire. Learned men from all countries came to this
+capital to study science, philosophy, and art. It was virtually a
+Grecian city, and the language of the leading people was Greek. It was
+rivalled in provincial magnificence only by Antioch, the seat of the old
+Syrian civilization, also a Greek capital, so far as the governing
+classes could make it one. Greece, politically ruined, still sent forth
+those influences which made her civilization potent in every land.</p>
+
+<p>Cleopatra, the last of the line of Grecian sovereigns in Egypt, was
+essentially Greek in her features, her language, and her manners. There
+was nothing African about her, as we understand the term African, except
+that her complexion may have been darkened by the intermarriage of the
+Ptolemies; and I have often wondered why so learned and classical a man
+as Story should have given to this queen, in his famous statue, such
+thick lips and African features, which no more marked her than Indian
+features mark the family of the Braganzas on the throne of Brazil. She
+was not even Coptic, like Athanasius and Saint Augustine. On the ancient
+coins and medals her features are severely classical.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it probable that any of the peculiarities of the ancient Egyptian
+kings marked the dynasty of the Ptolemies. No purely Egyptian customs
+lingered in the palaces of Alexandria. The old deities of Isis and
+Osiris gave place to the worship of Jupiter, Minerva, and Venus. The
+wonders of pristine Egypt were confined to Memphis and Thebes and the
+dilapidated cities of the Nile. The mysteries of the antique Egyptian
+temples were no more known to the learned and mercantile citizen of
+Alexandria than they are to us. The pyramids were as much a wonder then
+as now. The priests and jugglers alike mingled in the crowd of Jews,
+Syrians, Romans, Greeks, Parthians, Arabs, who congregated in this
+learned and mercantile city.</p>
+
+<p>So we have a right to presume that Cleopatra, when she first appeared
+upon the stage of history as a girl of fourteen, was simply a very
+beautiful and accomplished Greek princess, who could speak several
+languages with fluency, as precocious as Elizabeth of England, skilled
+in music, conversant with history, and surrounded with eminent masters.
+She was only twenty-one when she was an object of attraction to Caesar,
+then in the midst of his triumphs. How remarkable must have been her
+fascinations if at that age she could have diverted, even for a time,
+the great captain from his conquests, and chained him to her side! That
+refined, intellectual old veteran of fifty, with the whole world at his
+feet, loaded down with the cares of government, as temperate as he was
+ambitious, and bent on new conquests, would not have been chained and
+enthralled by a girl of twenty-one, however beautiful, had she not been
+as remarkable for intellect and culture as she was for beauty. Nor is it
+likely that Cleopatra would have devoted herself to this weather-beaten
+old general, had she not hoped to gain something from him besides
+caresses,--namely, the confirmation of her authority as queen. She also
+may have had some patriotic motives touching the political independence
+of her country. Left by her father's will at the age of eighteen joint
+heir of the Egyptian throne with her brother Ptolemy, she soon found
+herself expelled from the capital by him and the leading generals of the
+army, because they did not relish her precocious activity in
+government. Her gathered adherents had made but little advance towards
+regaining her rights when, in August, 48, Caesar landed in pursuit of
+Pompey, whom he had defeated at Pharsalia. Pompey's assassination left
+Caesar free, and he proceeded to Alexandria to establish himself for the
+winter. Here the wily and beautiful young exile sought him, and won his
+interest and his affection. After some months of revelry and luxury,
+Caesar left Egypt in 47 to chastise an Eastern rebel, and was in 46
+followed to Rome by Cleopatra, who remained there in splendid state
+until the assassination of Caesar drove her back to Egypt. Her whole
+subsequent life showed her to be as cunning and politic as she was
+luxurious and pleasure-seeking. Possibly she may have loved so
+interesting and brilliant a man as the great Caesar, aside from the
+admiration of his position; but he never became her slave, although it
+was believed, a hundred years after his death, that she was actually
+living in his house when he was assassinated, and was the mother of his
+son Caesarion. But Froude doubts this; and the probabilities are that he
+is correct, for, like Macaulay, he is not apt to be wrong in facts, but
+only in the way he puts them.</p>
+
+<p>Cleopatra was twenty-eight years of age when she first met Antony,--&quot;a
+period of life,&quot; says Plutarch, &quot;when woman's beauty is most splendid,
+and her intellect is in full maturity.&quot; We have no account of the style
+of her beauty, except that it was transcendent,--absolutely
+irresistible, with such a variety of expression as to be called
+infinite. As already remarked, from the long residence of her family in
+Egypt and intermarriages with foreigners, her complexion may have been
+darker than that of either Persians or Greeks. It probably resembled
+that of Queen Esther more than that of Aspasia, in that dark richness
+and voluptuousness which to some have such attractions; but in grace and
+vivacity she was purely Grecian,--not like a &quot;blooming Eastern bride,&quot;
+languid and passive and effeminate, but bright, witty, and intellectual.
+Shakspeare paints her as full of lively sallies, with the power of
+adapting herself to circumstances with tact and good nature, like a
+Madame R&eacute;camier or a Maintenon, rather than like a Montespan or a
+Pompadour, although her nature was passionate, her manner enticing, and
+her habits luxurious. She did not weary or satiate, like a mere
+sensual beauty.</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Her infinite variety.&quot;<br>
+
+<p>She certainly had the power of retaining the conquests she had
+won,--which rarely happens except with those who are gifted with
+intellectual radiance and freshness. She held her hold on Antony for
+eleven years, when he was burdened with great public cares and duties,
+and when he was forty-two years of age. Such a superior man as he was
+intellectually, and, after Caesar, the leading man of the empire,--a
+statesman as well as soldier,--would not have been enslaved so long by
+Cleopatra had she not possessed remarkable gifts and attainments, like
+those famous women who reigned in the courts of the Bourbons in the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and who, by their wit and social
+fascinations, gathered around their thrones the most distinguished men
+of France, and made them friends as well as admirers. The Pompadours of
+the world have only a brief reign, and at last become repulsive. But
+Cleopatra, like Maintenon, was always attractive, although she, could
+not lay claim to the virtues of the latter. She was as politic as the
+French beauty, and as full of expedients to please her lord. She may
+have revelled in the banquets she prepared for Antony, as Esther did in
+those she prepared for Xerxes; but with the same intent, to please him
+rather than herself, and win, from his weakness, those political favors
+which in his calmer hours he might have shrunk from granting. Cleopatra
+was a politician as well as a luxurious beauty, and it may have been her
+supreme aim to secure the independence of Egypt. She wished to beguile
+Antony as she had sought to beguile Caesar, since they were the masters
+of the world, and had it in their power to crush her sovereignty and
+reduce her realm to a mere province of the empire. Nor is there
+evidence that in the magnificent banquets she gave to the Roman general
+she ever lost her self-control. She drank, and made him drink, but
+retained her wits, &quot;laughing him out of patience and laughing him into
+patience,&quot; ascendant over him by raillery, irony, and wit.</p>
+
+<p>And Antony, again, although fond of banquets and ostentation, like other
+Roman nobles, and utterly unscrupulous and unprincipled, as Roman
+libertines were, was also general, statesman, and orator. He grew up
+amid the dangers and toils and privations of Caesar's camp. He was as
+greedy of honors as was his imperial master. He was a sunburnt and
+experienced commander, obliged to be on his guard, and ready for
+emergencies. No such man feels that he can afford to indulge his
+appetites, except on rare occasions. One of the leading peculiarities of
+all great generals has been their temperance. It marked Caesar,
+Charlemagne, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederic the Great, Cromwell, and
+Napoleon. When Alexander gave himself up to banquets, his conquests
+ended. Even such a self-indulgent, pleasure-seeking man as Louis XIV.
+always maintained the decencies of society amid his dissipated
+courtiers. We feel that a man who could discourse so eloquently as
+Antony did over the dead body of Caesar was something more than a
+sensualist or a demagogue. He was also the finest-looking man in Rome,
+reminding the people, it is said, of the busts of Hercules. He was
+lavish, like Caesar, but, like him, sought popularity, and cared but
+little what it cost. It is probable that Cicero painted him, in his
+famous philippics, in darker colors than he deserved, because he aimed
+to be Caesar's successor, as he probably would have been but for his
+infatuation for Cleopatra. Caesar sent him to Rome as master of the
+horse,--a position next in power to that of dictator. When Caesar was
+assassinated, Antony was the most powerful man of the empire. He was
+greater than any existing king; he was almost supreme. And after
+Caesar's death, when he divided his sovereignty of the world with
+Octavius and Lepidus, he had the fairest chance of becoming imperator.
+He had great military experience, the broad Orient as his domain, and
+half the legions of Rome under his control.</p>
+
+<p>It was when this great man was Triumvir, sharing with only two others
+the empire of the world, and likely to overpower them, when he was in
+Asia consolidating and arranging the affairs of his vast department,
+that he met the woman who was the cause of all his calamities. He was
+then in Cilicia, and, with all the arrogance of a Roman general, had
+sent for the Queen of Egypt to appear before him and answer to an
+accusation of having rendered assistance to Cassius before the fatal
+battle of Philippi. He had already known and admired Cleopatra in Rome,
+and it is not improbable that she divined the secret of his judicial
+summons. His envoy, struck with her beauty and intelligence, advised her
+to appear in her best attire. Such a woman scarcely needed such a hint.
+So, making every preparation for her journey,--money, ornaments,
+gifts,--a kind of Queen of Sheba, a Zenobia in her pride and glory, a
+Queen Esther when she had invited the king and his minister to a
+banquet,--she came to the Cydnus, and ascended the river in a
+magnificent barge, such as had never been seen before, and prepared to
+meet her judge, not as a criminal, but as a conqueror, armed with those
+weapons that few mortals can resist.</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Burn'd on the water; the poop was beaten gold;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Purple the sails, and so perfumed that<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The water, which they beat, to follow faster,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;It beggar'd all description: she did lie<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In her pavilion (cloth-of-gold of tissue)<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The fancy outwork nature: on each side her<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;With diverse-color'd fans....<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;... At the helm<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A seeming mermaid steers....<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;... From the barge<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A strange invisible perfume hits the sense<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Of the adjacent wharves. The city cast<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Her people out upon her; and Antony,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Enthroned i' the market-place, did sit alone,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Whistling to th' air; which, but for vacancy,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And made a gap in nature.&quot;<br>
+
+<p>On the arrival of this siren queen, Antony had invited her to
+supper,--the dinner of the Romans,--but she, with woman's instinct, had
+declined, till he should come to her; and he, with the urbanity of a
+polished noble,--for such he probably was,--complied, and found a
+banquet which astonished even him, accustomed as he was to senatorial
+magnificence, and which, with all the treasures of the East, he could
+not rival. From that fatal hour he was enslaved. She conquered him, not
+merely by her display and her dazzling beauty, but by her wit. Her very
+tones were music. So accomplished was she in languages, that without
+interpreters she conversed not only with Greeks and Latins, but with
+Ethiopians, Jews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes, and Parthians. So dazzled
+and bewitched was Antony, that, instead of continuing the duties of his
+great position, he returned with Cleopatra to Alexandria, there to keep
+holiday and squander riches, and, still worse, his precious time, to the
+shame and scandal of Rome, inglorious and without excuse,--a Samson at
+the feet of Delilah, or a Hercules throwing away his club to seize the
+distaff of Omphale, confessing to the potency of that mysterious charm
+which the sage at the court of an Eastern prince pronounced the
+strongest power on earth. Never was a strong man more enthralled than
+was Antony by this bewitching woman, who exhausted every art to please
+him. She played at dice with him, drank with him, hunted with him,
+rambled with him, jested with him, angled with him, flattering and
+reproving him by turn, always having some new device of pleasure to
+gratify his senses or stimulate his curiosity. Thus passed the winter of
+41-40, and in the spring he was recalled to Borne by political
+dissensions there.</p>
+
+<p>At this stage, however, it would seem that ambition was paramount with
+him, not love; for his wife Fulvia having died, he did not marry
+Cleopatra, but Octavia, sister of Octavius, his fellow-triumvir and
+general rival. It was evidently from political considerations that he
+married Octavia, who was a stately and noble woman, but tedious in her
+dignity, and unattractive in her person. And what a commentary on Roman
+rank! The sister of a Roman grandee seemed to the ambitious general a
+greater match than the Queen of Egypt. How this must have piqued the
+proud daughter of the Ptolemies,--that she, a queen, with all her
+charms, was not the equal in the eyes of Antony to the sister of
+Caesar's heir! But she knew her power, and stifled her resentment, and
+waited for her time. She, too, had a political end to gain, and was too
+politic to give way to anger and reproaches. She was anything but the
+impulsive woman that some suppose,--but a great actress and artist, as
+some women are when they would conquer, even in their loves, which, if
+they do not feign, at least they know how to make appear greater than
+they are. For about three years Antony cut loose from Cleopatra, and
+pursued his military career in the East, as the rival of Octavius might,
+having in view the sovereignty that Caesar had bequeathed to the
+strongest man.</p>
+
+<p>But his passion for Cleopatra could not long be suppressed, neither from
+reasons of state nor from the respect he must have felt for the
+admirable conduct of Octavia, who was devoted to him, and who was one of
+the most magnanimous and reproachless women of antiquity. And surely he
+must have had some great qualities to call out the love of the noblest
+and proudest woman of the age, in spite of his many vices and his
+abandonment to a mad passion, forgetful alike both of fame and duty. He
+had not been two years in Athens, the headquarters of his Eastern
+Department, before he was called upon to chastise the Parthians, who had
+thrown off the Roman yoke and invaded other Roman provinces. But hardly
+had he left Octavia, and set foot again in Asia, before he sent for his
+Egyptian mistress, and loaded her with presents; not gold, and silver,
+and precious stones, and silks, and curious works of art merely, but
+whole provinces even,--Phoenicia, Syria, Cilicia, and a part of Judea
+and Arabia,--provinces which belonged not to him, but to the Roman
+Empire. How indignant must have been the Roman people when they heard of
+such lavish presents, and presents which he had no right to give! And
+when the artful Cleopatra feigned illness on the approach of Octavia,
+pretending to be dying of love, and wasting her body by fasting and
+weeping by turns, and perhaps tearing her hair in a seeming paroxysm of
+grief,--for an actress can do even this,--Antony was totally disarmed,
+and gave up his Parthian expedition altogether, which was treason to the
+State, and returned to Alexandria more submissive than ever. This
+abandonment of duty and official trust disgusted and incensed the
+Romans, so that his cause was weakened. Octavius became stronger every
+day, and now resolved on reigning alone. This meant another civil war.
+How strong the party of Antony must have been to keep together and
+sustain him amid such scandals, treasons, and disgrace!</p>
+
+<p>Antony, perceiving a desperate contest before him, ending in his
+supremacy or ruin, put forth all his energies, assisted by the
+contributions of Cleopatra, who furnished two hundred ships and twenty
+thousand talents,--about twenty million dollars. He had five hundred
+war-vessels, beside galleys, one hundred thousand foot and twelve
+thousand horse,--one of the largest armies that any Roman general had
+ever commanded,--and he was attended by vassal kings from the East. The
+forces of Octavius were not so large, though better disciplined; nor was
+he a match for Antony in military experience. Antony with his superior
+forces wished to fight upon the land, but against his better judgment
+was overruled by Cleopatra, who, having reinforced him with sixty
+galleys, urged him to contend upon the sea. The rivals met at Actium,
+where was fought one of the great decisive battles of the world. For a
+while the fortunes of the day were doubtful, when Cleopatra, from some
+unexplained motive, or from panic, or possibly from a calculating
+policy, was seen sailing away with her ships for Egypt. And what was
+still more extraordinary, Antony abandoned his fleet and followed her.
+Had he been defeated on the sea, he still had superior forces on the
+land, and was a match for Octavius. His infatuation ended in a weakness
+difficult to comprehend in a successful Roman general. And never was
+infatuation followed by more tragic consequences. Was this madness sent
+upon him by that awful Power who controls the fate of war and the
+destinies of nations? Who sent madness upon Nebuchadnezzar? Who blinded
+Napoleon at the very summit of his greatness? May not that memorable
+defeat have been ordered by Providence to give consolidation and peace
+and prosperity to the Roman Empire, so long groaning under the
+complicated miseries of anarchy and civil war? If an imperial government
+was necessary for the existing political and social condition of the
+Roman world,--and this is maintained by most historians,--how fortunate
+it was that the empire fell into the hands of a man whose subsequent
+policy was peace, the development of resources of nations, and a
+vigorous administration of government!</p>
+
+<p>It is generally conceded that the reign of Octavius--or, as he is more
+generally known, Augustus Caesar--was able, enlightened, and efficient.
+He laid down the policy which succeeding emperors pursued, and which
+resulted in the peace and prosperity of the Roman world until vices
+prepared the way for violence. Augustus was a great organizer, and the
+machinery of government which he and his ministers perfected kept the
+empire together until it was overrun by the New Germanic races. Had
+Antony conquered at Actium, the destinies of the empire might have been
+far different. But for two hundred years the world never saw a more
+efficient central power than that exercised by the Roman emperors or by
+their ministers. Imperialism at last proved fatal to genius and the
+higher interests of mankind; but imperialism was the creation of Julius
+Caesar, as a real or supposed necessity; it was efficiently and
+beneficently continued by his grand-nephew Augustus; and its
+consolidated strength became an established institution which the
+civilized world quietly accepted.</p>
+
+<p>The battle of Actium virtually settled the civil war and the fortunes of
+Antony, although he afterwards fought bravely and energetically; but all
+to no purpose. And then, at last, his eyes were opened, and Shakspeare
+makes him bitterly exclaim,--</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;All is lost!<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;... Betray'd I am:<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;O this false soul of Egypt!&quot;<br>
+
+<p>And with his ruin the ruin of his paramour was also settled; yet her
+resources were not utterly exhausted. She retired into a castle or
+mausoleum she had prepared for herself in case of necessity, with her
+most valuable treasures, and sent messengers to Antony, who reported to
+him that she was dead,--that she had killed herself in despair. He
+believed it all. His wrath now vanished in his grief. He could not live,
+or did not wish to live, without her; and he fell upon his own sword.
+The wound was mortal, but death did not immediately follow. He lived to
+learn that Cleopatra had again deceived him,--that she was still alive.
+Even amid the agonies of the shadow of death, and in view of this last
+fatal lie of hers, he did not upbraid her, but ordered his servants to
+bear him to her retreat. Covered with blood, the dying general was
+drawn up by ropes and through a window--the only entrance to the queen's
+retreat that was left unbarred--into her presence, and soon expired.
+Shakspeare has Antony greet Cleopatra with the words, &quot;I am dying,
+Egypt, dying!&quot; This suggestive theme has been enlarged in a modern song
+of pathetic eloquence:--</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I am dying, Egypt, dying,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And the dark Plutonian shadows<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Gather on the evening blast;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Let thine arms, O Queen, enfold me,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Listen to the great heart-secrets<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>Thou</i>, and thou <i>alone</i>, must hear.<br>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Should the base plebeian rabble<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Dare assail my name at Rome,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Where my noble spouse Octavia<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Weeps within her widow'd home,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Seek her; say the gods bear witness--<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Altars, augurs, circling wings--<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;That her blood, with mine commingled,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Yet shall mount the throne of kings.<br>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;As for thee, star-ey'd Egyptian!<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Glorious sorceress of the Nile!<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Light the path to Stygian horrors<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;With the splendors of thy smile<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I can scorn the Senate's triumphs,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Triumphing in love like thine.<br>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Ah! no more amid the battle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Shall my heart exulting swell:<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Isis and Osiris guard thee!<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Cleopatra--Rome--farewell!<br>
+
+<p>Thus perished the great Triumvir, dying like a Roman, whose blinded but
+persistent love, whatever were its elements, ever shall make his name
+memorable. All the ages will point to him as a man who gave the world
+away for the caresses of a woman, and a woman who deceived and
+ruined him.</p>
+
+<p>As for her,--this selfish, heartless sorceress, gifted and beautiful as
+she was,--what does she do when she sees her lover dead,--dying for her?
+Does she share his fate? Not she. What selfish woman ever killed
+herself for love?</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;Some natural tears she shed, but wiped them soon.&quot;<br>
+
+<p>She may have torn her clothes, and beaten her breast, and disfigured her
+face, and given vent to mourning and lamentations. But she does not seek
+death, nor surrender herself to grief, nor court despair. She renews her
+strength. She reserves her arts for another victim. She hopes to win
+Octavius as she had won Julius and Antony; for she was only thirty-nine,
+and still a queen. And for what? That she might retain her own
+sovereignty, or the independence of Egypt,--still the most fertile of
+countries, rich, splendid, and with grand traditions which went back
+thousands of years; the oldest, and once the most powerful of
+monarchies. <i>Her</i> love was ever subservient to her interests. Antony
+gave up ambition for love,--whatever that love was. It took possession
+of his whole being, not pure and tender, but powerful, strange;
+doubtless a mad infatuation, and perhaps something more, since it never
+passed away,--admiration allied with desire, the worship of dazzling
+gifts, though not of moral virtues. Would such a love have been
+permanent? Probably not, since the object of it did not shine in the
+beauty of the soul, but rather in the graces and adornments of the body,
+intensified indeed by the lustre of bewitching social qualities and the
+brightness of a cultivated intellect. It is hard to analyze a passionate
+love between highly gifted people who have an intense development of
+both the higher and the lower natures, and still more difficult when the
+idol is a Venus Polyhymnia rather than a Venus Urania. But the love of
+Antony, whether unwise, or mysterious, or unfortunate, was not feigned
+or forced: it was real, and it was irresistible; he could not help it.
+He was enslaved, bound hand and foot. His reason may have rallied to his
+support, but his will was fettered. He may have had at times dark and
+gloomy suspicions,--that he was played with, that he was cheated, that
+he would be deserted, that Cleopatra was false and treacherous. And yet
+she reigned over him; he could not live without her. She was all in all
+to him, so long as the infatuation lasted; and it had lasted fourteen
+years, with increasing force, in spite of duty and pressing labors, the
+calls of ambition and the lust of power. In this consuming and abandoned
+passion, for fourteen years,--so strange and inglorious, and for a woman
+so unworthy, even if he were no better than she,--we see one of the
+great mysteries of our complex nature, not uncommon, but insoluble.</p>
+
+<p>I have no respect for Antony, and but little admiration. I speak of such
+mad infatuation as a humiliating exhibition of human weakness. Any one
+under its fearful spell is an object of pity. But I have more sympathy
+for him than for Cleopatra, although she was doubtless a very gifted
+woman. He was her victim; she was not his. If extravagant and reckless
+and sensual, he was frank, generous, eloquent, brave, and true to her.
+She was artful, designing, and selfish, and used him for her own ends,
+although we do not know that she was perfidious and false to him. But
+for her he would have ruled the world. He showed himself capable of an
+enormous sacrifice. She made no sacrifices for him. She could even have
+transferred her affections, since she afterwards sought to play her
+blandishments upon his rival. Conceive of Antony, if you can, as loving
+any one else than her who led him on to ruin. In the very degradation
+of love we see its sacredness. In his fidelity we find some palliation.
+Nor does it seem that Octavia, the slighted wife of Antony, gave way to
+vengeance. Her sense of injury was overshadowed by her pity. This lofty
+and dignified matron even took his six surviving children, three of whom
+were Cleopatra's, and brought them up in her own house as her own. Can
+Paganism show a greater magnanimity?</p>
+
+<p>The fate of Cleopatra was tragic also. She too destroyed herself, not
+probably by the bite of asps, as is the popular opinion, but by some
+potent and subtile poison that she ever carried with her, and which had
+the effect of benumbing the body and making her insensible to pain. Yet
+she does not kill herself because she cannot survive the death of
+Antony, but because she is too proud to be carried to Rome to grace the
+triumph of the new Caesar. She will not be led a captive princess up the
+Capitoline Hill. She has an overbearing pride. &quot;Know, sir,&quot; says she to
+Proculeius, &quot;that I</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Nor once be chastis'd with the sober eye<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Of dull Octavia....<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ... Rather a ditch in Egypt<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Be gentle grave to me!&quot;<br>
+
+<p>But whether pride or whether shame was the more powerful motive in
+committing suicide, I do not read that she was a victim of remorse. She
+had no moral sense. Nor did she give way to sentimental grief on the
+death of Antony. Her grief was blended with disappointment and rage. Nor
+did she hide her head, but wore a face of brass. She used all her arts
+to win Octavius. Her resources did not fail her; but she expended them
+on one of the coldest, most politic, and most astute men that ever
+lived. And the disappointment that followed her defeat--that she could
+not enslave another conqueror--was greater than the grief for Antony.
+Nor during her whole career do we see any signs of that sorrow and
+humility which, it would seem, should mark a woman who has made so great
+and fatal a mistake,--cut off hopelessly from the respect of the world
+and the peace of her own soul. We see grief, rage, despair, in her
+miserable end, as we see pride and shamefacedness in her gilded life,
+but not remorse or shame. And when she dies by her own hand, it is not
+in madness, but to escape humiliation. Suicide was one of the worst
+features of Pagan antiquity. It was a base and cowardly reluctance to
+meet the evils of life, as much as indifference to the future and a
+blunted moral sense.</p>
+
+<p>So much for the woman herself, her selfish spirit, her vile career; but
+as Cleopatra is one of the best known and most striking examples of a
+Pagan woman, with qualities and in circumstances peculiarly
+characteristic of Paganism, I must make a few remarks on these points.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most noticeable of these is that immorality seems to have
+been no bar to social position. Some of those who were most attractive
+and sought after were notoriously immoral. Aspasia, whom Socrates and
+Pericles equally admired, and whose house was the resort of poets,
+philosophers, statesmen, and artists, and who is said to have been one
+of the most cultivated women of antiquity, bore a sullied name. Sappho,
+who was ever exalted by Grecian poets for the sweetness of her verses,
+attempted to reconcile a life of pleasure with a life of letters, and
+threw herself into the sea because of a disappointed passion. Lais, a
+professional courtesan, was the associate of kings and sages as well as
+the idol of poets and priests. Agrippina, whose very name is infamy, was
+the admiration of courtiers and statesmen. Lucilla, who armed her
+assassins against her own brother, seems to have ruled the court of
+Marcus Aurelius.</p>
+
+<p>And all these women, and more who could be mentioned, were--like
+Cleopatra--cultivated, intellectual, and brilliant. They seem to have
+reigned for their social fascinations as much as by their physical
+beauty. Hence, that class of women who with us are shunned and excluded
+from society were not only flattered and honored, but the class itself
+seems to have been recruited by those who were the most attractive for
+their intellectual gifts as well as for physical beauty. No woman, if
+bright, witty, and beautiful, was avoided because she was immoral. It
+was the immoral women who often aspired to the highest culture. They
+sought to reign by making their homes attractive to distinguished men.
+Their houses seem to have been what the <i>salons</i> of noble and
+fascinating duchesses were in France in the last two centuries. The
+homes of virtuous and domestic women were dull and wearisome. In fact,
+the modest wives and daughters of most men were confined to monotonous
+domestic duties; they were household slaves; they saw but little of what
+we now call society. I do not say that virtue was not held in honor. I
+know of no age, however corrupt, when it was not prized by husbands and
+fathers. I know of no age when virtuous women did not shine at home, and
+exert a healthful influence upon men, and secure the proud regard of
+their husbands. But these were not the women whose society was most
+sought. The drudgeries and slaveries of domestic life among the ancients
+made women unattractive to the world. The women who were most attractive
+were those who gave or attended sumptuous banquets, and indulged in
+pleasures that were demoralizing. Not domestic women, but bright women,
+carried away those prizes which turned the brain. Those who shone were
+those that attached themselves to men through their senses, and
+possibly through their intellects, and who were themselves strong in
+proportion as men were weak. For a woman to appear in public assemblies
+with braided and decorated hair and ostentatious dress, and especially
+if she displayed any gifts of eloquence or culture, was to proclaim
+herself one of the immoral, leisurely, educated, dissolute class. This
+gives point to Saint Paul's strict injunctions to the women of Corinth
+to dress soberly, to keep silence in the assemblies, etc. The modest
+woman was to &quot;be in subjection.&quot; Those Pagan converts to the &quot;New Way&quot;
+were to avoid even the appearance of evil.</p>
+
+<p>Thus under Paganism the general influence of women was to pull men down
+rather than to elevate them, especially those who were attractive in
+society. Virtuous and domestic women were not sufficiently educated to
+have much influence except in a narrow circle. Even they, in a social
+point of view, were slaves. They could be given in marriage without
+their consent; they were restricted in their intercourse with men; they
+were confined to their homes; they had but few privileges; they had no
+books; they led a life of terror from the caprices of their lords and
+masters, and hence inspired no veneration. The wives and daughters of
+the rich tyrannized over their servants, decked themselves with costly
+ornaments, and were merely gilded toys, whose society was vapid and
+uninteresting. The wives and daughters of the poor were drudges and
+menials, without attraction or influence; noisy, quarrelsome, garrulous
+women, who said the least when they talked the most.</p>
+
+<p>Hence under Paganism home had none of those attractions which, in
+Christian countries, invest it with such charms. The home of the poor
+was squalid and repulsive; the home of the rich was gaudy and tinselled
+enough, but was dull and uninspiring. What is home when women are
+ignorant, stupid, and slavish? What glitter or artistic splendor can
+make home attractive when women are mere butterflies or slaves with
+gilded fetters? Deprive women of education, and especially of that
+respect which Christian chivalry inspires, and they cannot rise to be
+the equal companions of men. They are simply their victims or their
+slaves. What is a home where women are treated as inferiors? Paganism
+never recognized their equality with men; and if they ever ruled men, it
+was by appealing to their lower qualities, or resorting to arts and
+devices which are subversive of all dignity of character. When their
+personal beauty fled, their power also departed. A faded or homely
+woman, without intelligence or wit, was a forlorn object in a Pagan
+home,--to be avoided, derided, despised,--a melancholy object of pity or
+neglect, so far as companionship goes. She may have been valued as a
+cook or drudge, but she was only a menial. Of all those sins of omission
+of which Paganism is accused, the worst was that it gave to women no
+mental resources to assist them in poverty, or neglect, or isolation,
+when beauty or fortune deserted them. No home can be attractive where
+women have no resources; and women can have no resources outside of
+domestic duties, unless educated to some art or something calculated to
+draw out their energies and higher faculties by which they win the
+respect and admiration, not of men only, but of their own sex.</p>
+
+<p>It was this lack of education which Paganism withheld from women which
+not only destroyed the radiance of home, but which really made women
+inferior to men. All writers, poets, and satirists alike speak of the
+inferiority of women to men,--not physically only, but even
+intellectually; and some authors made them more vicious than men in
+natural inclination. And when the mind was both neglected and
+undervalued, how could respect and admiration be kindled, or continue
+after sensual charms had passed away? Paganism taught the inequality of
+the sexes, and produced it; and when this inequality is taught, or
+believed in, or insisted upon, then farewell to the glory of homes, to
+all unbought charms, to the graces of domestic life, to everything that
+gilds our brief existence with the radiance of imperishable joy.</p>
+
+<p>Nor did Paganism offer any consolations to the down-trodden, injured,
+neglected, uninteresting woman of antiquity. She could not rise above
+the condition in which she was born. No sympathetic priest directed her
+thoughts to another and higher and endless life. Nobody wiped away her
+tears; nobody gave encouragement to those visions of beauty and serenity
+for which the burdened spirit will, under any oppressions, sometimes
+aspire to enjoy. No one told her of immortality and a God of
+forgiveness, who binds up the bleeding heart and promises a future peace
+and bliss. Paganism was merciful only in this,--that it did not open
+wounds it could not heal; that it did not hold out hopes and promises it
+could not fulfil; that it did not remind the afflicted of miseries from
+which they could not rise; that it did not let in a vision of glories
+which could never be enjoyed; that it did not provoke the soul to
+indulge in a bitterness in view of evils for which there was no remedy;
+that it did not educate the mind for enjoyments which could never be
+reached; that it did not kindle a discontent with a condition from which
+there is no escape. If one cannot rise above debasement or misery, there
+is no use in pointing it out. If the Pagan woman was not seemingly aware
+of the degradation which kept her down, and from which it was impossible
+to rise, Paganism did not add stings to her misery by presenting it as
+an accident which it was easy to surmount. There would be no
+contentment or submission among animals if they were endowed with the
+reason of men. Give to a healthy, but ignorant, coarse, uncultivated
+country girl, surrounded only with pigs and chickens, almost without
+neighbors, a glimpse of the glories of cities, the wonders of art, the
+charms of social life, the triumphs of mind, the capacities of the soul,
+and would she be any happier, if obliged to remain for life in her
+rustic obscurity and labor, and with no possible chance of improving her
+condition? Such was woman under Paganism. She could rise only so far as
+men lifted her up; and they lifted her up only further to consummate her
+degradation.</p>
+
+<p>But there was another thing which kept women in degradation. Paganism
+did not recognize the immaterial and immortal soul: it only had regard
+to the wants of the body. Of course there were exceptions. There were
+sages and philosophers among the men who speculated on the grandest
+subjects which can elevate the mind to the regions of immortal
+truth,--like Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius,--even as there
+were women who rose above all the vile temptations which surrounded
+them, and were poets, heroines, and benefactors,--like Telessa, who
+saved Argos by her courage; and Volumnia, who screened Rome from the
+vengeance of her angry son; and Lucretia, who destroyed herself rather
+than survive the dishonor of her house. There are some people who rise
+and triumph over every kind of oppression and injury. Under Paganism
+there was the possibility of the emancipation of the soul, but not the
+probability. Its genius was directed to the welfare of the body,--to
+utilitarian ends of life, to ornaments and riches, to luxury and
+voluptuousness, to the pleasures which are brief, to the charms of
+physical beauty and grace. It could stimulate ambition and inculcate
+patriotism and sing of love, if it coupled the praises of Venus with the
+praises of wine. But everything it praised or honored had reference to
+this life and to the mortal body. It may have recognized the mind, but
+not the soul, which is greater than the mind. It had no aspirations for
+future happiness; it had no fears of future misery. Hence the frequency
+of suicide under disappointment, or ennui, or satiated desire, or fear
+of poverty, or disgrace, or pain.</p>
+
+<p>And thus, as Paganism did not take cognizance of the soul in its future
+existence, it disregarded man's highest aspirations. It did not
+cultivate his graces; it set but a slight value on moral beauty; it
+thought little of affections; it spurned gentleness and passive virtues;
+it saw no lustre in the tender eye; it heard no music in the tones of
+sympathy; it was hard and cold. That which constitutes the richest
+beatitudes of love it could not see, and did not care for. Ethereal
+blessedness it despised. That which raises woman highest, it was
+indifferent to. The cold atmosphere of Paganism froze her soul, and made
+her callous to wrongs and sufferings. It destroyed enthusiasm and poetic
+ardor and the graces which shine in misfortune. Woman was not kindled by
+lofty sentiments, since no one believed in them. The harmonies of home
+had no poetry and no inspiration, and they disappeared. The face of
+woman was not lighted by supernatural smiles. Her caresses had no
+spiritual fervor, and her benedictions were unmeaning platitudes. Take
+away the soul of woman, and what is she? Rob her of her divine
+enthusiasm, and how vapid and commonplace she becomes! Destroy her
+yearnings to be a spiritual solace, and how limited is her sphere! Take
+away the holy dignity of the soul, and how impossible is a lofty
+friendship! Without the amenities of the soul there can be no real
+society. Crush the soul of a woman, and you extinguish her life, and
+shed darkness on all who surround her. She cannot rally from pain, or
+labor, or misfortune, if her higher nature is ignored. Paganism ignored
+what is grandest and truest in a woman, and she withered like a stricken
+tree. She succumbed before the cold blasts that froze her noblest
+impulses, and sunk sullenly into obscurity. Oh, what a fool a man is to
+make woman a slave! He forgets that though he may succeed in keeping her
+down, chained and fettered by drudgeries, she will be revenged; that
+though powerless, she will instinctively learn to hate him; and if she
+cannot defy him she will scorn him,--for not even a brute animal will
+patiently submit to cruelty, still less a human soul become reconciled
+to injustice. And what is the possession of a human body without the
+sympathy of a living soul?</p>
+
+<p>And hence women, under Paganism,--having no hopes of future joy, no
+recognition of their diviner attributes, no true scope for energies, no
+field of usefulness but in a dreary home, no ennobling friendships, no
+high encouragements, no education, no lofty companionship; utterly
+unappreciated in what most distinguishes them, and valued only as
+household slaves or victims of guilty pleasure; adorned and bedecked
+with trinkets, all to show off the graces of the body alone, and with
+nothing to show their proud equality with men in influence, if not in
+power, in mind as well as heart,--took no interest in what truly
+elevates society. What schools did they teach or even visit? What
+hospitals did they enrich? What miseries did they relieve? What
+charities did they contribute to? What churches did they attend? What
+social gatherings did they enliven? What missions of benevolence did
+they embark in? What were these to women who did not know what was the
+most precious thing they had, or when this precious thing was allowed to
+run to waste? What was there for a woman to do with an unrecognized
+soul but gird herself with ornaments, and curiously braid her hair, and
+ransack shops for new cosmetics, and hunt for new perfumes, and recline
+on luxurious couches, and issue orders to attendant slaves, and join in
+seductive dances, and indulge in frivolous gossip, and entice by the
+display of sensual charms? Her highest aspiration was to adorn a
+perishable body, and vanity became the spring of life.</p>
+
+<p>And the men,--without the true sanctities and beatitudes of married
+life, without the tender companionship which cultivated women give,
+without the hallowed friendships which the soul alone can keep alive,
+despising women who were either toys or slaves,--fled from their dull,
+monotonous, and dreary homes to the circus and the theatre and the
+banqueting hall for excitement or self-forgetfulness. They did not seek
+society, for there can be no high society where women do not preside and
+inspire and guide. Society is a Christian institution. It was born among
+our German ancestors, amid the inspiring glories of chivalry. It was
+made for women as well as men of social cravings and aspirations, which
+have their seat in what Paganism ignored. Society, under Paganism, was
+confined to men, at banquets or symposia, where women seldom entered,
+unless for the amusement of men,--never for their improvement, and still
+less for their restraint.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until Christianity permeated the old Pagan civilization and
+destroyed its idols, that the noble Paulas and Marcellas and Fabiolas
+arose to dignify human friendships, and give fascination to reunions of
+cultivated women and gifted men; that the seeds of society were sown. It
+was not until the natural veneration which the Gothic nations seem to
+have had for women, even in their native forests, had ripened into
+devotion and gallantry under the teachings of Christian priests, that
+the true position of women was understood. And after their equality was
+recognized in the feudal castles of the Middle Ages, the <i>salons</i> of the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries established their claims as the
+inspiring geniuses of what we call society. Then, and not till then, did
+physical beauty pale before the brilliancy of the mind and the radiance
+of the soul,--at last recognized as the highest charm of woman. The
+leaders of society became, not the ornamented and painted <i>heterae</i>
+which had attracted Grecian generals and statesmen and men of letters,
+but the witty and the genial and the dignified matrons who were capable
+of instructing and inspiring men superior to themselves, with eyes
+beaming with intellectual radiance, and features changing with perpetual
+variety. Modern society, created by Christianity,--since only
+Christianity recognizes what is most truly attractive and ennobling
+among women--is a great advance over the banquets of imperial Romans
+and the symposia of gifted Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>But even this does not satisfy woman in her loftiest aspirations. The
+soul which animates and inspires her is boundless. Its wants cannot be
+fully met even in an assemblage of wits and beauties. The soul of Madame
+de Sta&euml;l pined amid all her social triumphs. The soul craves
+friendships, intellectual banquetings, and religious aspirations. And
+unless the emancipated soul of woman can have these wants gratified, she
+droops even amid the glories of society. She is killed, not as a hero
+perishes on a battle-field; but she dies, as Madame de Maintenon said
+that she died, amid the imposing splendors of Versailles. It is only the
+teachings and influences of that divine religion which made Bethany the
+centre of true social banquetings to the wandering and isolated Man of
+Sorrows, which can keep the soul alive amid the cares, the burdens, and
+the duties which bend down every son and daughter of Adam, however
+gilded may be the outward life. How grateful, then, should women be to
+that influence which has snatched them from the pollutions and heartless
+slaveries of Paganism, and given dignity to their higher nature! It is
+to them that it has brought the greatest boon, and made them triumphant
+over the evils of life. And how thoughtless, how misguided, how
+ungrateful is that woman who would exchange the priceless blessings
+which Christianity has brought to her for those ornaments, those
+excitements, and those pleasures which ancient Paganism gave as the only
+solace fox the loss and degradation of her immortal soul!</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>AUTHORITIES.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>Plutarch's Lives; Froude's Caesar; Shakspeare's Antony and Cleopatra;
+Plato's Dialogues; Horace, Martial, and Juvenal, especially among the
+poets; Lord's Old Roman World; Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars; Dion
+Cassius; Rollin's Ancient History; Merivale's History of the Romans;
+Biographic Universelle; Rees's Encyclopedia has a good article.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="PAGAN_SOCIETY."></a>PAGAN SOCIETY.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>GLORY AND SHAME.</p>
+
+<p>50 B.C.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>We have now surveyed what was most glorious in the States of antiquity.
+We have seen a civilization which in many respects rivals all that
+modern nations have to show. In art, in literature, in philosophy, in
+laws, in the mechanism of government, in the cultivated face of Nature,
+in military strength, in aesthetic culture, the Greeks and Romans were
+our equals. And this high civilization was reached by the native and
+unaided strength of man; by the power of will, by courage, by
+perseverance, by genius, by fortunate circumstances. We are filled with
+admiration by all these trophies of genius, and cannot but feel that
+only superior races could have accomplished such mighty triumphs.</p>
+
+<p>Yet all this splendid exterior was deceptive; for the deeper we
+penetrate the social condition of the people, the more we feel disgust
+and pity supplanting all feelings of admiration and wonder. The Roman
+empire especially, which had gathered into its strong embrace the whole
+world, and was the natural inheritor of all the achievements of all the
+nations, in its shame and degradation suggests melancholy feelings in
+reference to the destiny of man, so far as his happiness and welfare
+depend upon his own unaided efforts.</p>
+
+<p>It is a sad picture of oppression, injustice, crime, and wretchedness
+which I have now to present. Glory is succeeded by shame, strength by
+weakness, and virtue by vice. The condition of the mass is deplorable,
+and even the great and fortunate shine in a false and fictitious light.
+We see laws, theoretically good, practically perverted, and selfishness
+and egotism the mainsprings of life; we see energies misdirected, and
+art corrupted. All noble aspirations have fled, and the good and the
+wise retire from active life in despair and misanthropy. Poets flatter
+the tyrants who trample on human rights, while sensuality and luxurious
+pleasure absorb the depraved thoughts of a perverse generation.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing which arrests our attention as we survey the civilized
+countries of the old world, is the imperial despotism of Rome. The
+empire indeed enjoyed quietude, and society was no longer rent by
+factions and parties. Demagogues no longer disturbed the public peace,
+nor were the provinces ransacked and devastated to provide for the
+means of carrying on war. So long as men did not oppose the government
+they were safe from molestation, and were left to pursue their business
+and pleasure in their own way. Imperial cruelty was not often visited on
+the humble classes. It was the policy of the emperors to amuse and
+flatter the people, while depriving them of political rights. Hence
+social life was free. All were at liberty to seek their pleasures and
+gains; all were proud of their metropolis, with its gilded glories and
+its fascinating pleasures. Outrages, extortions, and disturbances were
+punished. Order reigned, and all classes felt secure; they could sleep
+without fear of robbery or assassination. In short, all the arguments
+which can be adduced in favor of despotism in contrast with civil war
+and violence, show that it was beneficial in its immediate effects.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, it was a most lamentable change from that condition of
+things which existed before the civil wars. Roman liberties were
+prostrated forever; noble sentiments and aspirations were rebuked. Under
+the Emperors we read of no more great orators like Cicero, battling for
+human rights and defending the public weal. Eloquence was suppressed.
+Nor was there liberty of speech even in the Senate. It was treason to
+find fault with any public acts. From the Pillars of Hercules to the
+Caspian Sea one stern will ruled all classes and orders. No one could
+fly from the agents and ministers of the Emperor; he controlled the
+army, the Senate, the judiciary, the internal administration of the
+empire, and the religious worship of the people; all offices, honors,
+and emoluments emanated from him. All influences conspired to elevate
+the man whom no one could hope successfully to rival. Revolt was
+madness, and treason absurdity. Nor did the Emperors attempt to check
+the gigantic social evils of the empire. They did not seek to prevent
+irreligion, luxury, slavery, and usury, the encroachments of the rich
+upon the poor, the tyranny of foolish fashions, demoralizing sports and
+pleasures, money-making, and all the follies which lax principles of
+morality allowed; they fed the rabble with corn, oil, and wine, and thus
+encouraged idleness and dissipation. The world never saw a more rapid
+retrogression in human rights, or a greater prostration of liberties.
+Taxes were imposed according to the pleasure or necessities of the
+government. Provincial governors became still more rapacious and cruel;
+judges hesitated to decide against the government. Patriotism, in its
+most enlarged sense, became an impossibility; all lofty spirits were
+crushed. Corruption in all forms of administration fearfully increased,
+for there was no safeguard against it.</p>
+
+<p>Theoretically, absolutism may be the best government, if rulers are
+wise and just; but practically, as men are, despotisms are generally
+cruel and revengeful. Despotism implies slavery, and slavery is the
+worst condition of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>It cannot be questioned that many virtuous princes reigned at Rome, who
+would have ornamented any age or country. Titus, Hadrian, Marcus
+Aurelius, Antoninus Pius, Alexander Severus, Tacitus, Probus, Carus,
+Constantine, Theodosius, were all men of remarkable virtues as well as
+talents. They did what they could to promote public prosperity. Marcus
+Aurelius was one of the purest and noblest characters of antiquity.
+Theodosius for genius and virtue ranks with the most illustrious
+sovereigns that ever wore a crown,--with Charlemagne, with Alfred, with
+William III., with Gustavus Adolphus.</p>
+
+<p>But it matters not whether the Emperors were good or bad, if the r&eacute;gime
+to which they consecrated their energies was exerted to crush the
+liberties of mankind. The imperial despotism, whether brilliant or
+disgraceful, was a mournful retrograde step in civilization; it implied
+the extinction of patriotism and the general degradation of the people,
+and would have been impossible in the days of Cato, Scipio, or Metellus.</p>
+
+<p>If we turn from the Emperors to the class which before the dictatorship
+of Julius Caesar had the ascendency in the State, and for several
+centuries the supreme power, we shall find but little that is
+flattering to a nation or to humanity. Under the Emperors the
+aristocracy had degenerated in morals as well as influence. They still
+retained their enormous fortunes, originally acquired as governors of
+provinces, and continually increased by fortunate marriages and
+speculations. Indeed, nothing was more marked and melancholy at Rome
+than the vast disproportion in fortunes. In the better days of the
+republic, property was more equally divided; the citizens were not
+ambitious for more land than they could conveniently cultivate. But the
+lands, obtained by conquest, gradually fell into the possession of
+powerful families. The classes of society widened as great fortunes were
+accumulated; pride of wealth kept pace with pride of ancestry; and when
+plebeian families had obtained great estates, they were amalgamated with
+the old aristocracy. The equestrian order, founded substantially on
+wealth, grew daily in importance. Knights ultimately rivalled senatorial
+families. Even freedmen in an age of commercial speculation became
+powerful for their riches. The pursuit of money became a passion, and
+the rich assumed all the importance and consideration which had once
+been bestowed upon those who had rendered great public services.</p>
+
+<p>As the wealth of the world flowed naturally to the capital, Rome became
+a city of princes, whose fortunes were almost incredible. It took
+eighty thousand dollars a year to support the ordinary senatorial
+dignity. Some senators owned whole provinces. Trimalchio, a rich
+freedman whom Petronius ridiculed, could afford to lose thirty millions
+of sesterces in a single voyage without sensibly diminishing his
+fortune. Pallas, a freedman of the Emperor Claudius, possessed a fortune
+of three hundred millions of sesterces. Seneca, the philosopher, amassed
+an enormous fortune.</p>
+
+<p>As the Romans were a sensual, ostentatious, and luxurious people, they
+accordingly wasted their fortunes by an extravagance in their living
+which has had no parallel. The pleasures of the table and the cares of
+the kitchen were the most serious avocation of the aristocracy in the
+days of the greatest corruption. They had around them regular courts of
+parasites and flatterers, and they employed even persons of high rank as
+their chamberlains and stewards. Carving was taught in celebrated
+schools, and the masters of this sublime art were held in higher
+estimation than philosophers or poets. Says Juvenal,--</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;To such perfection now is carving brought,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; That different gestures by our curious men<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Are used for different dishes, hare or hen.&quot;<br>
+
+<p>Their entertainments were accompanied with everything which could
+flatter vanity or excite the passions; musicians, male and female
+dancers, players of farce and pantomime, jesters, buffoons, and
+gladiators exhibited, while the guests reclined at table after the
+fashion of the Orientals. The tables were made of Thuja-root, with claws
+of ivory or Delian bronze. Even Cicero, in an economical age, paid six
+hundred and fifty pounds for his banqueting-table. Gluttony was carried
+to such a point that the sea and earth scarcely sufficed to set off
+their tables; they ate as delicacies water-rats and white worms. Fish
+were the chief object of the Roman epicures, of which the <i>mullus</i>, the
+<i>rhombus</i>, and the <i>asellus</i> were the most valued; it is recorded that a
+mullus (sea barbel), weighing but eight pounds, sold for eight thousand
+sesterces. Oysters from the Lucrine Lake were in great demand; snails
+were fattened in ponds for cooking, while the villas of the rich had
+their piscinae filled with fresh or salt-water fish. Peacocks and
+pheasants were the most highly esteemed among poultry, although the
+absurdity prevailed of eating singing-birds. Of quadrupeds, the greatest
+favorite was the wild boar,--the chief dish of a grand <i>coena</i>,--coming
+whole upon the table; and the practised gourmand pretended to
+distinguish by the taste from what part of Italy it came. Dishes, the
+very names of which excite disgust, were used at fashionable banquets,
+and held in high esteem. Martial devotes two entire books of his
+&quot;Epigrams&quot; to the various dishes and ornaments of a Roman banquet.</p>
+
+<p>The extravagance of that period almost surpasses belief. Cicero and
+Pompey one day surprised Lucullus at one of his ordinary banquets, when
+he expected no guests, and even that cost fifty thousand
+drachmas,--about four thousand dollars; his table-couches were of
+purple, and his vessels glittered with jewels. The halls of Heliogabalus
+were hung with cloth of gold, enriched with jewels; his table and plate
+were of pure gold; his couches were of massive silver, and his
+mattresses, covered with carpets of cloth of gold, were stuffed with
+down found only under the wings of partridges. His suppers never cost
+less than one hundred thousand sesterces. Crassus paid one hundred
+thousand sesterces for a golden cup. Banqueting-rooms were strewed with
+lilies and roses. Apicius, in the time of Trajan, spent one hundred
+millions of sesterces in debauchery and gluttony; having only ten
+millions left, he ended his life with poison, thinking he might die of
+hunger. Things were valued for their cost and rarity rather than their
+real value. Enormous prices were paid for carp, the favorite dish of the
+Romans as of the Chinese. Drusillus, a freedman of Claudius, caused a
+dish to be made of five hundred pounds weight of silver. Vitellius had
+one made of such prodigious size that he was obliged to build a furnace
+on purpose for it; and at a feast which he gave in honor of this dish,
+it was filled with the livers of the scarrus (fish), the brains of
+peacocks, the tongues of parrots, and the roes of lampreys caught in the
+Carpathian Sea.</p>
+
+<p>The nobles squandered money equally on their banquets, their stables,
+and their dress; and it was to their crimes, says Juvenal, that they
+were indebted for their gardens, their palaces, their tables, and their
+fine old plate.</p>
+
+<p>Unbounded pride, insolence, inhumanity, selfishness, and scorn marked
+this noble class. Of course there were exceptions, but the historians
+and satirists give the saddest pictures of their cold-hearted depravity.
+The sole result of friendship with a great man was a meal, at which
+flattery and sycophancy were expected; but the best wine was drunk by
+the host, instead of by the guest. Provinces were ransacked for fish and
+fowl and game for the tables of the great, and sensualism was thought to
+be no reproach. They violated the laws of chastity and decorum; they
+scourged to death their slaves; they degraded their wives and sisters;
+they patronized the most demoralizing sports; they enriched themselves
+by usury and monopolies; they practised no generosity, except at their
+banquets, when ostentation balanced their avarice; they measured
+everything by the money-standard; they had no taste for literature, but
+they rewarded sculptors and painters who prostituted art to their vanity
+or passions; they had no reverence for religion, and ridiculed the gods.
+Their distinguishing vices were meanness and servility, the pursuit of
+money by every artifice, the absence of honor, and unblushing
+sensuality.</p>
+
+<p>Gibbon has eloquently abridged the remarks of Ammianus Marcellinus
+respecting these people:--</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They contend with each other in the empty vanity of titles and
+surnames. They affect to multiply their likenesses in statues of bronze
+or marble; nor are they satisfied unless these statues are covered with
+plates of gold. They boast of the rent-rolls of their estates; they
+measure their rank and consequence by the loftiness of their chariots
+and the weighty magnificence of their dress; their long robes of silk
+and purple float in the wind, and as they are agitated by art or
+accident they discover the under garments, the rich tunics embroidered
+with the figures of various animals. Followed by a train of fifty
+servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move along the streets as if
+they travelled with post-horses; and the example of the senators is
+boldly imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose covered carriages are
+continually driving round the immense space of the city and suburbs.
+Whenever they condescend to enter the public baths, they assume, on
+their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and maintain a
+haughty demeanor, which perhaps might have been excused in the great
+Marcellus after the conquest of Syracuse. Sometimes these heroes
+undertake more arduous achievements: they visit their estates in Italy,
+and procure themselves, by servile hands, the amusements of the chase.
+And if at any time, especially on a hot day, they have the courage to
+sail in their gilded galleys from the Lucrine Lake to their elegant
+villas on the sea-coast of Puteoli and Cargeta, they compare these
+expeditions to the marches of Caesar and Alexander; yet should a fly
+presume to settle on the silken folds of their gilded umbrellas, should
+a sunbeam penetrate through some unguarded chink, they deplore their
+intolerable hardships, and lament, in affected language, that they were
+not born in the regions of eternal darkness. In the exercise of domestic
+jurisdiction they express an exquisite sensibility for any personal
+injury, and a contemptuous indifference for the rest of mankind. When
+they have called for warm water, should a slave be tardy in his
+obedience, he is chastised with a hundred lashes; should he commit a
+wilful murder, his master will mildly observe that he is a worthless
+fellow, and shall be punished if he repeat the offence. If a foreigner
+of no contemptible rank be introduced to these senators, he is welcomed
+with such warm professions that he retires charmed with their
+affability; but when he repeats his visit, he is surprised and mortified
+to find that his name, his person, and his country are forgotten. The
+modest, the sober, and the learned are rarely invited to their sumptuous
+banquets, only the most worthless of mankind,--parasites who applaud
+every look and gesture, who gaze with rapture on marble columns and
+variegated pavements, and strenuously praise the pomp and elegance
+which he is taught to consider as a part of his personal merit. At the
+Roman table the birds, the squirrels, the fish, which appear of uncommon
+size, are contemplated with curious attention, and notaries are summoned
+to attest, by authentic record, their real weight. Another method of
+introduction into the houses of the great is skill in games, which is a
+sure road to wealth and reputation. A master of this sublime art, if
+placed at a supper below a magistrate, displays in his countenance a
+surprise and indignation which Cato might be supposed to feel when
+refused the praetorship. The acquisition of knowledge seldom engages the
+attention of the nobles, who abhor the fatigue and disdain the
+advantages of study; and the only books they peruse are the 'Satires of
+Juvenal,' or the fabulous histories of Marius Maximus. The libraries
+they have inherited from their fathers are secluded, like dreary
+sepulchres, from the light of day; but the costly instruments of the
+theatre--flutes and hydraulic organs--are constructed for their use. In
+their palaces sound is preferred to sense, and the care of the body to
+that of the mind. The suspicion of a malady is of sufficient weight to
+excuse the visits of the most intimate friends. The prospect of gain
+will urge a rich and gouty senator as far as Spoleta; every sentiment of
+arrogance and dignity is suppressed in the hope of an inheritance or
+legacy, and a wealthy, childless citizen is the most powerful of the
+Romans. The distress which follows and chastises extravagant luxury
+often reduces the great to use the most humiliating expedients. When
+they wish to borrow, they employ the base and supplicating style of the
+slaves in the comedy; but when they are called upon to pay, they assume
+the royal and tragic declamations of the grandsons of Hercules. If the
+demand is repeated, they readily procure some trusty sycophant to
+maintain a charge of poison or magic against the insolent creditor, who
+is seldom released from prison until he has signed a discharge of the
+whole debt. And these vices are mixed with a puerile superstition which
+disgraces their understanding. They listen with confidence to the
+productions of haruspices, who pretend to read in the entrails of
+victims the signs of future greatness and prosperity; and this
+superstition is observed among those very sceptics who impiously deny or
+doubt the existence of a celestial power.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Such, in the latter days of the empire, was the leading class at Rome,
+and probably also in the cities which aped the fashions of the capital.
+Frivolity and luxury loosened all the ties of society. They were bound
+up in themselves, and had no care for the people except as they might
+extract more money from them.</p>
+
+<p>As for the miserable class whom the patricians oppressed, their
+condition became worse every day from the accession of the Emperors. The
+plebeians had ever disdained those arts which now occupied the middle
+classes; these were intrusted to slaves. Originally, they employed
+themselves upon the lands which had been obtained by conquest; but these
+lands were gradually absorbed or usurped by the large proprietors. The
+small farmers, oppressed with debt and usury, parted with their lands to
+their wealthy creditors. Even in the time of Cicero, it was computed
+that there were only about two thousand citizens possessed of
+independent property. These two thousand persons owned the world; the
+rest were dependent and powerless, and would have perished but for
+largesses. Monthly distributions of corn were converted into daily
+allowance for bread. The people were amused with games and festivals,
+fed like slaves, and of course lost at last even the semblance of
+manliness and independence. They loitered in the public streets, and
+dissipated in gaming their miserable pittance; they spent the hours of
+the night in the lowest resorts of crime and misery; they expired in
+wretched apartments without attracting the attention of government;
+pestilence, famine, and squalid misery thinned their ranks, and they
+would have been annihilated but for constant accession to their numbers
+from the provinces.</p>
+
+<p>In the busy streets of Rome might be seen adventurers from all parts of
+the world, disgraced by all the various vices of their respective
+countries. They had no education, and but small religious advantages;
+they were held in terror by both priests and nobles,--the priest
+terrifying them with Egyptian sorceries, the nobles crushing them by
+iron weight; like lazzaroni, they lived in the streets, or were crowded
+into filthy tenements; a gladiatorial show delighted them, but the
+circus was their peculiar joy,--here they sought to drown the
+consciousness of their squalid degradation; they were sold into slavery
+for trifling debts; they had no homes. The poor man had no ambition or
+hope; his wife was a slave; his children were precocious demons, whose
+prattle was the cry for bread, whose laughter was the howl of
+pandemonium, whose sports were the tricks of premature iniquity, whose
+beauty was the squalor of disease and filth; he fled from a wife in whom
+he had no trust, from children in whom he had no hope, from brothers for
+whom he felt no sympathy, from parents for whom he felt no reverence;
+the circus was his home, the fights of wild beasts were his consolation;
+the future was a blank, death was the release from suffering. There were
+no hospitals for the sick and the old, except one on an island in the
+Tiber; the old and helpless were left to die, unpitied and unconsoled.
+Suicide was so common that it attracted no attention.</p>
+
+<p>Superstition culminated at Rome, for there were seen the priests and
+devotees of all the countries that it governed,--&quot;the dark-skinned
+daughters of Isis, with drum and timbrel and wanton mien; devotees of
+the Persian Mithras; emasculated Asiatics; priests of Cybele, with their
+wild dances and discordant cries; worshippers of the great goddess
+Diana; barbarian captives with the rites of Teuton priests; Syrians,
+Jews, Chaldaean astrologers, and Thessalian sorcerers.... The crowds
+which flocked to Rome from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean
+brought with them practices extremely demoralizing. The awful rites of
+initiation, the tricks of magicians, the pretended virtues of amulets
+and charms, the riddles of emblematical idolatry with which the
+superstition of the East abounded, amused the languid voluptuaries who
+had neither the energy for a moral belief nor the boldness requisite for
+logical scepticism.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We cannot pass by, in this enumeration of the different classes of Roman
+society, the number and condition of slaves. A large part of the
+population belonged to this servile class. Originally brought in by
+foreign conquest, it was increased by those who could not pay their
+debts. The single campaign of Regulus introduced as many captives as
+made up a fifth part of the whole population. Four hundred were
+maintained in a single palace, at a comparatively early period; a
+freedman in the time of Augustus left behind him forty-one hundred and
+sixteen; Horace regarded two hundred as the suitable establishment for a
+gentleman; some senators owned twenty thousand. Gibbon estimates the
+number of slaves at about sixty millions,--one-half of the whole
+population. One hundred thousand captives were taken in the Jewish war,
+who were sold as slaves, and sold as cheap as horses. William Blair
+supposes that there were three slaves to one freeman, from the conquest
+of Greece to the reign of Alexander Severus. Slaves often cost two
+hundred thousand sesterces, yet everybody was eager to possess a slave.
+At one time the slave's life was at the absolute control of his master;
+he could be treated at all times with brutal severity. Fettered and
+branded, he toiled to cultivate the lands of an imperious master, and at
+night was shut up in a subterranean cell. The laws hardly recognized his
+claim to be considered a moral agent,--he was <i>secundum hominum genus</i>;
+he could acquire no rights, social or political,--he was incapable of
+inheriting property, or making a will, or contracting a legal marriage;
+his value was estimated like that of a brute; he was a thing and not a
+person, &quot;a piece of furniture possessed of life;&quot; he was his master's
+property, to be scourged, or tortured, or crucified. If a wealthy
+proprietor died under circumstances which excited suspicion of foul
+play, his whole household was put to torture. It is recorded that on the
+murder of a man of consular dignity by a slave, every slave in his
+possession was condemned to death. Slaves swelled the useless rabbles of
+the cities, and devoured the revenues of the State. All manual labor
+was done by slaves, in towns as well as the country; they were used in
+the navy to propel the galleys. Even the mechanical arts were cultivated
+by the slaves. Nay more, slaves were schoolmasters, secretaries, actors,
+musicians, and physicians, for in intelligence they were often on an
+equality with their masters. Slaves were procured from Greece and Asia
+Minor and Syria, as well as from Gaul and the African deserts; they were
+white as well as black. All captives in war were made slaves, also
+unfortunate debtors; sometimes they could regain their freedom, but
+generally their condition became more and more deplorable. What a state
+of society when a refined and cultivated Greek could be made to obey the
+most offensive orders of a capricious and sensual Roman, without
+remuneration, without thanks, without favor, without redress! What was
+to be expected of a class who had no object to live for? They became the
+most degraded of mortals, ready for pillage, and justly to be feared in
+the hour of danger.</p>
+
+<p>Slavery undoubtedly proved the most destructive canker of the Roman
+State. It was this social evil, more than political misrule, which
+undermined the empire. Slavery proved at Rome a monstrous curse,
+destroying all manliness of character, creating contempt of honest
+labor, making men timorous yet cruel, idle, frivolous, weak, dependent,
+powerless. The empire might have lasted centuries longer but for this
+incubus, the standing disgrace of the Pagan world. Paganism never
+recognized what is most noble and glorious in man; never recognized his
+equality, his common brotherhood, his natural rights. It had no
+compunction, no remorse in depriving human beings of their highest
+privileges; its whole tendency was to degrade the soul, and to cause
+forgetfulness of immortality. Slavery thrives best when the generous
+instincts are suppressed, when egotism, sensuality, and pride are the
+dominant springs of human action.</p>
+
+<p>The same influences which tended to rob man of the rights which God has
+given him, and produce cruelty and heartlessness in the general
+intercourse of life, also tended to degrade the female sex. In the
+earlier age of the republic, when the people were poor, and life was
+simple and primitive, and heroism and patriotism were characteristic,
+woman was comparatively virtuous and respected; she asserted her natural
+equality, and led a life of domestic tranquillity, employed upon the
+training of her children, and inspiring her husband to noble deeds. But
+under the Emperors these virtues had fled. Woman was miserably educated,
+being taught by a slave, or some Greek chambermaid, accustomed to ribald
+conversation, and fed with idle tales and silly superstitions; she was
+regarded as more vicious in natural inclination than man, and was
+chiefly valued for household labors; she was reduced to dependence; she
+saw but little of her brothers or relatives; she was confined to her
+home as if it were a prison; she was guarded by eunuchs and female
+slaves; she was given in marriage without her consent; she could be
+easily divorced; she was valued only as a domestic servant, or as an
+animal to prevent the extinction of families; she was regarded as the
+inferior of her husband, to whom she was a victim, a toy, or a slave.
+Love after marriage was not frequent, since woman did not shine in the
+virtues by which love is kept alive. She became timorous or frivolous,
+without dignity or public esteem; her happiness was in extravagant
+attire, in elaborate hair-dressings, in rings and bracelets, in a
+retinue of servants, in gilded apartments, in luxurious couches, in
+voluptuous dances, in exciting banquets, in demoralizing spectacles, in
+frivolous gossip, in inglorious idleness. If virtuous, it was not so
+much from principle as from fear. Hence she resorted to all sorts of
+arts to deceive her husband; her genius was sharpened by perpetual
+devices, and cunning was her great resource. She cultivated no lofty
+friendships; she engaged in no philanthropic mission; she cherished no
+ennobling sentiments; she kindled no chivalrous admiration. Her
+amusements were frivolous, her taste vitiated, her education neglected,
+her rights violated, her sympathy despised, her aspirations scorned.
+And here I do not allude to great and infamous examples that history has
+handed down in the sober pages of Suetonius and Tacitus, or that
+unblushing depravity which stands out in the bitter satires of those
+times; I speak not of the adultery, the poisoning, the infanticide, the
+debauchery, the cruelty of which history accuses the Messalinas and
+Agrippinas of imperial Rome; I allude not to the orgies of the Palatine
+Hill, or the abominations which are inferred from the paintings of
+Pompeii,--I mean the general frivolity and extravagance and
+demoralization of the women of the Roman empire. Marriage was considered
+inexpedient unless large dowries were brought to the husband. Numerous
+were the efforts of Emperors to promote honorable marriages, but the
+relation was shunned. Courtesans usurped the privileges of wives, and
+with unblushing effrontery. A man was derided who contemplated
+matrimony, for there was but little confidence in female virtue or
+capacity, and woman lost all her fascination when age had destroyed her
+beauty; even her very virtues were distasteful to her self-indulgent
+husband. When, as sometimes happened, the wife gained the ascendency by
+her charms, she was tyrannical; her relatives incited her to despoil her
+husband; she lived amid incessant broils; she had no care for the
+future, and exceeded man in prodigality. &quot;The government of her house is
+no more merciful,&quot; says Juvenal, &quot;than the court of a Sicilian tyrant.&quot;
+In order to render herself attractive, she exhausted all the arts of
+cosmetics and elaborate hair-dressing; she delighted in magical
+incantations and love-potions. In the bitter satire of Juvenal we get an
+impression most melancholy and loathsome:--</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;'T were long to tell what philters they provide,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;What drugs to set a son-in-law aside,--<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Women, in judgment weak, in feeling strong,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;By every gust of passion borne along.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To a fond spouse a wife no mercy shows;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Though warmed with equal fires, she mocks his woes,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And triumphs in his spoils; her wayward will<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Defeats his bliss and turns his good to ill.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Women support the bar; they love the law,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And raise litigious questions for a straw.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Nay, more, they fence! who has not marked their oil,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Their purple rigs, for this preposterous toil!<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A woman stops at nothing; when she wears<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Rich emeralds round her neck, and in her ears<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Pearls of enormous size,--these justify<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Her faults, and make all lawful in her eye.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;More shame to Rome! in every street are found<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The essenced Lypanti, with roses crowned;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The gay Miletan and the Tarentine,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Lewd, petulant, and reeling ripe with wine!&quot;<br>
+
+<p>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 class, 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
+mass 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 institution. 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. &quot;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.&quot;
+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. Titus 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! &quot;The Christians to the lions!&quot; was the cry of the
+brutal populace. What a sight was the old amphitheatre of Titus, 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.</p>
+
+<p>Probably no people abandoned themselves to pleasures more universally
+than the Romans, after war had ceased to be their master passion. All
+classes alike pursued them with restless eagerness. Amusements 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 Titus, 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 passion for gambling in every
+shape, we can form some idea of the effect of these amusements on the
+common mind,--destroying the taste for home pleasures, and for all that
+was intellectual and simple.</p>
+
+<p>What are we to think of a state of society where all classes 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 classes 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 appetite; 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 Titus, Caracalla, and
+Diocletian in Rome show that they were decorated with prodigal
+magnificence, and with everything that could excite the
+passions,--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.</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;Balnea, vina, Venus corrumpunt corpora nostra.&quot;<br>
+
+<p>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 factitious 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 godless 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
+accumulation 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
+pass 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 <i>had</i>, rather than for what he <i>was</i>; 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
+certitudes of love, esteem, and friendship, which, &quot;be they what they
+may, are yet the fountain-life of all our day,&quot;--but for the
+gratification of depraved and expensive tastes, of those short-lived
+enjoyments which ended with the decay of appetite and the <i>ennui</i> of
+realized expectation,--all of the earth, earthy; making a wreck of the
+divine image which was made for God 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.</p>
+
+<p>The fourteenth satire of Juvenal is directed mainly to the universal
+passion for gain and the demoralizing vices it brings in its train,
+which made Rome a Vanity Fair and even a Pandemonium.</p>
+
+<p>The old Greek philosophers gloried in their poverty; but poverty was the
+greatest reproach to a Roman. &quot;In exact proportion to the sum of money a
+man keeps in his chest,&quot; says Juvenal, &quot;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?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 passion
+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 passed away. The
+barbarians were advancing to conquer and desolate; there was no power to
+resist them but enervated and timid legions, with the accumulated 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 accumulation 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 nobler
+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: &quot;O haughty Rome, the divine chastisement
+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 gods shall save
+thee? For there shall be confusion over the face of the whole earth, and
+the fall of cities shall come.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>AUTHORITIES.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>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. Ammianus 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.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<hr class="full">
+<pre>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Beacon Lights of History, Volume III, by John
+Lord
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Beacon Lights of History, Volume III
+
+Author: John Lord
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2003  [eBook #10484]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME
+III***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+LORD'S LECTURES
+
+BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME III
+
+ANCIENT ACHIEVEMENTS.
+
+BY JOHN LORD, LL.D.,
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE OLD ROMAN WORLD," "MODERN EUROPE,"
+ETC., ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+GOVERNMENTS AND LAWS.
+
+GREEK AND ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.
+
+Governments and laws
+Oriental laws
+Priestly jurisprudence
+The laws of Lycurgus
+The laws of Solon
+Cleisthenes
+The Ecclesia at Athens
+Struggle between patricians and plebeians at Rome
+Tribunes of the people
+Roman citizens
+The Roman senate
+The Roman constitution
+Imperial power
+The Twelve Tables
+Roman lawyers
+Jurisprudence under emperors
+Labeo
+Capito
+Gaius
+Paulus
+Ulpian
+Justinian
+Tribonian
+Code, Pandects, and Institutes
+Roman citizenship
+Laws pertaining to marriage
+Extent of paternal power
+Transfer of property
+Contracts
+The courts
+Crimes
+Fines
+Penal statutes
+Personal rights
+Slavery
+Security of property
+Authorities
+
+
+THE FINE ARTS.
+
+ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, PAINTING.
+
+Early architecture
+Egyptian monuments
+The Temple of Karnak
+The pyramids
+Babylonian architecture
+Indian architecture
+Greek architecture
+The Doric order
+The Parthenon
+The Ionic order
+The Corinthian order
+Roman architecture
+The arch
+Vitruvius
+Greek sculpture
+Phidias
+Statue of Zeus
+Praxiteles
+Scopas
+Lysippus
+Roman sculpture
+Greek painters
+Polygnotus
+Apollodorus
+Zeuxis
+Parrhasius
+Apelles
+The decline of art
+Authorities
+
+
+ANCIENT SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.
+
+ASTRONOMY, GEOGRAPHY, ETC.
+
+Ancient astronomy
+Chaldaean astronomers
+Egyptian astronomy
+The Greek astronomers
+Thales
+Anaximenes
+Aristarchus
+Archimedes
+Hipparchus
+Ptolemy
+The Roman astronomers
+Geometry
+Euclid
+Empirical science
+Hippocrates
+Galen
+Physical science
+Geography
+Pliny
+Eratosthenes
+Authorities
+
+
+MATERIAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS.
+
+MECHANICAL AND USEFUL ARTS.
+
+Mechanical arts
+Material life in Egypt
+Domestic utensils
+Houses and furniture
+Entertainments
+Glass manufacture
+Linen fabrics
+Paper manufacture
+Leather and tanners
+Carpenters and boat-builders
+Agriculture
+Field sports
+Ornaments of dress
+Greek arts
+Roman luxuries
+Material wonders
+Great cities
+Commerce
+Roman roads
+Ancient Rome
+Architectural wonders
+Roman monuments
+Roman spectacles
+Gladiatorial shows
+Roman triumphs
+Authorities
+
+
+THE MILITARY ART.
+
+WEAPONS, ENGINES, DISCIPLINE.
+
+The tendency to violence and war
+Early wars
+Progress in the art of war
+Sesostris
+Egyptian armies
+Military weapons
+Chariots of war
+Persian armies, Cyrus
+Greek warfare
+Spartan phalanx
+Alexander the Great
+Roman armies
+Hardships of Roman soldiers
+Military discipline
+The Roman legion
+Importance of the infantry
+The cavalry
+Military engines
+Ancient fortifications
+Military officers
+The praetorian cohort
+Roman camps
+Consolidation of Roman power
+Authorities
+
+
+CICERO.
+
+ROMAN LITERATURE.
+
+Condition of Roman society when Cicero was born
+His education and precocity
+He adopts the profession of the law
+His popularity as an orator
+Elected Quaestor; his Aedileship
+Prosecution of Verres
+His letters to Atticus; his vanity
+His Praetorship; declines a province
+His Consulship; conspiracy of Catiline
+Banishment of Cicero: his weakness; his recall
+His law practice; his eloquence
+His provincial government
+His return to Rome
+His fears in view of the rivalry between Caesar and Pompey
+Sides with Pompey
+Death of Tullia and divorce of Terentia
+Second marriage of Cicero
+Literary labors: his philosophical writings
+His detestation of Imperialism
+His philippics against Antony
+His proscription, flight, and death
+His great services
+Character of his eloquence
+His artistic excellence of style
+His learning and attainments; his character
+His immortal legacy
+Authorities
+
+
+CLEOPATRA.
+
+THE WOMAN OF PAGANISM.
+
+Why Cleopatra represents the woman of Paganism
+Glory of Ancient Rome
+Paganism recognizes the body rather than the soul
+Ancestors of Cleopatra
+The wonders of Alexandria
+Cleopatra of Greek origin
+The mysteries of Ancient Egypt
+Early beauty and accomplishments of Cleopatra
+Her attractions to Caesar
+Her residence in Rome
+Her first acquaintance with Antony
+The style of her beauty
+Her character
+Character of Antony
+Antony and Cleopatra in Cilicia
+Magnificence of Cleopatra
+Infatuation of Antony
+Motives of Cleopatra
+Antony's gifts to Cleopatra
+Indignation of the Romans
+Antony gives up his Parthian expedition
+Returns to Alexandria
+Contest with Octavius
+Battle of Actium
+Wisdom of Octavius
+Death of Antony
+Subsequent conduct of Cleopatra
+Nature of her love for Antony
+Immense sacrifices of Antony
+Tragic fate of Cleopatra
+Frequency of suicide at Rome
+Immorality no bar to social position in Greece and Rome
+Dulness of home in Pagan antiquity
+Drudgeries of women
+Influence of women on men
+Paganism never recognized the equality of women with men
+It denied to them education
+Consequent degradation of women
+Paganism without religious consolation
+Did not recognize the value of the soul
+And thus took no cognizance of the higher aspirations of man
+The revenge of woman under degradation
+Women, under Paganism, took no interest in what elevates society
+Men, therefore, fled to public amusements
+No true society under Paganism
+Society only created by Christianity
+
+
+PAGAN SOCIETY.
+
+GLORY AND SHAME.
+
+Glories of the ancient civilization
+A splendid external deception
+Moral evils
+Imperial despotism
+Prostration of liberties
+Some good emperors
+Disproportionate fortunes
+Luxurious living
+General extravagance
+Pride and insolence of the aristocracy
+Gibbon's description of the nobles
+The plebeian class
+Hopelessness and disgrace of poverty
+Popular superstitions
+The slaves
+The curse of slavery
+Degradation of the female sex
+Bitter satires of Juvenal
+Games and festivals
+Gladiatorial shows
+General abandonment to pleasure
+The baths
+General craze for money-making
+Universal corruption
+Saint Paul's estimate of Roman vices
+Decline and ruin a logical necessity
+The Sibylline prophecy
+Authorities
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+VOLUME III.
+
+Cleopatra Tests the Poison which She Intends for Her
+Own Destruction on Her Slaves.... _Frontispiece_
+_After the painting by Alexander Cabanel_.
+
+Justinian Orders the Compilation of the Pandects
+_After the painting by Benjamin Constant_.
+
+The Temple of Karnak
+_After a photograph_.
+
+The Laocooen
+_After the photograph from the statue in the Vatican, Rome_.
+
+The Death of Archimedes
+_After the painting by E. Vimont_.
+
+Race of Roman Chariots
+_After the painting by V. Checa_.
+
+Sale of Slaves in a Roman Camp
+_After the painting by R. Coghe_.
+
+Marcus Tullius Cicero
+_From the bust in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence_.
+
+Cleopatra Obtains an Interview with Caesar
+_After the painting by J.L. Gerome_.
+
+Death of Cleopatra
+_After the painting by John Collier_.
+
+A Roman Bacchanal
+_After the painting by W. Kotarbinski_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+GOVERNMENTS AND LAWS.
+
+
+GREEK AND ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.
+
+624 B.C.-550 A.D.
+
+
+There is not much in ancient governments and laws to interest us, except
+such as were in harmony with natural justice, and were designed for the
+welfare of all classes in the State. A jurisprudence founded on the
+edicts of absolute kings, or on the regulations of a priestly caste, is
+necessarily partial, and may be unenlightened. But those laws which are
+gradually enacted for the interests of the whole body of the
+people,--for the rich and poor, the powerful and feeble alike,--have
+generally been the result of great and diverse experiences, running
+through centuries, the work of wise men under constitutional forms of
+government. The jurisprudence of nations based on equity is a growth or
+development according to public wants and necessities, especially in
+countries having popular liberty and rights, as in England and the
+United States.
+
+We do not find in the history of ancient nations such a jurisprudence,
+except in the free States of Greece and among the Romans, who had a
+natural genius or aptitude for government, and where the people had a
+powerful influence in legislation, until even the name of liberty was
+not invoked.
+
+Among the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians the only laws were the
+edicts of kings or the regulations of priests, mostly made with a view
+of cementing their own power, except those that were dictated by
+benevolence or the pressing needs of the people, who were ground down
+and oppressed, and protected only as slaves were once protected in the
+Southern States of America. Wise and good monarchs doubtless issued
+decrees for the benefit of all classes, such as conscience or knowledge
+dictated, whenever they felt their great responsibilities, as in some of
+the absolute monarchies of Europe; but they never issued their decrees
+at the suggestions or demands of those classes for whom the laws were
+made. The voice of the people was ignored, except so far as it moved the
+pity or appealed to the hearts and consciences of their rulers; the
+people had, and claimed, no _rights_. The only men to whom rulers
+listened, or by whom they were controlled, were those whom they chose as
+counsellors and ministers, who were supposed to advise with a view to
+the sovereign's benefit, and that of the empire generally.
+
+The same may be said in general of other Oriental monarchies,
+especially when embarked in aggressive wars, where the will of the
+monarch was supreme and unresisted, as in Persia. In India and China the
+government was not so absolute, since it was checked by feudatory
+princes, almost independent like the feudal barons and dukes of
+mediaeval Europe.
+
+Nor was there probably among Oriental nations any elaborate codification
+of the decrees and laws as in Greece and Rome, except by the priests for
+their ritual service, like that which marked the jurisprudence of the
+Israelites. There were laws against murder, theft, adultery, and other
+offences, since society cannot exist anywhere without such laws; but
+there was no complicated jurisprudence produced by the friction of
+competing classes striving for justice and right, or even for the
+interests of contending parties. We do not look to Egypt or to China for
+wise punishment of ordinary crimes; but we do look to Greece and Rome,
+and to Rome especially, for a legislation which shall balance the
+complicated relations of society on principles of enlightened reason.
+Moreover, those great popular rights which we now most zealously defend
+have generally been extorted in the strife of classes and parties,
+sometimes from kings, and sometimes from princes and nobles. Where there
+has been no opposition to absolutism these rights have not been secured;
+but whenever and wherever the people have been a power they have
+imperiously made their wants known, and so far as they have been
+reasonable they have been finally secured,--perhaps after angry
+expostulations and, disputations.
+
+Now, it is this kind of legislation which is remarkable in the history
+of Greece and Rome, secured by a combination of the people against the
+ruling classes in the interests of justice and the common welfare, and
+finally endorsed and upheld even by monarchs themselves. It is from this
+legislation that modern nations have learned wisdom; for a permanent law
+in a free country may be the result of a hundred years of discussion or
+contention,--a compromise of parties, a lesson in human experience. As
+the laws of Greece and Rome alone among the ancients are rich in moral
+wisdom and adapted more or less to all nations and ages in the struggle
+for equal rights and wise social regulations, I shall confine myself to
+them. Besides, I aim not to give useless and curious details, but to
+show how far in general the enlightened nations of antiquity made
+attainments in those things which we call civilization, and particularly
+in that great department which concerns so nearly all human
+interests,--that of the regulation of mutual social relations; and this
+by modes and with results which have had their direct influence upon our
+modern times.
+
+When we consider the native genius of the Greeks, and their marvellous
+achievements in philosophy, literature, and art, we are surprised that
+they were so inferior to the Romans in jurisprudence,--although in the
+early days of the Roman republic a deputation of citizens was sent to
+Athens to study the laws of Solon. But neither nations nor individuals
+are great in everything. Before Solon lived, Lycurgus had given laws to
+the Spartans. This lawgiver, one of the descendants of Hercules, was
+born, according to Grote, about eight hundred and eighty years before
+Christ, and was the uncle of the reigning king. There is, however, no
+certainty as to the time when he lived; it was probably about the period
+when Carthage was founded by the Phoenicians. He instituted the Spartan
+senate, and gave an aristocratic form to the constitution. But the
+senate, composed of about thirty old men who acted in conjunction with
+the two kings, did not differ materially from the council of chiefs, or
+old men, found in other ancient Grecian States; the Spartan chiefs
+simply modified or curtailed the power of the kings. In the course of
+time the senate, with the kings included in it, became the governing
+body of the State, and this oligarchical form of government lasted
+several hundred years. We know but little of the especial laws given by
+Lycurgus. We know the distinctions of society,--citizens and helots,
+and their mutual relations,--the distribution of lands to check luxury,
+the public men, the public training of youth, the severe discipline to
+which all were subjected, the cruelty exercised towards slaves, the
+attention given to gymnastic exercises and athletic sports,--in short,
+the habits and customs of the people rather than any regular system of
+jurisprudence. Lycurgus was the trainer of a military brotherhood rather
+than a law-giver. Under his regime the citizen belonged to the State
+rather than to his family, and all the ends of the State were warlike
+rather than peaceful,--not looking to the settlement of quarrels on
+principles of equity, or a development of industrial interests, which
+are the great aims of modern legislation.
+
+The influence of the Athenian Solon on the laws which affected
+individuals is more apparent than that of the Spartan Lycurgus, the
+earliest of the Grecian legislators. But Solon had a predecessor in
+Athens itself,--Draco, who in 624 was appointed to reduce to writing the
+arbitrary decisions of the archons, thus giving a form of permanent law
+and a basis for a court of appeal. Draco's laws were extraordinarily
+severe, punishing small thefts and even laziness with death. The
+formulation of any system of justice would have, as Draco's did, a
+beneficial influence on the growth of the State; but the severity of
+these bloody laws caused them to be hated and in practice neglected,
+until Solon arose. Solon was born in Athens about 638 B.C., and
+belonged to the noblest family of the State. He was contemporary with
+Pisistratus and Thales. His father having lost his property, Solon
+applied himself to merchandise,--always a respectable calling in a
+mercantile city. He first became known as a writer of love poems; then
+came into prominence as a successful military commander of volunteer
+forces in a disastrous war; and at last he gained the confidence of his
+countrymen so completely that in a period of anarchy, distress, and
+mutiny,--the poor being so grievously oppressed by the rich that a sixth
+part of the produce of land went to the landlord,--he was chosen archon,
+with authority to revise the laws, and might have made himself king. He
+abolished the custom of selling the body of a debtor for debt, and even
+annulled debts in a state of general distress,--which did not please the
+rich, nor even the poor, since they desired a redivision of lands such
+as Lycurgus had made in Sparta. He repealed the severe laws of Draco,
+which inflicted capital punishment for so many small offences, retaining
+the extreme penalty only for murder and treason. In order further to
+promote the interests of the people, he empowered any man whatever to
+enter an action for one that was injured. He left the great offices of
+state, however, in the hands of the rich, giving the people a share in
+those which were not so important. He re-established the council of the
+Areopagus, composed of those who had been archons, and nine were
+appointed annually for the general guardianship of the laws; but he
+instituted another court or senate of four hundred citizens, for the
+cognizance of all matters before they were submitted to the higher
+court. Although the poorest and most numerous class were not eligible
+for office, they had the right of suffrage, and could vote for the
+principal officers. It would at first seem that the legislation of Solon
+gave especial privileges to the rich, but it is generally understood
+that he was the founder of the democracy of Athens. He gave the
+Athenians, not the best possible code, but the best they were capable of
+receiving. He intended to give to the people as much power as was
+strictly needed, and no more; but in a free State the people continually
+encroach on the privileges of the rich, and thus gradually the chief
+power falls into their hands.
+
+Whatever the power which Solon gave to the people, and however great
+their subsequent encroachments, it cannot be doubted that he was the
+first to lay the foundations of constitutional government,--that is, one
+in which the people took part in legislation and in the election of
+rulers. The greatest benefit which he conferred on the State was in the
+laws which gave relief to poor debtors, those which enabled people to
+protect themselves by constitutional means, and those which prohibited
+fathers from selling their daughters and sisters for slaves,--an
+abomination which had long disgraced the Athenian republic.
+
+Some of Solon's laws were of questionable utility. He prohibited the
+exportation of the fruits of the soil in Attica, with the exception of
+olive-oil alone,--a regulation difficult to be enforced in a mercantile
+State. Neither would he grant citizenship to immigrants; and he released
+sons from supporting their parents in old age if the parents had
+neglected to give them a trade. He encouraged all developments of
+national industries, knowing that the wealth of the State depended on
+them. Solon was the first Athenian legislator who granted the power of
+testamentary bequests when a man had no legitimate children. Sons
+succeeded to the property of their parents, with the obligation of
+giving a marriage dowry to their sisters. If there were no sons, the
+daughters inherited the property of their parents; but a person who had
+no children could bequeath his property to whom he pleased. Solon
+prohibited costly sacrifices at funerals; he forbade evil-speaking of
+the dead, and indeed of all persons before judges and archons; he
+pronounced a man infamous who took part in a sedition.
+
+When this enlightened and disinterested man had finished his work of
+legislation, 494 B.C., he visited Egypt and Cyprus, and devoted his
+leisure to the composition of poems. He also, it is said, when a
+prisoner in the hands of the Persians, visited Croesus, the rich king of
+Lydia, and gave to him an admonitory lesson on the vicissitudes of life.
+After a prolonged absence, Solon returned to Athens about the time of
+the usurpation of his kinsman Peisistratus (560 B.C.), who, however,
+suffered the aged legislator and patriot to go unharmed, and even
+allowed most of his laws to remain in force.
+
+The constitution and laws of Athens continued substantially for about a
+hundred years after the archonship of Solon, when the democratic party
+under Cleisthenes gained complete ascendency. Some modification of the
+laws was then made. The political franchise was extended to all free
+native Athenians. The command of the military forces was given to ten
+generals, one from each tribe, instead of being intrusted to one of the
+archons. The Ecclesia, a formal assembly of the citizens, met more
+frequently. The people were called into direct action as _dikasts_, or
+jurors; all citizens were eligible to the magistracy, even to the
+archonship; ostracism,--which virtually was exile without
+disgrace,--became a political necessity to check the ascendency of
+demagogues.
+
+Such were the main features of the constitution and jurisprudence of
+Athens when the struggle between the patricians and plebeians of Rome
+began, to which we now give our attention. It was the real beginning of
+constitutional liberty in Rome. Before this time the government was in
+the hands either of kings or aristocrats. The patricians were
+descendants of the original Latin, Sabine, and Etruscan families; the
+plebeians were the throng of common folk brought in by conquest or later
+immigration,--mostly of Latin origin. The senate was the ruling power
+after the expulsion of the kings, and senators were selected from the
+great patrician families, who controlled by their wealth and influence
+the popular elections, the army and navy, and all foreign relations.
+Consuls, the highest magistrates, who commanded the armies, were
+annually elected by the people; but for several centuries the consuls
+belonged to great families. The constitution was essentially
+aristocratic, and the aristocracy was based on wealth. Power was in the
+hands of nobles, whether their ancestors were patricians or plebeians,
+although in the early ages of the Republic they were mostly patricians
+by birth. But with the growth of Rome new families that were not
+descended from the ancient tribes became prominent,--like the Claudii,
+the Julii, and the Servilii,--and were incorporated with the nobility.
+There are very few names in Roman history before the time of Marius
+which did not belong to this noble class. The _plebs_, or common people,
+had at first no political privileges whatever, not even the right of
+suffrage, and were not allowed to marry into patrician rank. Indeed,
+they were politically and socially oppressed.
+
+The first great event which gave the plebs protection and political
+importance was the appointment of representatives called "tribunes of
+the people,"--a privilege extorted from the patricians. The tribunes had
+the right to be present at the deliberations of the senate; their
+persons were inviolable, and they had the power of veto over obnoxious
+laws. Their power continually increased, until they were finally elected
+from the senatorial body. In 421 B.C. the plebs had gained sufficient
+influence to establish the _connubium_, by which they were allowed to
+intermarry with patricians. In the same year they were admitted to the
+quaestorship, which office entitled the possessor to a seat in the
+senate. The quaestors had charge of the public money. In 336 B.C. the
+plebeians obtained the praetorship, a judicial office.
+
+In the year 286 B.C. the distinctions vanished between plebeians and
+patricians, and the term _populus_ instead of _plebs_, was applied to
+all Roman people alike. Originally the _populus_ comprised strictly
+Roman citizens, those who belonged to the original tribes, and who had
+the right of suffrage. When the plebeians obtained access to the great
+offices of the state, the senate represented the whole people as it
+formerly represented the _populus_, and the term _populus_ was enlarged
+to embrace the entire community.
+
+The senate was an august body, and was very powerful. It was both
+judicial and legislative, and for several centuries was composed of
+patricians alone. Its members always belonged to the aristocracy,
+whether of patrician or plebeian descent, and were supposed to be rich.
+Under Augustus it required one million two hundred thousand sesterces
+annually to support the senatorial dignity. The senate, the members of
+which were chosen for life, had the superintendence of matters of
+religion and foreign relations; it commanded the levies of troops; it
+regulated duties and taxes; it gave audience to ambassadors; it
+determined upon the way that war should be conducted; it decreed to what
+provinces governors should be sent; it declared martial law in the
+appointment of dictators; and it decreed triumphs to fortunate generals.
+The senators, as a badge of distinction, wore upon their tunics a broad
+purple stripe, and they had the privilege of the best seats in the
+theatres. Their decisions were laws _(leges)._ A large part of them had
+held curule offices, which entitled them to a seat in the senate for
+life. The curule officers were the consuls, the praetors, the aediles,
+the quaestors, the tribunes; so that an able senator was sure of a great
+office in the course of his life. A man could scarcely be a senator
+unless he had held a great office, nor could he often have held a great
+office unless he were a senator. Thus it would seem that the Roman
+constitution for three hundred years after the expulsion of the kings
+was essentially aristocratic. The _plebs_ had but small consideration
+till the time of the Gracchi.
+
+But after the institution of tribunes a change in the constitution
+gradually took place, so that it was neither aristocratic nor popular
+exclusively, but was composed of both elements, and was a system of
+balance of power between the various classes. The more complete the
+balance of power, the closer is the resemblance to a constitutional
+government. When one class acted as a check against another class, as
+gradually came to pass, until the subversion of liberties by successful
+generals, the senate, the magistrates, and the people in their
+assemblies shared between them the political power, but the senate had a
+preponderating influence. The judicial, the legislative, and the
+executive authority was as well defined in Roman legislation as it is in
+English or American. No person was above the authority of the laws; no
+one class could subvert the liberties and prerogatives of another
+class,--even the senate could not override the constitution. The
+consuls, elected by the centuries, presided over the senate and over the
+assemblies of the people. There was no absolute power exercised at Rome
+until the subversion of the constitution, except by dictators chosen by
+the senate in times of imminent danger. Nor could senators elect members
+of their own body; the censors alone had the right of electing from the
+ex-magistrates, and of excluding such as were unworthy. The consuls
+could remain in office but a year, and could be called to account when
+their terms of office had expired. The tribunes of the people ultimately
+could prevent a consul from convening the senate, could seize a consul
+and imprison him, and could veto an ordinance of the senate itself. The
+nobles had no exclusive privilege like the feudal aristocracy of
+mediaeval Europe, although it was their aim to secure the high
+magistracies to the members of their own body. The term _nobilitas_
+implied that some one of a man's ancestors had filled a curule
+magistracy. A patrician, long before the reforms of the Gracchi, had
+become a man of secondary importance, but the nobles were aristocrats to
+the close of the republic, and continued to secure the highest offices;
+they prevented their own extinction by admitting into their ranks those
+who distinguished themselves,--that is, exercising their influence in
+the popular elections to secure the magistracies from among themselves.
+
+The Roman constitution then, as gradually developed by the necessities
+and crises that arose, which I have not space to mention, was a
+wonderful monument of human wisdom. The nobility were very powerful from
+their wealth and influence, but the people were not ground down. There
+were no oppressive laws to reduce them to practical slavery; what rights
+they gained they retained. They constantly extorted new privileges,
+until they were sufficiently powerful to be courted by demagogues. It
+was the demagogues, generally aristocratic ones, like Catiline and
+Caesar, who subverted the liberties of the people by buying votes. But
+for nearly five hundred years not a man arose whom the Roman people
+feared, and the proud symbol "SPQR," on the standards of the armies of
+the republic, bore the name of the Roman Senate and People to the ends
+of the earth.
+
+When, however, the senate came to be made up of men whom the great
+generals selected; when the tribunes played into the hands of the very
+men they were created to oppose; when the high-priest of a people,
+originally religious, was chosen politically and without regard to moral
+or religious consideration; when aristocratic nobles left their own
+ranks to steal the few offices which the people controlled,--then the
+constitution, under which the Romans had advanced to the conquest of the
+world, became subverted, and the empire was a consolidated despotism.
+
+Under the emperors there was no constitution, since they combined in
+their own persons all the great offices of state, and controlled the
+senate, the army, the tribunals of the law, the distant provinces, the
+city itself, and regulated taxes and imposed burdens as they pleased.
+The senate lost its independence, the courts their justice, the army its
+spirit, and the people their hopes. And yet the old forms remained; the
+senate met as in the days of the Gracchi, and there were consuls and
+praetors as before.
+
+However much we may deplore the subversion of the Roman constitution and
+the absolute reign of the emperors, in which most historians see a
+political necessity, there was yet under these emperors, whether good or
+bad, the reign of law, the bequest of five hundred years' experience.
+The emperors reigned despotically, but under the forms of legislation.
+Nor did they attempt to subvert laws which did not interfere with their
+own political power. What is called jurisprudence they even improved, as
+that later imperial despot Napoleon gave a code to the nation he ruled.
+It is this science of jurisprudence, for which the Romans had a genius,
+that gives them their highest claim to be ranked among the benefactors
+of mankind. They created legal science. Its aim was justice,--equity in
+the relations between man and man. This was the pride of the Roman
+world, even under the rule of tyrants and madmen, and this has survived
+all the calamities of fifteen hundred years. The Roman laws--founded by
+the Republic, but symmetrically completed by the Empire--have more
+powerfully affected the interests of civilization than have the
+philosophy and arts of Greece. Roman jurisprudence was not perfectly
+developed until five hundred years after the Christian era, when
+Justinian consolidated it into the Code, the Pandects, and the
+Institutes. The classical jurists, like Gaius, Ulpian, and Paulus, may
+have laid the foundation, but the superstructure was raised under the
+auspices of the imperial despots.
+
+The earliest code of Roman laws was called the Twelve Tables, framed
+from the report of the commissioners sent to Athens and other Greek
+States, to collect what was most useful in their legal systems. The laws
+of the Twelve Tables were the basis of all the Roman laws, civil and
+religious. But the edicts of the praetors, who were the great equity
+judges as well as the common-law magistrates, proclaimed certain changes
+which custom and the practice of the courts had introduced; and these,
+added to the _leges populi_, or laws proposed by the consul and passed
+by the centuries, the _plebiscita_, or laws proposed by the tribunes
+and passed by the tribes, and the _senatus consulta,_ or decrees of the
+senate, gradually swelled the laws to a great number. Three thousand
+engraved plates of brass containing these various laws were deposited in
+the capitol.
+
+Subtleties and fictions were in the course of litigations introduced by
+the lawyers to defeat the written statutes, and jurisprudence became
+complicated as early as the time of Cicero. Even the opinions of eminent
+lawyers were adopted by the legal profession as authoritative, and were
+recognized by the courts. The evils of a complicated jurisprudence were
+so evident in the seventh century of the city, that Q. Mucius Scaevola,
+a great lawyer, when consul, published a scientific elaboration of the
+civil law. Cicero studied law under him, and his contemporaries, Varus
+and Aelius Gallus, wrote learned treatises, from which extracts appear
+in the Digest made under the Emperor Justinian, 528 A.D. Julius Caesar
+contemplated a complete revision of the laws, but did not live long
+enough to carry out his intentions. His legislation, so far as he
+directed his mind to it, was very just. Among other laws established by
+him was one which ordained that creditors should accept lands as payment
+for their outstanding debts, according to the value determined by
+commissioners. In his time the relative value of money had changed, and
+was greatly diminished. The most important law of Augustus, deserving of
+all praise, was that which related to the manumission of slaves; but he
+did not interfere with the social relations of the people after he had
+deprived them of political liberty. He once attempted, by his _Lex
+Julia_, to counteract the custom which then prevailed, of abstaining
+from legal marriage and substituting concubinage instead, by which the
+free population declined; but this attempt to improve the morals of the
+people met with such opposition from the tribes and centuries that the
+next emperor abolished popular assemblies altogether, which Augustus had
+feared to do. The senate in the time of the emperors, composed chiefly
+of lawyers and magistrates, and entirely dependent upon them, became the
+great fountain of law. By the original constitution the people were the
+source of power, and the senate merely gave or refused its approbation
+to the laws proposed; but under the emperors the _comitia_, or popular
+assemblies, disappeared, and the senate passed decrees which had the
+force of laws, subject to the veto of the Emperor. It was not until the
+time of Septimus Severus and Caracalla (second century A.D.) that the
+legislative action of the senate ceased, and the edicts and rescripts of
+emperors took the place of all legislation.
+
+The golden age of Roman jurisprudence was from the birth of Cicero to
+the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus, 222 A.D.; before this period
+it was an occult science, confined to praetors, pontiffs, and patrician
+lawyers. But in the latter days of the republic law became the
+fashionable study of Roman youth, and eminent masters arose. The first
+great lawyer who left behind him important works was Q. Mucius Scaevola,
+who wrote a treatise in eighteen books on the civil law. "He was," says
+Cicero, "the most eloquent of jurists and the most learned of orators."
+This work, George Long thinks, had a great influence on contemporaries
+and on subsequent jurists, who followed it as a model. It is the oldest
+work from which there are any excerpts in the Digest.
+
+Servius Sulpicius, the friend of Cicero and his fellow-student in
+oratory, surpassed his teachers Balbus and Gallus, and was the equal in
+reputation of the great Mucius Scaevola, the Pontifex Maximus, who said
+it was disgraceful for a patrician and a noble to be ignorant of the law
+with which he had to do. Cicero ascribes the great superiority of
+Servius as a lawyer to the study of philosophy, which disciplined and
+developed his mind, and enabled him to deduce his conclusions from his
+premises with logical precision. He left behind him one hundred and
+eighty treatises, and had numerous pupils, among whom A. Ofilius and
+Alfenus Varus, Cato, Julius Caesar, Antony, and Cicero were great
+lawyers. Labeo, in the time of Augustus, wrote four hundred books on
+jurisprudence, spending six months in the year in giving instruction to
+his pupils and in answering legal questions, and the other six months in
+the country in writing books. Like all the great Roman jurists, he was
+versed in literature and philosophy, and so devoted to his profession
+that he refused political office. His rival Capito was equally learned
+in all departments of the law, and left behind him as many treatises as
+Labeo. These two jurists were the founders of celebrated schools, like
+the ancient philosophers, and each had distinguished followers. Gaius,
+who flourished in the time of the Antonines, was a great legal
+authority; and the recent discovery of his Institutes has revealed the
+least mutilated fragment of Roman jurisprudence which exists, and one of
+the most valuable, which sheds great light on ancient Roman law; it was
+found in the library of Verona. No Roman jurist had a higher reputation
+than Papinian, who was praefectus praetorio under Septimius Severus (193
+A.D.),--an office which made him second only to the Emperor, a sort of
+grand vizier, whose power extended over all departments of the State; he
+was beheaded by Caracalla. The great commentator Cujacius declares that
+he was the first of all lawyers who have been, or who are to be; that no
+one ever surpassed him in legal knowledge, and no one will ever equal
+him. Paulus was his contemporary, and held the same office as Papinian.
+He was the most fertile of Roman law-writers, and there is more taken
+from him in Justinian's Digest than from any other jurist, except
+Ulpian. There are two thousand and eighty-three excerpts from this
+writer,--one sixth of the whole Digest. No legal writer, ancient or
+modern, has handled so many subjects. In perspicuity he is said to be
+inferior to Ulpian, one of the most famous of jurists, who was his
+contemporary. Ulpian has also exercised a great influence on modern
+jurisprudence from the copious extracts of his writings in the Digest.
+He was the chief adviser of Alexander Severus, and like Paulus was
+praefectus praetorio. The number of excerpts in the Digest from him is
+said to be two thousand four hundred and sixty-two, and they form a
+third part of it. Some fragments of his writings remain. The last of the
+great civilians associated with Gaius, Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian, as
+oracles of jurisprudence, was Modestinus, who was a pupil of Ulpian. He
+wrote both in Greek and Latin. There are three hundred and forty-five
+excerpts in the Digest from his writings, the titles of which show the
+extent and variety of his labors.
+
+These eminent lawyers shed great glory on the Roman civilization. In the
+earliest times men sought distinction on the fields of battle, but in
+the latter days of the republic honor was conferred for forensic
+ability. The first pleaders of Rome were not jurisconsults, but
+aristocratic "patrons," who looked after their "clients,"--men of lower
+social grade, who in return for protection and assistance rendered
+service, sometimes political by voting, sometimes pecuniary, sometimes
+military. But when law became complicated, a class of men arose to
+interpret it. These men were held in great honor, and reached by their
+services the highest offices,--like Cicero and Hortensius. No
+remuneration was given originally for forensic pleading beyond the
+services which the client gave to a patron, but gradually the practice
+of the law became lucrative. Hortensius, as well as Cicero, gained an
+immense fortune; he had several villas, a gallery of paintings, a large
+stock of wines, parks, fish-ponds, and aviaries. Cicero had villas in
+all parts of Italy, a house on the Palatine with columns of Numidian
+marble, and a fortune of twenty millions of sesterces, equal to eight
+hundred thousand dollars. Most of the great statesmen of Rome in the
+time of Cicero were either lawyers or generals. Crassus, Pompey, P.
+Sextus, M. Marcellus, P. Clodius, Asinius Pollio, C. Cicero, M.
+Antonius, Julius Caesar, Caelius, Brutus, Catullus, were all celebrated
+for their forensic efforts. Candidates for the bar studied four years
+under a distinguished jurist, and were required to pass a rigorous
+examination. The judges were chosen from members of the bar, as well as
+in later times the senators. The great lawyers were not only learned in
+the law, but possessed great accomplishments. Varro was a lawyer, and
+was the most learned man that Rome ever produced. But under the emperors
+the lawyers were chiefly distinguished for their legal attainments, like
+Paulus and Ulpian.
+
+During this golden age of Roman jurisprudence many commentaries were
+written on the Twelve Tables, the Perpetual Edict, the Laws of the
+People, and the Decrees of the senate, as well as a vast mass of
+treatises on every department of the law, most of which have perished.
+The Institutes of Gaius, already mentioned, are the most valuable that
+remain, and have thrown great light on some important branches
+previously involved in obscurity. Their use in explaining the Institutes
+of Justinian is spoken of very highly by Mackenzie, since the latter are
+mainly founded on the long-lost work of Gaius. The great lawyers who
+flourished from Trajan to Alexander Severus, like Gaius, Ulpian, Paulus,
+Papinian, and Modestinus, had no successors who can be compared with
+them, and their works became standard authorities in the courts of law.
+
+After the death of Alexander Severus, 235 A.D., no great accession was
+made to Roman law until Theodosius II., 438 A.D., caused the
+constitutions, from Constantine to his own time, to be collected and
+arranged in sixteen books. This was called the Theodosian Code, which
+in the West was held in high esteem. It was very influential among the
+Germanic nations, serving as the chief basis of their early legislation;
+it also paved the way for the more complete codification that followed
+in the Justinian Code, which superseded it.
+
+To Justinian belongs the immortal glory of reforming the jurisprudence
+of the Romans. "In the space of ten centuries," says Gibbon, "the
+infinite variety of laws and legal opinions had filled many thousand
+volumes, which no fortune could purchase, and no capacity could digest.
+Books could not easily be found, and the judges, poor in the midst of
+riches, were reduced to the exercise of their illiterate discretion."
+The emperors had very early begun to issue ordinances, under the
+authority of the various offices gathered into their hands; and these,
+together with the answers to appeals from the lower courts made to the
+emperors directly, or to the sort of supreme court which they
+established, were called _imperial constitutions_ and _rescripts_.
+Justinian determined to unite in one body all the rules of law, whatever
+may have been their origin; and in the year 528 appointed ten
+jurisconsults, among whom was the celebrated Tribonian, to select and
+arrange the imperial constitutions and rescripts, leaving out what was
+obsolete or useless or contradictory, and to make such alterations as
+the circumstances required. This was called the _Code_, divided into
+twelve books, and comprising the constitutions from Hadrian to
+Justinian. It was published in fourteen months after it was undertaken.
+
+Justinian thereupon authorized Tribonian, then quaestor, _vir magnificus
+magisteria dignitate inter agentes decoratus,_--"for great titles were
+now given to the officers of the crown,"--to prepare, with the
+assistance of sixteen associates, a collection of extracts from the
+writings of the most eminent jurists, so as to form a body of law for
+the government of the empire, with power to select and omit and alter;
+and this immense work was done in three years, and published under the
+title of Digest, or Pandects. Says Lord Mackenzie:
+
+"All the judicial learning of former times was laid under contribution
+by Tribonian and his colleagues. Selections from the works of
+thirty-nine of the ablest lawyers, scattered over two thousand separate
+treatises, were collected in one volume; and care was taken to inform
+posterity that three millions of lines were abridged and reduced in
+these extracts to the modest number of one hundred and fifty thousand.
+Among the selected jurists only three names belonged to the age of the
+republic,--the civilians who flourished under the first emperors are
+seldom appealed to; so that most of the writers whose works have
+contributed to the Pandects lived within a period of one hundred years.
+More than a third of the whole Pandects is from Ulpian, and next to him
+the principal writers are Paulus, Papinian, Salvius Julianus, Pomponius,
+Q. Cervidius Scaevola, and Gaius. Though the variety of subjects is
+immense, the Digest has no claims to scientific arrangement. It is a
+vast cyclopedia of heterogeneous law badly arranged; everything is
+there, but everything is not in its proper place."
+
+Neither the Digest nor the Code was adapted to elementary instruction;
+it was therefore necessary to prepare a treatise on the principles of
+Roman law. This was intrusted to Tribonian and two professors,
+Theophilus and Dorotheus. It is probable that Tribonian merely
+superintended the work, which was founded chiefly on the Institutes of
+Gaius, divided into four books. It has been universally admired for its
+method and elegant precision. It was intended merely as an introduction
+to the Pandects and the Code, and was entitled the Institutes.
+
+The _Novels_, or _New Constitutions, of Justinian_ were subsequently
+published, being the new ordinances of the Emperor and the changes he
+thought proper to make, and were therefore of high authority. The Code,
+Pandects, Institutes, and Novels of Justinian comprise the Roman law as
+received in Europe, in the form given by the school of Bologna, and is
+called the "Corpus Juris Civilis." Savigny says:--
+
+"It was in that form that the Roman law became the common law of Europe;
+and when, four centuries later, other sources came to be added to it,
+the _Corpus Juris_ of the school of Bologna had been so universally
+received, and so long established as a basis of practice, that the new
+discoveries remained in the domain of science, and served only for the
+theory of the law. For the same reason, the Ante-Justinian law is
+excluded from practice."
+
+After Justinian the old texts were left to moulder as useless though
+venerable, and they have nearly all disappeared. The Code, the Pandects,
+and the Institutes were declared to be the only legitimate authority,
+and alone were admitted to the tribunals or taught in the schools. The
+rescripts of the early emperors recognized too many popular rights to
+suit the despotic character of Justinian; and the older jurists, like
+the Scaevolas, Sulpicius, and Labeo, were distasteful from their
+sympathy with free institutions. Different opinions have been expressed
+by the jurisconsults as to the merits of the Justinian collection. By
+some it is regarded as a vast mass of legal lumber; by others, as a
+beautiful monument of human labor. After the lapse of so many centuries
+it is certain that a large portion of it is of no practical utility,
+since it is not applicable to modern wants. But again, no one doubts
+that it has exercised a great and good influence on moral and political
+science, and introduced many enlightened views concerning the
+administration of justice as well as the nature of civil government, and
+thus has modified the codes of the Teutonic nations that sprang up on
+the ruins of the old Roman world. It was used in the Greek empire until
+the fall of Constantinople. It never entirely lost authority in Italy,
+although it remained buried for centuries, till the discovery of the
+Florentine copy of the Pandects at the siege of Amalfi in 1135. Peter
+Valence, in the eleventh century, made use of it in a law-book which he
+published.
+
+With the rise of the Italian cities, the study of Roman law revived, and
+Bologna became the seat from which it spread over Europe. In the
+sixteenth century the science of theoretical law passed from Italy to
+France, under the auspices of Francis I., when Cujas, or Cujacius,
+became the great ornament of the school of Bourges and the greatest
+commentator on Roman law until Dumoulin appeared. Grotius, in Holland,
+excited the same interest in civil law that Dumoulin did in France,
+followed by eminent professors in Leyden and the German universities. It
+was reserved for Pothier, in the middle of the eighteenth century, to
+reduce the Roman law to systematic order,--one of the most gigantic
+tasks that ever taxed the industry of man. The recent discoveries,
+especially that made by Niebuhr of the long-lost work of Gaius, have
+given a great impulse to the study of Roman law in Germany; and to this
+impulse no one has contributed so greatly as Savigny of Berlin.
+
+The great importance of the subject demands a more minute notice of the
+principles of the Roman law than the limits of this work properly allow.
+I shall therefore endeavor to abridge what has been written by eminent
+authorities, taking as a basis the late work of Lord Mackenzie and the
+learned and interesting essay of Professor Maine.
+
+The Institutes of Justinian began with the law of persons, recognizing
+the distinction of ranks. All persons are capable of enjoying civil
+rights, but not all in the same degree. Greater privileges are allowed
+to men than to women, to freemen than to slaves, to fathers than
+to children.
+
+In the eye of the law all Roman citizens were equal wherever they lived,
+whether in the capital or the provinces. Citizenship embraced both
+political and civil rights. Political rights had reference to the right
+of voting in the comitia; but this was not considered the essence of
+citizenship, which was the enjoyment of the _connubium_, and
+_commercium_. By the former the citizen could contract a valid marriage
+and acquire the rights resulting from it, particularly the paternal
+power; by the latter he could acquire and dispose of property.
+Citizenship was acquired by birth and by manumission; it was lost when a
+Roman became a prisoner of war, or had been exiled for crime, or became
+a citizen of another State. An unsullied reputation was required by law
+for a citizen to exercise his rights to their full extent.
+
+The Roman jurists acknowledged all persons originally free by natural
+law; and while they recognized slavery, they ascribed the power of
+masters entirely to the law and custom of nations. Persons taken in war
+were considered at the absolute control of their captors, and were
+therefore, _de facto_, slaves; the children of a female slave followed
+the condition of their mother, and belonged to her master. But masters
+could manumit their slaves, who thus became Roman citizens with some
+restrictions. After the emancipation of a slave, he was bound to render
+certain services to his former master as patron, and if the freedman
+died intestate his property reverted to his patron.
+
+Marriage was contracted by the simple consent of the parties, though in
+early times equality of condition was required. The _lex Canuleia_,
+A.U.C. 309, authorized connubium between patricians and plebeians, and
+the _lex Julia_, A.U.C. 757, allowed it between freedmen and freeborn.
+By the _conventio in manum_, a wife passed out of her family into that
+of her husband, who acquired all her property; without it, the woman
+remained in the power of her father, and retained the free disposition
+of her property. Polygamy was not permitted; and relationship within
+certain degrees rendered the parties incapable of contracting marriage.
+(These rules as to forbidden degrees have been substantially adopted in
+England.) Celibacy was discouraged. Concubinage was allowed, if a man
+had not a wife, and provided the concubine was not the wife of another
+man; this heathenish custom was abrogated by Justinian. The wife was
+entitled to protection and support from her husband, and she retained
+her property independent of him. On her marriage the father gave his
+daughter a dowry in proportion to his means, the management of which,
+with its usufruct during marriage, belonged to the husband; but he could
+not alienate real estate without the wife's consent, and on the
+dissolution of marriage the _dos_ reverted to the wife. Divorce existed
+in all ages at Rome, and was very common at the beginning of the empire;
+to check its prevalence, laws were passed inflicting severe penalties on
+those whose bad conduct led to it. Every man, whether married or not,
+could adopt children under certain restrictions, and they passed
+entirely under paternal power. But the marriage relation among the
+Romans did not accord after all with those principles of justice which
+we see in other parts of their legislative code. The Roman husband, like
+the father, was a tyrant. The facility of divorce destroyed mutual
+confidence, and inflamed every trifling dispute; for a word or a
+message or a letter or the mandate of a freedman was quite sufficient to
+secure a separation. It was not until Christianity became the religion
+of the empire that divorce could not be easily effected without a just
+cause. This facility of divorce was a great stigma on the Roman laws,
+and the degradation of woman was the principal consequence. But woman
+never was honored in any Pagan land, although her condition at Rome was
+better than it was at Athens. She always was regarded as a possession
+rather than as a person; her virtue was mistrusted, and her aspirations
+were scorned; she was hampered and guarded more like a slave than the
+equal companion of man. But the progress of legislation, as a whole, was
+in her favor, and she continued to gain new privileges until the fall of
+the empire. The Roman Catholic Church regards marriage as one of the
+sacraments, and through all the Middle Ages and down to our own day the
+great authority of the Church has been one of the strongest supports of
+that institution, as necessary to Christianity as to civilization. We
+Americans have improved on the morality of Jesus, of the early and later
+Church, and of the great nations of modern Europe; and in many of our
+States persons are allowed to slip out of the marriage tie about as
+easily as they get into it.
+
+Nothing is more remarkable in the Roman laws than the extent of
+paternal power. It was unjust, and bears the image of a barbarous age.
+Moreover, it seems to have been coeval with the foundation of the city.
+A father could chastise his children by stripes, by imprisonment, by
+exile, by sending them to the country with chains on their feet. He was
+even armed with the power of life and death. "Neither age nor rank,"
+says Gibbon, "nor the consular office, could exempt the most illustrious
+citizen from the bonds of filial subjection. Without fear, though not
+without danger of abuse, the Roman legislators had reposed unbounded
+confidence in the sentiments of paternal love, and the oppression was
+tempered by the assurance that each generation must succeed in its turn
+to the awful dignity of parent and master." By an express law of the
+Twelve Tables a father could sell his children as slaves. But the abuse
+of paternal power was checked in the republic by the censors, and
+afterward by emperors. Alexander Severus limited the right of the father
+to simple correction, and Constantine declared the father who should
+kill his son to be guilty of murder. The rigor of parents in reference
+to the disposition of the property of children was also gradually
+relaxed. Under Augustus, the son could keep absolute possession of what
+he had acquired in war; under Constantine, he could retain any property
+acquired in the civil service, and all property inherited from the
+mother could also be retained. In later times, a father could not give
+his son or daughter to another by adoption without their consent. Thus
+this _patria potestas_ was gradually relaxed as civilization advanced,
+though it remained a peculiarity of Roman law to the latest times, and
+was severer than is ever seen in the modern world. Fathers were bound to
+maintain their children when they had no separate means to supply their
+wants, and children were also bound to maintain their parents if in
+want. These reciprocal duties, creditable to the Roman lawgivers, are
+recognized in the French Code, but not in the English, which also
+recognizes the right of a father to bequeath his whole estate to
+strangers,--a thing which Roman fathers had not power to do. The age
+when children attained majority among the Romans was twenty-five years.
+Women were condemned to the perpetual tutelage of parents, husbands, or
+guardians, as it was supposed they never could attain to the age of
+reason and experience. The relation of guardian and ward was strictly
+observed by the Romans. They made a distinction between the right to
+govern a person and the right to manage his estate, although the tutor
+or guardian could do both. If the pupil was an infant, the tutor could
+act without the intervention of the pupil; if the pupil was above seven
+years of age, he was considered to have an imperfect will. The youth
+ceased to be a pupil, if a boy, at fourteen; if a girl, at twelve. The
+tutor managed the estate of the pupil, but was liable for loss
+occasioned by bad management. He could sell movable property when
+expedient, but not real estate, without judicial authority. The tutor
+named by the father was preferred to all others.
+
+The Institutes of Justinian pass from persons to things, or the law
+relating to real rights; in other words, that which pertains to
+property. Some things common to all, like air, light, the ocean, and
+things sacred, like temples and churches, are not classed as property.
+
+Two things were required for the transfer of property, for it is the
+essence of property that the owner of a thing should have the right to
+transfer it,--first, the consent of the owner to transfer the thing upon
+some just ground; and secondly, the actual delivery of the thing to the
+person who is to acquire it. Movables were presumed to be the property
+of the possessors, until positive evidence was produced to the contrary.
+A prescriptive title to movables was acquired by possession for one
+year, and to immovables by possession for two years. Undisturbed
+possession for thirty years constituted in general a valid title.
+
+When a Roman died, his heirs succeeded to all his property by hereditary
+right. If he left no will, his estate devolved upon his relatives in a
+certain order prescribed by law. The power of making a testament only
+belonged to citizens above puberty. Children under the paternal power
+could not make a will. Males above fourteen and females above twelve,
+when not under power, could make wills without the authority of their
+guardian; but pupils, lunatics, prisoners of war, criminals, and various
+other persons were incapable of making a testament. The testator could
+divide his property among his heirs in such proportions as he saw fit;
+but if there was no distribution, all the heirs participated equally. A
+man could disinherit either of his children by declaring his intentions
+in his will, but only for grave reasons,--such as grievously injuring
+his person or character or feelings, or attempting his life. No will was
+effectual unless one or more persons were appointed heirs to represent
+the deceased. Wills were required to be signed by the testator, or some
+person for him, in the presence of seven witnesses who were Roman
+citizens. If a will was made by a parent for distributing his property
+solely among his children, no witnesses were required; and the ordinary
+formalities were dispensed with among soldiers in actual service, and
+during the prevalence of pestilence. The testament was opened in the
+presence of the witnesses, or a majority of them; and after they had
+acknowledged their seals a copy was made, and the original was deposited
+in the public archives.
+
+According to the Twelve Tables, the powers of a testator in disposing
+of his property were unlimited; but in process of time, laws were
+enacted to restrain immoderate or unnatural bequests. By the Falcidian
+law, in the time of Augustus, no one could leave in legacies more than
+three fourths of his estate, so that the heirs could inherit at least
+one fourth. Again, a law was passed by which the descendants were
+entitled to one third of the succession, and to one half if there were
+more than four. In France, if a man die leaving one lawful child, he can
+dispose of only half his estate by will; if he leaves two children, he
+can dispose only of one third; if he leaves three or more children, then
+he can dispose by will of only one fourth of his estate. In England, a
+man can disinherit both his wife and children. These, and many other
+matters,--bequests in trust, succession of men dying intestate, heirs at
+law, etc.,--were regulated by the Romans in ways on which our modern
+legislators have improved little or none.
+
+In the matter of contracts the Roman law was especially comprehensive,
+and the laws of France and Scotland are substantially based upon the
+Roman system. The Institutes of Gaius and Justinian distinguish four
+sorts of obligations,--_aut re, aut verbis, aut literis, aut consensu_.
+Gibbon, in his learned chapter, prefers to consider the specific
+obligations of men to each other under promises, benefits, and
+injuries. Lord Mackenzie treats the subject in the order of the
+Institutes:--
+
+"Obligations contracted _re_--by the intervention of _things_--are
+called by the moderns real contracts, because they are not perfected
+till something has passed from one party to another. Of this description
+are the contracts of loan, deposit, and pledge,--security for
+indebtedness. Till the subject is actually lent, deposited, or pledged,
+it does not form the special contract of loan, deposit, or pledge."
+
+Next to the perfection of contracts by _re_,--the intervention of
+things,--were obligations contracted by _verbis_, spoken _words_, and by
+_literis_, or writings. The _verborum obligatio_ was contracted by
+uttering certain words of formal style,--an interrogation being put by
+one party, and an answer given by the other. These stipulations were
+binding. In England all guarantees must be in writing.
+
+The _obligatio literis_ was a written acknowledgment of debt, chiefly
+employed when money was borrowed; but the creditor could not sue upon a
+note within two years from its date, without being called upon also to
+prove that the money was in fact paid to the debtor.
+
+Contracts perfected by consent, _consensu_, had reference to sale,
+hiring; partnership, and mandate, or orders to be carried out by agents.
+All contracts of sale were good without writing.
+
+Acts which caused damage to another opened a new class of cases. The
+law obliged the wrong-doer to make reparation, and this responsibility
+extended to damages arising not only from positive acts, but from
+negligence or imprudence. In cases of libel or slander, the truth of the
+allegation might be pleaded in justification. In all cases it was
+necessary to show that an injury had been committed maliciously; but if
+damage arose in the exercise of a right, as killing a slave in
+self-defence, no claim for reparation could be maintained. If any one
+exercised a profession or trade for which he was not qualified, he was
+liable to all the damage his want of skill or knowledge might
+occasion,--a provision that some of our modern laws might advantageously
+revive. When any damage was done by a slave or an animal, the owner of
+the same was liable for the loss, though the mischief was done without
+his knowledge and against his will. If anything was thrown from a window
+giving on the public thoroughfare so as to injure any one by the fall,
+the occupier was bound to repair the damage, though done by a stranger.
+Legal claims might be transferred to a third person by sale, exchange,
+or donation; but to prevent speculators from purchasing debts at low
+prices, it was ordered that the assignee should not be entitled to exact
+from the debtor more than he himself had paid to acquire the debt, with
+interest,--a wise and just regulation.
+
+By the ancient constitution, the king had the prerogative of
+determining civil causes. The right then devolved on the consuls,
+afterward on the praetor, and in certain cases on the curule and
+plebeian ediles, who were charged with the internal police of the city.
+
+The praetor, a magistrate next in dignity to the consuls, acted as
+supreme judge of the civil courts, assisted by a council of
+jurisconsults to determine questions in law. At first one praetor was
+sufficient, but as the limits of the city and empire extended, he was
+joined by a colleague. After the conquest of Sicily, Sardinia, and the
+two Spains, new praetors were appointed to administer justice in the
+provinces. The praetor held his court in the comitium, wore a robe
+bordered with purple, sat in a curule chair, and was attended
+by lictors.
+
+The praetor delegated his power to three classes of judges, called
+respectively _judex_, _arbiter_, and _recuperator_. When parties were at
+issue about facts, it was the custom for the praetor to fix the question
+of law upon which the action turned, and then to remit to a delegate, or
+judge, to inquire into the facts and pronounce judgment according to
+them. In the time of Augustus there were four thousand judices, who were
+merely private citizens, generally senators or men of consideration. The
+judex was invested by the magistrate with a judicial commission for a
+single case only. After being sworn to duty, he received from the
+praetor a formula containing a summary of all the points under
+litigation, from which he was not allowed to depart. He was required not
+merely to investigate facts, but to give sentence; and as law questions
+were more or less mixed up with the case, he was allowed to consult one
+or more jurisconsults. If the case was beyond his power to decide, he
+could decline to give judgment. The arbiter, like the judex, received a
+formula from the praetor, and seemed to have more extensive power. The
+recuperators heard and determined cases, but the number appointed for
+each case was usually three or five.
+
+The _centumvirs_ constituted a permanent tribunal composed of members
+annually elected, in equal numbers, from each tribe; and this tribunal
+was presided over by the praetor, and divided into four chambers, which
+under the republic was placed under the ancient quaestors. The
+centumvirs decided questions of property, embracing a wide range of
+subjects. The Romans had no class of men like the judges of modern
+times; the superior magistrates were changed annually, and political
+duties were mixed with judicial. The evil was partially remedied by the
+institution of legal assessors, selected from the most learned
+jurisconsults. Under the empire the praetors were greatly increased;
+under Tiberius there were sixteen who administered justice, besides the
+consuls, six ediles, and ten tribunes of the people. The Emperor himself
+became the supreme judge, and he was assisted in the discharge of his
+judicial duties by a council composed of the consuls, a magistrate of
+each grade, and fifteen senators. At first, the duties of the praetorian
+prefects were purely military, but finally they discharged important
+judicial functions. The prefect of the city, in the time of the
+emperors, was a great judicial personage, who heard appeals from the
+praetors themselves.
+
+In all cases brought before the courts, the burden of proof was with the
+party asserting an affirmative fact. Proof by writing was generally
+considered most certain, but proof by witnesses was also admitted.
+Pupils, lunatics, infamous persons, interested parties, near relatives,
+and slaves could not bear evidence, nor any person who had a strong
+enmity against either party. The witnesses were required to give their
+testimony on oath. In most cases two witnesses were enough to prove a
+fact. When witnesses gave conflicting testimony, the judge regarded
+those who were most worthy of credit rather than those who were most
+numerous. In the English courts the custom used to be as with the
+Romans, of refusing testimony from those who were interested; but this
+has been removed. On the failure of regular proof, the Roman law allowed
+a party to refer the facts in a civil action to the oath of his
+adversary.
+
+Under the Roman republic there was no appeal in civil suits, but under
+the emperors a regular system was established. Under Augustus there was
+an appeal from all the magistrates to the prefect of the city, and from
+him to the praetorian prefect or even to the Emperor. In the provinces
+there was an appeal from the municipal magistrates to the governors, and
+from them to the Emperor, as Paul appealed from Festus to Caesar. Under
+Justinian no appeal was allowed from a suit which did not involve at
+least twenty pounds in gold.
+
+In regard to criminal courts among the Romans during the republic, the
+only body which had absolute power of life and death was the _comitia
+centuriata_. The senate had no jurisdiction in criminal cases, so far as
+Roman citizens were concerned. It was only in extraordinary emergencies
+that the senate, with the consuls, assumed the responsibility of
+inflicting summary punishment. Under the emperors, the senate was armed
+with the power of criminal jurisdiction; and as the senate was the tool
+of the imperator, he could crush whomsoever he pleased.
+
+As it was inconvenient, when Rome had become a very great city, to
+convene the comitia for the trial of offenders, the expedient was
+adopted of delegating the jurisdiction of the people to persons invested
+with temporary authority, called _quaestors_. These were finally
+established into regular and permanent courts, called _quaestores
+perpetui_. Every case submitted to these courts was tried by a judge and
+jury. It was the duty of the judge to preside and regulate proceedings
+according to law; and it was the duty of the jury, after hearing the
+evidence and pleadings, to decide on the guilt or innocence of the
+accused. As many as fifty persons frequently composed the jury, whose
+names were drawn out of an urn. Each party had a right to challenge a
+certain number, and the verdict was decided by a majority of votes. At
+first the judices were chosen from the senate, and afterward from the
+equestrians, and then again from both orders. But in process of time the
+quaestores perpetui gave place to imperial magistrates. The accused
+defended himself in person or by counsel.
+
+The Romans divided _crimes_ into public and private. Private crimes
+could be prosecuted only by the party injured, and were generally
+punished by pecuniary fines, as among the old Germanic nations.
+
+Of public crimes the _crimen laesae majestatis_, or treason, was
+regarded as the greatest; and this was punished with death and with
+confiscation of goods, while the memory of the offender was declared
+infamous. Greater severity could scarcely be visited on a culprit.
+Treason comprehended conspiracy against the government, assisting the
+enemies of Rome, and misconduct in the command of armies. Thus Manlius,
+in spite of his magnificent services, was hurled from the Tarpeian
+Rock, because he was convicted of an intention to seize upon the
+government. Under the empire not only any attempt on the life of the
+Emperor was treason, but disrespectful words or acts. The criminal was
+even tried after death, that his memory might become infamous; and this
+barbarous practice was perpetuated in France and Scotland as late as the
+beginning of the seventeenth century. In England men have been executed
+for treasonable words. Besides treason there were other crimes against
+the State, such as a breach of the peace, extortion on the part of
+provincial governors, embezzlement of public property, stealing sacred
+things, bribery,--most of which offences were punished by pecuniary
+penalties.
+
+But there were also crimes against individuals, which were punished with
+the death penalty. Wilful murder, poisoning, and parricide were
+capitally punished. Adultery was punished by banishment, besides a
+forfeiture of considerable property; Constantine made it a capital
+offence. Rape was punished with death and confiscation of goods, as in
+England till a late period, when transportation for life became the
+penalty. The punishments inflicted for forgery, coining base money, and
+perjury were arbitrary. Robbery, theft, patrimonial damage, and injury
+to person and property were private trespasses, and not punished by the
+State. After a lapse of twenty years without accusation, crimes were
+supposed to be extinguished. The Cornelian, Pompeian, and Julian laws
+formed the foundation of criminal jurisprudence. This however never
+attained the perfection that was seen in the Civil Code, in which the
+full maturity of Roman wisdom was reached. The emperors greatly
+increased the severity of punishments, as was probably necessary in a
+corrupt state of society. After the decemviral laws fell into disuse,
+the Romans in the days of the republic passed from extreme rigor to
+great lenity, as is observable in the transition from the Puritan regime
+to our own times in the United States. Capital punishment for several
+centuries was exceedingly rare, and was frequently prevented by
+voluntary exile. Under the empire, again, public executions were
+frequent and revolting.
+
+Fines were a common mode of punishment with the Romans, as with the
+early Germans. Imprisonment in a public jail was rare, the custom of
+bail being in general use. Although retaliation was authorized by the
+Twelve Tables for bodily injuries, it was seldom exacted, since
+pecuniary compensation was taken in lieu. Corporal punishments were
+inflicted upon slaves, but rarely upon citizens, except for military
+crimes; but Roman citizens could be sold into slavery for various
+offences, chiefly military, and criminals were often condemned to labor
+in the mines or upon public works. Banishment was common,--_aquae et
+ignis interdictio_; and this was equivalent to the deprivation of the
+necessities of life and incapacitating a person from exercising the
+rights of citizenship. Under the emperors persons were confined often on
+the rocky islands off the coast, or in a compulsory residence in a
+particular place assigned. Thus Chrysostom was sent to a dreary place on
+the banks of the Euxine, and Ovid was banished to Tomi. Death, when
+inflicted, was by hanging, scourging, and beheading; also by strangling
+in prison. Slaves were often crucified, and were compelled to carry
+their cross to the place of execution. This was the most ignominious and
+lingering of all deaths; it was abolished by Constantine, from reverence
+to the sacred symbol. Under the emperors, execution took place also by
+burning alive and exposure to wild beasts; it was thus the early
+Christians were tormented, since their offence was associated with
+treason. Persons of distinction were treated with more favor than the
+lower classes, and their punishments were less cruel and ignominious;
+thus Seneca, condemned for privity to treason, was allowed to choose his
+mode of death. The criminal laws of modern European States followed too
+often the barbarous custom of the Roman emperors until a recent date.
+Since the French Revolution the severity of the penal codes has been
+much modified.
+
+The penal statutes of Rome however, as Gibbon emphatically remarks,
+"formed a very small portion of the Code and the Pandects; and in all
+judicial proceedings the life or death of the citizen was determined
+with less caution and delay than the most ordinary question of covenant
+or inheritance." This was owing to the complicated relations of society,
+by which obligations are created or annulled, while duties to the State
+are explicit and well known, being inscribed not only on tables of
+brass, but on the conscience itself. It was natural, with the growth and
+development of commerce and dominion, that questions should arise which
+could not be ordinarily settled by ancient customs, and the practice of
+lawyers and the decisions of judges continually raised new difficulties,
+to be met only by new edicts. It is a pleasing fact to record, that
+jurisprudence became more just and enlightened as it became more
+intricate. The principles of equity were more regarded under the
+emperors than in the time of Cato. It is in the application of these
+principles that the laws of the Romans have obtained so high
+consideration; their abuse consisted in the expense of litigation, and
+the advantages which the rich thus obtained over the poor.
+
+But if delays and forms led to an expensive and vexatious administration
+of justice, these were more than compensated by the checks which a
+complicated jurisprudence gave to hasty or partial decisions. It was in
+the minuteness and precision of the forms of law, and in the foresight
+with which questions were anticipated in the various transactions of
+business, that the Romans in their civil and social relations were very
+much on a level with modern times. It would be difficult to find in the
+most enlightened of modern codes greater wisdom and foresight than
+appear in the legacy of Justinian as to all questions pertaining to the
+nature, the acquisition, the possession, the use, and the transfer of
+property. Civil obligations are most admirably defined, and all
+contracts are determined by the wisest application of the natural
+principles of justice. Nothing can be more enlightened than the laws
+which relate to leases, to sales, to partnerships, to damages, to
+pledges, to hiring of work, and to quasi-contracts. The laws pertaining
+to the succession to property, to the duties of guardians, to the rights
+of wards, to legacies, to bequests in trust, and to the general
+limitation of testamentary powers were singularly clear. The regulations
+in reference to intestate succession, and to the division of property
+among males and females, were wise and just; we find no laws of entail,
+no unequal rights, no absurd distinction between brothers, no peculiar
+privileges given to males over females, or to older sons. Particularly
+was everything pertaining to property and contracts and wills guarded
+with the most jealous care. A man was sure of possessing his own, and of
+transmitting it to his children. In the Institutes of Justinian we see
+on every page a regard to the principles of natural justice: but
+moreover we find that malicious witnesses should be punished; that
+corrupt judges should be visited with severe penalties; that libels and
+satires should subject their authors to severe chastisement; that every
+culprit should be considered innocent until his guilt was proved.
+
+No infringement on personal rights could be tolerated. A citizen was
+free to go where he pleased, to do whatsoever he would, if he did not
+trespass on the rights of another; to seek his pleasure unobstructed,
+and pursue his business without vexatious incumbrances. If he was
+injured or cheated, he was sure of redress; nor could he be easily
+defrauded with the sanction of the laws. A rigorous police guarded his
+person, his house, and his property; he was supreme and uncontrolled
+within his family. This security to property and life and personal
+rights was guaranteed by the greatest tyrants. Although political
+liberty was dead, the fullest personal liberty was enjoyed under the
+emperors, and it was under their sanction that jurisprudence in some of
+the most important departments of life reached perfection. If injustice
+was suffered it was not on account of the laws, but owing to the
+depravity of men, the venality of the rich, and the tricks of lawyers;
+the laws were wise and equal. The civil jurisprudence of the Romans
+could be copied with safety by the most enlightened of European States;
+indeed, it is already the foundation of their civil codes, especially in
+France and Germany.
+
+That there were some features in the Roman laws which we in these
+Christian times cannot indorse, and which we reprehend, cannot be
+denied. Under the republic there was not sufficient limit to paternal
+power, and the _pater familias_ was necessarily a tyrant. It was unjust
+that the father should control the property of his son, and cruel that
+he was allowed an absolute control not only over his children, but also
+his wife. Yet the limits of paternal power were more and more curtailed,
+so that under the later emperors fathers were not allowed to have more
+authority than was perhaps expedient.
+
+The recognition of slavery as a domestic institution was another blot,
+and slaves could be treated with the grossest cruelty and injustice
+without possibility of redress. But here the Romans were not sinners
+beyond all other nations, and our modern times have witnessed a
+parallel. It was not the existence of slavery, however, which was the
+greatest evil, but the facility by which slaves could be made. The laws
+pertaining to debt were severe, and were most disgraceful in dooming a
+debtor to the absolute power of a creditor. To subject men of the same
+race to slavery for trifling debts which they could not discharge, was
+the great defect of the Roman laws. But even these cruel regulations
+were modified, so that in the corrupt times of the empire there was no
+greater practical severity than was common in England as late as one
+hundred years ago. The temptations to fraud were enormous in a wicked
+state of society, and demanded a severe remedy. It is possible that our
+modern laws may show too great leniency to debtors who are not merely
+unfortunate, but dishonest. The problem is not yet solved, whether men
+should be severely handled who are guilty of reckless and unprincipled
+speculations and unscrupulous dealings, or whether they should be
+allowed immunity to prosecute their dangerous and disgraceful courses.
+
+Moreover, the penal code of the Romans in reference to breaches of trust
+or carelessness or ignorance, by which property was lost or squandered,
+may have been too severe, as is still the case in England in reference
+to hunting game on another's grounds. It was hard to doom a man to death
+who drove away his neighbor's cattle, or even entered in the night his
+neighbor's house; but severe penalties alone will keep men from crimes
+where there is a low state of virtue and religion, and general
+prosperity and contentment become impossible where there is no efficient
+protection to property. Society was never more secure and happy in
+England than when vagabonds could be arrested, and when petty larcenies
+were visited with certain retribution. Every traveller in France and
+England feels that in regard to the punishment of crime, those older
+countries, restricted as are their political privileges, are in most
+questions of secure and comfortable living vastly superior to our own.
+The Romans lost under the emperors their political rights, but gained
+protection and safety in their relations with society. Where quiet and
+industrious citizens feel safe in their homes, are protected from
+scoundrels in their dealings, have ample scope for industrial
+enterprise, and are free to choose their private pleasures, they resign
+themselves to the loss of electing their rulers without great
+unhappiness. There are greater evils in the world than the deprivation
+of the elective franchise, lofty and glorious as is this privilege. The
+arbitrary rule of the emperors was fatal to political aspirations and
+rights and the growth of a genuine manhood; yet it is but fair to note
+that the evils of political slavery were qualified and set off by the
+excellence of the civil code and the privileges of social freedom.
+
+The great practical evil connected with Roman jurisprudence was the
+intricacy and perplexity and uncertainty of the laws, together with the
+expense involved in litigation. The class of lawyers was large, and
+their gains were extortionate. Justice was not always to be found on the
+side of right. The law was uncertain as well as costly. The most learned
+counsel could be employed only by the rich, and even judges were venal,
+so that the poor did not easily find adequate redress. But all this is
+the necessary attendant on a factitious state of society, and by many is
+regarded as being quite as characteristic of modern, civilized Christian
+England and America as it was of Pagan Rome. Material civilization leads
+to an undue estimate of money; and when money purchases all that
+artificial people desire, then all classes will prostitute themselves
+for its possession, and justice, dignity, and elevation of sentiment
+will be forced to retreat,--as hermits sought a solitude when society
+had reached its lowest degradation, out of pure despair of its
+renovation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+The authorities for this chapter are very numerous. Since the Institutes
+of Gaius have been recovered, many eminent writers on Roman law have
+appeared, especially in Germany and France. Many might be cited, but for
+all ordinary purposes of historical study the work of Lord Mackenzie on
+Roman Law, together with the articles of George Long in Smith's
+Dictionary, will be found most useful. Maine's Treatise on Ancient Law
+is exceedingly interesting and valuable. Gibbon's famous chapter should
+also be read by every student. There is a fine translation of the
+Institutes of Justinian, which is quite accessible, by Dr. Harris of
+Oxford. The Code, Pandects, Institutes, and Novels are of course the
+original authority, with the long-lost Institutes of Gaius.
+
+In connection with the study of the Roman law, it would be well to read
+Sir George Bowyer's Commentaries on the Modern Civil Law. Also Irving,
+Introduction to the Study of the Civil Law; Lindley, Introduction to the
+Study of Jurisprudence; Wheaton's Elements of International Law; and
+Vattel, Le Droit des Gens.
+
+
+
+
+THE FINE ARTS.
+
+
+ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, PAINTING.
+
+500-430 B.C.
+
+
+My object in the present lecture is not a criticism of the principles
+of art so much as an enumeration of its various forms among the
+ancients, to show that in this department of civilization they reached
+remarkable perfection, and were not inferior to modern Christian nations.
+
+The first development of art among all the nations of antiquity was in
+architecture. The earliest buildings erected were houses to protect
+people from heat, cold, and the fury of the elements of Nature. At that
+remote period much more attention was given to convenience and practical
+utility than to beauty or architectural effect. The earliest houses were
+built of wood, and stone was not employed until temples and palaces
+arose. Ordinary houses were probably not much better than log-huts and
+hovels, until wealth was accumulated by private persons.
+
+The earliest monuments of enduring magnificence were the temples of
+powerful priests and the palaces of kings; and in Egypt and Assyria
+these appear earliest, as well as most other works showing civilization.
+Perhaps the first great monument which arose after the deluge of Noah
+was the Tower of Babel, built probably of brick. It was intended to be
+very lofty, but of its actual height we know nothing, nor of its style
+of architecture. Indeed, we do not know that it was ever advanced beyond
+its foundations; yet there are some grounds for supposing that it was
+ultimately finished, and became the principal temple of the Chaldaean
+metropolis.
+
+From the ruins of ancient monuments we conclude that architecture
+received its earliest development in Egypt, and that its effects were
+imposing, massive, and grand. It was chiefly directed to the erection of
+palaces and temples, the ruins of which attest grandeur and vastness.
+They were built of stone, in blocks so huge and heavy that even modern
+engineers are at loss to comprehend how they could have been transported
+and erected. All the monuments of the Pharaohs are wonders, especially
+such as appear in the ruins of Karnak,--a temple formerly designated as
+that of Jupiter Ammon. It was in the time of Sesostris, or Rameses the
+Great, the first of the Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty, that
+architecture in Egypt reached its greatest development. Then we find the
+rectangular-cut blocks of stone in parallel courses, the heavy pier, the
+cylindrical column with its bell-shaped capital, and the bold and
+massive rectangular architraves extending from pier to pier and column
+to column, surmounted by a deep covered coping or cornice.
+
+The imposing architecture of Egypt was chiefly owing to the impressive
+vastness of the public buildings. It was not produced by beauty of
+proportion or graceful embellishments; it was designed to awe the
+people, and kindle sentiments of wonder and astonishment. So far as this
+end was contemplated it was nobly reached; even to this day the
+traveller stands in admiring amazement before those monuments that were
+old three thousand years ago. No structures have been so enduring as the
+Pyramids; no ruins are more extensive and majestic than those of Thebes.
+The temple of Karnak and the palace of Rameses the Great were probably
+the most imposing ever built by man. This temple was built of blocks of
+stone seventy feet in length, on a platform one thousand feet long and
+three hundred wide, with pillars sixty feet in height. But this and
+other structures did not possess that unity of design which marked the
+Grecian temples. Alleys of colossal sphinxes formed the approach. At
+Karnak the alley was six thousand feet long, and before the main body
+of the edifice stood two obelisks commemorative of the dedication. The
+principal structures of Egyptian temples do not follow the straight
+line, but begin with pyramidal towers which flank the gateways; then
+follow, usually, a court surrounded with colonnades, subordinate
+temples, and houses for the priests. A second pylon, or pyramidal tower,
+leads to the interior and most considerable part of the temple,--a
+portico inclosed with walls, which receives light only through the
+entablature or openings in the roof. Adjoining this is the cella of the
+temple, without columns, enclosed by several walls, often divided into
+various small chambers with monolithic receptacles for idols or mummies
+or animals. The columns stand within the walls. The colonnade is not, as
+among the Greeks, an expansion of the temple; it is merely the wall with
+apertures. The walls, composed of square blocks, are perpendicular only
+on the inside, and bevelled externally, so that the thickness at the
+bottom sometimes amounts to twenty-four feet; thus the whole building
+assumes a pyramidal form, the fundamental principle of Egyptian
+architecture. The columns are more slender than the early Doric, are
+placed close together, and have bases of circular plinths; the shaft
+diminishes upward, and is ornamented with perpendicular or oblique
+furrows, but not fluted like Grecian columns. The capitals are of the
+bell form, ornamented with all kinds of foliage, and have a narrow but
+high abacus. They abound with sculptured decorations, the designs of
+which were borrowed from the vegetation of the country. The highest of
+the columns of the temple of Luxor is five and a quarter times the
+greatest diameter.
+
+But no monuments have ever excited so much curiosity and wonder as the
+Pyramids, not in consequence of any particular beauty or ingenuity in
+their construction, but because of their immense size and unknown age.
+None but sacerdotal monarchs would ever have erected them; none but a
+fanatical people would ever have toiled upon them. We do not know for
+what purpose they were raised, unless as sepulchres for kings. They are
+supposed to have been built at a remote antiquity, between two thousand
+and three thousand years before Christ. Lepsius thought that the oldest
+of these Pyramids were built more than three thousand years before
+Christ. The Pyramid of Cheops, at Memphis, covers a square whose side is
+seven hundred and sixty-eight feet, and rises into the air nearly five
+hundred feet. It is a solid mass of stone, which has suffered less from
+time than the mountains near it. Possibly it stands over an immense
+substructure, in which may yet be found the lore of ancient Egypt; it
+may even prove to be the famous labyrinth of which Herodotus speaks,
+built by the twelve kings of Egypt. According to this author, one
+hundred thousand men worked on this monument for forty years.
+
+The palaces of the kings are mere imitations of the temples, their only
+difference of architecture being that their rooms are larger and in
+greater numbers. Some think that the famous labyrinth was a collective
+palace of many rulers.
+
+Of Babylonian architecture we know little beyond what the Hebrew
+Scriptures and ancient authors tell us. But though nothing survives of
+ancient magnificence, we know that a city whose walls, according to
+Herodotus, were eighty-seven feet in thickness, three hundred and
+thirty-seven in height, and sixty miles in circumference, and in which
+were one hundred gates of brass, must have had considerable
+architectural splendor. This account of Babylon, however, is probably
+exaggerated, especially as to the height of the walls. The tower of
+Belus, the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Obelisk of Semiramis were
+probably wonderful structures, certainly in size, which is one of the
+conditions of architectural effect.
+
+The Tyrians must have carried architecture to considerable perfection,
+since the Temple of Solomon, one of the most magnificent in the ancient
+world, was probably built by artists from Tyre. It was not remarkable
+for size,--it was, indeed, very small,--but it had great splendor of
+decoration. It was of quadrangular outline, erected upon a solid
+platform of stone, and bearing a striking resemblance to the oldest
+Greek temples, like those of Aegina and Paestum. The portico of the
+Temple as rebuilt by Herod was one hundred and eighty feet high, and the
+Temple itself was entered by nine gates, thickly coated with silver and
+gold. The inner sanctuary was covered on all sides with plates of gold,
+and was dazzling to the eye. The various courts and porticos and palaces
+with which it was surrounded gave to it a very imposing effect.
+
+Architectural art in India was not so impressive and grand as in Egypt,
+and was directed chiefly to the erection of temples. Nor is it of very
+ancient date. There is no stone architecture now remaining in India,
+according to Sir James Fergusson, older than two and a half centuries
+before Christ; and this is in the form of Buddhist temples, generally
+traced to the great Asoka, who reigned from 272 B.C. to 236 B.C., and
+who established Buddhism as a state religion. There were doubtless
+magnificent buildings before his time, but they were of wood, and have
+all perished. We know, however, nothing about them.
+
+The Buddhist temples were generally excavated out of the solid rock, and
+only the facades were ornamented. These were not larger than ordinary
+modern parochial churches, and do not give the impression of
+extraordinary magnificence. Besides these rock-hewn temples in India
+there remain many examples of a kind of memorial monument called
+_stupas_, or _topes_. The earliest of these are single columns; but the
+later and more numerous are in the shape of cones or circular mounds,
+resembling domes, rarely exceeding one hundred feet in diameter. Around
+the apex of each was a balustrade, or some ornamental work, about six
+feet in diameter. These topes remind one of the Pantheon at Rome in
+general form, but were of much smaller size. They were built on a stone
+basement less than fifty feet in height, above which was the brickwork.
+In process of time they came to resemble pyramidal towers rather than
+rounded domes, and were profusely ornamented with carvings. The great
+peculiarity of all Indian architectural monuments is excessive
+ornamentation rather than beauty of proportion or grand effect.
+
+In course of time, however, Indian temples became more and more
+magnificent; and a Chinese traveller in the year 400 A.D. describes one
+in Gaudhava as four hundred and seventy feet high, decorated with every
+sort of precious substance. Its dome, as it appears in a bas-relief,
+must have rivalled that of St. Peter's at Rome; but no trace of it now
+remains. The topes of India, which were numerous, indicate that the
+Hindus were acquainted with the arch, both pointed and circular, which
+was not known to the Egyptians or the Greeks. The most important of
+these buildings, in which are preserved valuable relics, are found in
+the Punjab. They were erected about twenty years before Christ. In size,
+they are about one hundred and twenty-seven feet in diameter. Connected
+with the circular topes are found what are called _rails_, surrounding
+the topes, built in the form of rectangles, with heavy pillars. One of
+the most interesting of these was found to be two hundred and
+seventy-five feet long, having square pillars twenty-two feet in height,
+profusely carved with scenes from the life of Buddha, topped by capitals
+in the shape of elephants supporting a succession of horizontal stone
+beams, all decorated with a richness of carving unknown in any other
+country. The Amravati rail, one of the finest of the ancient monuments
+of India, is found to be one hundred and ninety-five by one hundred and
+sixty-five feet, having octagonal pillars ornamented with the most
+elaborate carvings.
+
+From an architectural point of view, the rails were surpassed by the
+_chaityas_, or temple-caves, in western India. These were cut in the
+solid rock. Some one thousand different specimens are to be found. The
+facades of these caves are perfect, generally in the form of an arch,
+executed in the rock with every variety of detail, and therefore
+imperishable without violence. The process of excavation extended
+through ten centuries from the time of Asoka; and the interiors as well
+as the facades were highly ornamented with sculptures. The temple-caves
+are seldom more than one hundred and fifty feet deep and fifty feet in
+width, and the roofs are supported by pillars like the interior of
+Gothic cathedrals, some of which are of beautiful proportions with
+elaborated capitals. Though these rock-hewn temples are no larger than
+ordinary Christian churches, they are very impressive from the richly
+decorated carvings; they were lighted from a single opening in the
+facade, sometimes in the shape of a horseshoe.
+
+Besides these chaityas, or temples, there are still more numerous
+_viharas_, or monasteries, found in India, of different dates, but none
+older than the third century before Christ. They show a central hall,
+surrounded on three sides by cells for the monks. On the fourth side is
+an open verandah; facing this is generally a shrine with an image of
+Buddha. These edifices are not imposing unless surrounded by galleries,
+as some were, supported by highly decorated pillars. The halls are
+constructed in several stories with heavy masonry, in the shape of
+pyramids adorned with the figures of men and animals. One of these halls
+in southern India had fifteen hundred cells. The most celebrated was
+the Nalanda monastery, founded in the first century by Nagarjuna, which
+accommodated ten thousand priests, and was enclosed by a wall measuring
+sixteen hundred feet by four hundred. It was to Central India what Mount
+Casino was to Italy, and Cluny was to France, in the Middle Ages,--the
+seat of learning and art.
+
+It was not until the Mohammedan conquest in India that architecture
+received a new impulse from the Saracenic influence. Then arose the
+mosques, minarets, and palaces which are a wonder for their
+magnificence, and in which are seen the influence of Greek art as well
+as that of India. There is an Oriental splendor in these palaces and
+mosques which has called out the admiration of critics, although it is
+different from those types of beauty which we are accustomed to praise.
+But these later edifices were erected in the Middle Ages, coeval with
+the cathedrals of Europe, and therefore do not properly come under the
+head of ancient art, in which the ancient Hindus, whether of Aryan or
+Turanian descent, did not particularly excel. It was in matters of
+religion and philosophy that the Hindus felt most interest, even as the
+ancient Jews thought more of theology than of art and science.
+
+Architecture, however, as the expression of genius and high
+civilization, was carried to perfection only by the Greeks, who excelled
+in so many things. It was among the ancient Dorians, who descended from
+the mountains of northern Greece eighty years after the fall of Troy,
+that architectural art worthy of the name first appeared. The Pelasgi
+erected Cyclopean structures fifteen hundred years before Christ, as
+seen in the massive walls of the Acropolis at Athens, constructed of
+huge blocks of hewn stone, and in the palaces of the princes of the
+heroic times. The lintel of the doorway of the Mycenaean treasury is
+composed of a single stone twenty-seven feet long and sixteen broad. But
+these edifices, which aimed at splendor and richness merely, were
+deficient in that simplicity and harmony which have given immortality to
+the temples of the Dorians. In this style of architecture everything was
+suitable to its object, and was grand and noble. The great thickness of
+the columns, the beautiful entablature, the ample proportion of the
+capital, the great horizontal lines of the architrave and cornice
+predominating over the vertical lines of the columns, the severity of
+geometrical forms produced for the most part by straight lines, gave an
+imposing simplicity to the Doric temple.
+
+How far the Greek architects were indebted to the Egyptian we cannot
+tell, for though columns are found amid the ruins of the Egyptian
+temples, they are of different shape from any made by the Greeks. In the
+structures of Thebes we find both the tumescent and the cylindrical
+columns, from which amalgamation might have been produced the Doric
+column. The Greeks seized on beauty wherever they found it, and improved
+upon it. The Doric column was not probably an entirely new creation, but
+shaped after models furnished by the most original of all the ancient
+nations, even the Egyptians. The Doric temples were uniform in plan. The
+columns were fluted, and were generally about six diameters in height;
+they diminished gradually upward from the base, with a slightly con
+vexed swelling; they were surmounted by capitals regularly proportioned
+according to their height. The entablature which the column supported
+was also of a certain number of diameters in height. So regular and
+perfect was the plan of the temple, that "if the dimensions of a single
+column and the proportion the entablature should bear to it were given
+to two individuals acquainted with the style, with directions to compose
+a temple, they would produce designs exactly similar in size,
+arrangement, and general proportions." The Doric order possessed a
+peculiar harmony, but taste and skill were nevertheless necessary in
+order to determine the number of diameters a column should have, and
+also the height of the entablature.
+
+The Doric was the favorite order of European Greece for one thousand
+years, and also of her colonies in Sicily and Magna Graecia. It was
+used exclusively until after the Macedonian conquest, and was chiefly
+applied to temples. The massive temples of Paestum, the colossal
+magnificence of the Sicilian ruins, and the more elegant proportions of
+the Athenian structures, like the Parthenon and Temple of Theseus, show
+the perfection of the Doric architecture. Although the general style of
+all the Doric temples is so uniform, hardly two temples were alike. The
+earlier Doric was more massive; the later was more elegant, and its
+edifices were rich in sculptured decorations. Nothing could surpass the
+beauty of a Doric temple in the time of Pericles. The stylobate, or
+general base upon which the columnar story stood, from two thirds to a
+whole diameter of a column in height, was built in three equal courses,
+which gradually receded upward and formed steps, as it were, of a grand
+platform. The column, simply set upon the stylobate, without base or
+pedestal, was from four to six diameters in height, with twenty flutes,
+having a capital of half a diameter. On this rested the entablature, two
+column-diameters in height, which was divided into architrave (lower
+mouldings), frieze (broad middle space), and cornice (upper mouldings).
+The great beauty of the temple was the portico in front,--a forest of
+columns supporting the triangular pediment, about a diameter and a half
+to the apex, making an angle at the base of about fourteen degrees.
+From the pediment projects the cornice, while in the apex and at the
+base of the flat three-cornered gable are sculptured ornaments,
+generally the figures of men or animals. The whole outline of columns
+supporting the entablature is graceful, while the variety of light and
+shade arising from the arrangement of mouldings and capitals produces a
+grand effect.
+
+The Parthenon, the most beautiful specimen of the Doric, has never been
+equalled, and it still stands august in its ruins, the glory of the old
+Acropolis and the pride of Athens. It was built of white Pentelic
+marble, and rested on a basement of limestone. It was two hundred and
+twenty-seven feet in length, one hundred and one in breadth, and
+sixty-five in height, surrounded with forty-eight fluted columns, six
+feet and two inches at the base and thirty-four feet in height, while
+within the peristyle, at either end, was an interior range of columns
+standing before the end of the cella. The frieze and the pediment were
+elaborately ornamented with reliefs and statues, and the cella, within
+and without, was adorned with the choicest sculptures of Phidias, The
+remains of the exquisite sculptures of the pediment and the frieze were
+in the early part of this century brought from Greece by Lord Elgin,
+purchased by the English government, and placed in the British Museum,
+where, preserved from further dilapidation, they stand as indisputable
+evidence of the perfection of Greek art. The grandest adornment of the
+temple was the colossal statue of Minerva in the eastern apartment of
+the cella, forty feet in height, composed of gold and ivory; the inner
+walls of the chamber were decorated with paintings, and the whole temple
+was a repository of countless treasure. But the Parthenon, so regular to
+the eye with its vertical, oblique, and horizontal lines, was curved in
+every line, with the exception of the gable,--with its entablature,
+architrave, frieze, and cornice, together with the basement, all arched
+upwards; and even the columns had a slight convexity of vertical line,
+amounting to 1/550 of the entire height of shaft, though so slightly as
+not to be perceptible. These curved lines gave to the structure a
+peculiar grace which cannot be imitated, as well as an effect
+of solidity.
+
+Nearly coeval with the Doric was the Ionic order, invented by the
+Asiatic Greeks, still more graceful, though not so imposing. The
+Acropolis is a perfect example of this order. The column is nine
+diameters in height, with a base, while the capital is more ornamented
+than the Doric. The shaft is fluted with twenty-four flutes and
+alternate fillets (flat longitudinal ridges), and the fillet is about a
+quarter the width of the flute. The pediment is flatter than that of
+the Doric order, and more elaborate. The great distinction of the Ionic
+column is a base, and a capital formed with volutes (spiral scrolls),
+the shaft also being more slender. Vitruvius, the greatest authority
+among the ancients in architecture, says that "the Greeks, in inventing
+these two kinds of columns, imitated in the one the naked simplicity and
+dignity of man, and in the other the delicacy and ornaments of woman;
+the base of the Ionic was the imitation of sandals, and the volutes of
+ringlets." The discoveries of many of the Ionic ornamentations among the
+remains of Assyrian architecture indicate the Oriental source of the
+Ionic ideas, just as the Doric style seems to have originated in Egypt.
+The artistic Greeks, however, always simplified and refined upon
+their masters.
+
+The Corinthian order exhibits a still greater refinement and elegance
+than the other two, and was introduced toward the end of the
+Peloponnesian War. Its peculiarity consists in columns with foliated
+capitals modelled after the acanthus leaf, and still greater height,
+about ten diameters, surmounted with a more ornamented entablature. Of
+this order the most famous temple in Greece was that of Minerva at
+Tegea, built by Scopas of Paros, but destroyed by fire four hundred
+years before Christ.
+
+Nothing more distinguished Greek architecture than the variety, the
+grace, and the beauty of the mouldings, generally in eccentric curves.
+The general outline of the moulding is a gracefully flowing cyma, or
+wave, concave at one end and convex at the other, like an Italic _f_,
+the concavity and convexity being exactly in the same curve, according
+to the line of beauty which Hogarth describes.
+
+The most beautiful application of Greek architecture was in the temples,
+which were very numerous and of extraordinary grandeur, long before the
+Persian War. Their entrance was always from the west or the east. They
+were built either in an oblong or round form, and were mostly adorned
+with columns. Those of an oblong form had columns either in the front
+alone, or in the eastern and western fronts, or on all the four sides.
+They generally had porticos attached to them, and were without windows,
+receiving their light from the door or from above. The friezes were
+adorned with various sculptures, as were sometimes the pediments, and no
+expense was spared upon them. The most important part of the temple was
+the cell (_cella,_ or temple proper, a square chamber), in which the
+statue of the deity was kept, generally surrounded with a balustrade. In
+front of the cella was the vestibule, and in the rear or back a chamber
+in which the treasures of the temple were kept. Names were applied to
+the temples as well as to the porticos, according to the number of
+columns in the portico at either end of the temple,--such as the
+tetrastyle (four columns in front), or hexastyle (when there were six).
+There were never more than ten columns across the front. The Parthenon
+had eight, but six was the usual number. It was the rule to have twice
+as many columns along the sides as in front. Some of the temples had
+double rows of columns on all sides, like that of Diana at Ephesus and
+of Quirinus at Rome. The distance between the columns varied from one
+diameter and a half to four diameters. About five eighths of a Doric
+temple were occupied by the cella, and three eighths by the portico.
+
+That which gives to the Greek temples so much simplicity and
+harmony,--the great elements of beauty in architecture,--is the simple
+outline in parallelogrammic and pyramidal forms, in which the lines are
+uninterrupted through their entire length. This simplicity and harmony
+are more apparent in the Doric than in any of the other orders, but
+pertain to all the Grecian temples of which we have knowledge. The Ionic
+and Corinthian, or the voluted and foliated orders, do not possess that
+severe harmony which pervades the Doric; but the more beautiful
+compositions are so consummate that they will ever be taken as models
+of study.
+
+There is now no doubt that the exteriors of the Grecian temples were
+ornamented in color,--perhaps with historical pictures, etc.,--although
+as the traces have mostly disappeared it is impossible to know the
+extent or mode of decoration. It has been thought that the mouldings
+also may have been gilded or colored, and that the background of the
+sculptures had some flat color laid on as a relief to the raised
+figures. We may be sure, however it was done, that the effect was not
+gaudy or crude, but restrained within the limits of refinement and good
+taste by the infallible artistic instinct of those masters of the
+beautiful.
+
+It is not the magnitude of the Greek temples and other works of art
+which most impresses us. It is not for this that they are important
+models; it is not for this that they are copied and reproduced in all
+the modern nations of Europe. They were generally small compared with
+the temples of Egypt, and with the vast dimensions of Roman
+amphitheatres; only three or four would compare in size with a Gothic
+cathedral,--the Parthenon, the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens, and
+the Temple of Diana at Ephesus; even the Pantheon at Rome is small,
+compared with the later monuments of the Caesars. The traveller is
+always disappointed in contemplating the ruins of Greek buildings so far
+as size is concerned. But it is their matchless proportions, their
+severe symmetry, the grandeur of effect, the undying beauty, the
+graceful form which impress us, and make us feel that they are perfect.
+By the side of the Colosseum they are insignificant in magnitude; they
+do not cover acres, like the baths of Caracalla. Yet who has copied the
+Flavian amphitheatre; who erects an edifice after the style of the
+Thermae? All artists, however, copy the Parthenon. That, and not the
+colossal monuments of the Caesars, reappears in the capitals of Europe,
+and stimulates the genius of a Michael Angelo or a Christopher Wren.
+
+The flourishing period of Greek architecture was during the period from
+Pericles to Alexander,--one hundred and thirteen years. The Macedonian
+conquest introduced more magnificence and less simplicity. The Roman
+conquest accelerated the decline in severe taste, when different orders
+began to be used indiscriminately.
+
+In this state the art passed into the hands of the masters of the world,
+and they inaugurated a new era in architecture. The art was still
+essentially Greek, although the Romans derived their first knowledge
+from the Etruscans. The Cloaca Maxima, or Great Sewer, was built during
+the reign of the second Tarquin,--the grandest monument of the reign of
+the kings. It is not probable that temples and other public buildings in
+Rome were either beautiful or magnificent until the conquest of Greece,
+after which Grecian architects were employed. The Romans adopted the
+Corinthian style, which they made even more ornamental; and by the
+successful combination of the Etruscan arch with the Grecian column they
+laid the foundation of a new and original style, susceptible of great
+variety and magnificence. They entered into architecture with the
+enthusiasm of their teachers, but in their passion for novelty lost
+sight of the simplicity which is the great fascination of a Doric
+temple. Says Memes:--
+
+"They [the Romans] deemed that lightness and grace were to be attained
+not so much by proportion between the vertical and the horizontal as by
+the comparative slenderness of the former. Hence we see a poverty in
+Roman architecture in the midst of profuse ornament. The great error was
+a constant aim to lessen the diameter while they increased the elevation
+of the columns. Hence the massive simplicity and severe grandeur of the
+ancient Doric disappear in the Roman, the characteristics of the order
+being frittered down into a multiplicity of minute details."
+
+When the Romans used the Doric at all, they used a base for the column,
+which was never done at Athens. They also altered the Doric capital,
+which cannot be improved. Again, most of the Grecian Doric temples were
+peripteral,--surrounded with pillars on all the sides. But the Romans
+built with porticos on one front only, which had a greater projection
+than the Grecian. They generally were projected three columns, while the
+Greek portico had usually but a single row. Many of the Roman temples
+are circular, like the Pantheon, which has a portico of eight columns
+projected to the depth of three. Nor did the Romans construct hypaethral
+or uncovered temples with internal columns, like the Greeks. The
+Pantheon is an exception, since the dome has an open eye; and one great
+ornament of this beautiful structure is in the arrangement of internal
+columns placed in the front of niches, composed of antae, or pier-formed
+ends of walls, to carry an entablature round under an attic on which the
+cupola rests. The Romans also adopted coupled columns, broken and
+recessed entablatures, and pedestals, which are considered blemishes.
+They again paid more attention to the interior than to the exterior
+decoration of their palaces and baths,--as we may infer from the ruins
+of Hadrian's villa at Tivoli and the excavations of Pompeii.
+
+The pediments (roof-angles) used in Roman architectural works are
+steeper than those made by the Greeks, varying in inclination from
+eighteen to twenty-five degrees, instead of fourteen. The mouldings are
+the same as the Grecian in general form, although they differ from them
+in contour; they are less delicate and graceful, but were used in great
+profusion. Roman architecture is overdone with ornament, every moulding
+carved, and every straight surface sculptured with foliage or historical
+subjects in relief. The ornaments of the frieze consist of foliage and
+animals, with a variety of other things. The great exuberance of
+ornament is considered a defect, although when applied to some
+structures it is exceedingly beautiful. In the time of the first Caesars
+Roman architecture had, from the huge size of the buildings, a character
+of grandeur and magnificence. Columns and arches appeared in all the
+leading public buildings,--columns generally forming the external and
+arches the internal construction. Fabric after fabric arose on the ruins
+of others. The Flavii supplanted the edifices of Nero, which ministered
+to debauchery, by structures of public utility.
+
+The Romans invented no new principle in architecture, unless it be the
+arch, which was known, though not practically applied, by the Assyrians,
+Egyptians, and Greeks. The Romans were a practical and utilitarian
+people, and needed for their various structures greater economy of
+material than was compatible with large blocks of stone, especially for
+such as were carried to great altitudes. The arch supplied this want,
+and is perhaps the greatest invention ever made in architecture. No
+instance of its adoption occurs in the construction of Greek edifices
+before Greece became a part of the Roman empire. Its application dates
+back to the Cloaca Maxima, and may have been of Etrurian invention. Some
+maintain that Archimedes of Sicily was the inventor of the arch; but to
+whomsoever the glory of the invention is due, it is certain that the
+Romans were the first of European nations to make a practical
+application of its wonderful qualities. It enabled them to rear vast
+edifices with the humblest materials, to build bridges, aqueducts,
+sewers, amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, as well as temples and
+palaces. The merits of the arch have never been lost sight of by
+succeeding generations, and it is an essential element in the
+magnificent Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Its application
+extends to domes and cupolas, to floors and corridors and roofs, and to
+various other parts of buildings where economy of material and labor is
+desired. It was applied extensively to doorways and windows, and is an
+ornament as well as a utility. The most imposing forms of Roman
+architecture may be traced to a knowledge of the properties of the arch,
+and as brick was more extensively used than any other material, the arch
+was invaluable. The imperial palace on Mount Palatine, the Pantheon
+(except its portico and internal columns), the temples of Peace, of
+Venus and Rome, and of Minerva Medica, were of brick. So were the great
+baths of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian, the villa of Hadrian, the
+city walls, the villa of Mecaenas at Tivoli, and most of the palaces of
+the nobility,--although, like many of the temples, they were faced with
+stone. The Colosseum was of travertine, a cheap white limestone, and
+faced with marble. It was another custom to stucco the surface of brick
+walls, as favorable to decorations. In consequence of the invention of
+the arch, the Romans erected a greater variety of fine structures than
+either the Greeks or Egyptians, whose public edifices were chiefly
+confined to temples. The arch entered into almost every structure,
+public or private, and superseded the use of long stone-beams, which
+were necessary in the Grecian temples, as also of wooden timbers, in the
+use of which the Romans were not skilled, and which do not really
+pertain to architecture: an imposing edifice must always be constructed
+of stone or brick. The arch also enabled the Romans to economize in the
+use of costly marbles, of which they were very fond, as well as of other
+stones. Some of the finest columns were made of Egyptian granite, very
+highly polished.
+
+The extensive application of the arch doubtless led to the deterioration
+of the Grecian architecture, since it blended columns with arcades, and
+thus impaired the harmony which so peculiarly marked the temples of
+Athens and Corinth; and as taste became vitiated with the decline of
+the empire, monstrous combinations took place, which were a great fall
+from the simplicity of the Parthenon and the interior of the Pantheon.
+
+But whatever defects marked the age of Diocletian and Constantine, it
+can never be questioned that the Romans carried architecture to a
+perfection rarely attained in our times. They may not have equalled the
+severe simplicity of their teachers the Greeks, but they surpassed them
+in the richness of their decorations, and in all buildings designed for
+utility, especially in private houses and baths and theatres.
+
+The Romans do not seem to have used other than semicircular arches. The
+Gothic, or Pointed, or Christian architecture, as it has been variously
+called, was the creation of the Middle Ages, and arose almost
+simultaneously in Europe after the first Crusade, so that it would seem
+to be of Eastern origin. But it was a graft on the old Roman arch, in
+the curve of the ellipse rather than the circle.
+
+Aside from this invention of the arch, to which we are indebted for the
+most beautiful ecclesiastical structures ever erected, we owe everything
+in architecture to the Greeks and Romans. We have found out no new
+principles which were not known to Vitruvius. No one man was the
+inventor or creator of the wonderful structures which ornamented the
+cities of the ancient world. We have the names of great architects, who
+reared various and faultless models, but they all worked upon the same
+principles, and these can never be subverted; so that in architecture
+the ancients are our schoolmasters, whose genius we revere the more we
+are acquainted with their works. What more beautiful than one of those
+grand temples which the cultivated heathen Greeks erected to the worship
+of their unknown gods!--the graduated and receding stylobate as a base
+for the fluted columns, rising at regular distances in all their severe
+proportion and matchless harmony, with their richly carved capitals
+supporting an entablature of heavy stones, most elaborately moulded and
+ornamented with the figures of plants and animals; and rising above
+this, on the ends of the temple, or over a portico several columns deep,
+the pediment, covered with chiselled cornices, with still richer
+ornaments rising from the apices and at the feet, all carved in white
+marble, and then spread over an area larger than any modern churches,
+making a forest of columns to bear aloft those ponderous beams of stone,
+without anything tending to break the continuity of horizontal lines, by
+which the harmony and simplicity of the whole are regulated! So
+accurately squared and nicely adjusted were the stones and pillars of
+which these temples were composed, that there was scarcely need even of
+cement. Without noise or confusion or sound of hammers did those
+temples rise, since all their parts were cut and carved in the distant
+quarries, and with mathematical precision. And within the cella, nearly
+concealed by surrounding columns, were the statues of the gods, and the
+altars on which incense was offered, or sacrifices made. In every part,
+interior and exterior, do we see a matchless proportion and beauty,
+whether in the shaft or the capital or the frieze or the pilaster or the
+pediment or the cornices, or even the mouldings,--everywhere grace and
+harmony, which grow upon the mind the more they are contemplated. The
+greatest evidence of the matchless creative genius displayed in those
+architectural wonders is that after two thousand years, and with all the
+inventions of Roman and modern artists, no improvement has been made;
+and those edifices which are the admiration of our own times are deemed
+beautiful as they approximate the ancient models, which will forever
+remain objects of imitation. No science can make two and two other than
+four; no art can make a Doric temple different from the Parthenon
+without departing from the settled principles of beauty and proportion
+which all ages have indorsed. Such were the Greeks and Romans in an art
+which is one of the greatest indices of material civilization, and which
+by them was derived from geometrical forms, or the imitation of Nature.
+
+The genius displayed by the ancients in sculpture is even more
+remarkable than their skill in architecture. Sculpture was carried to
+perfection only by the Greeks; but they did not originate the art, since
+we read of sculptured images from the remotest antiquity. The earliest
+names of sculptors are furnished by the Old Testament. Assyria and Egypt
+are full of relics to show how early this art was cultivated. It was not
+carried to perfection as early, probably, as architecture; but rude
+images of gods, carved in wood, are as old as the history of idolatry.
+The history of sculpture is in fact identified with that of idols. The
+Egyptians were probably the first who made any considerable advances in
+the execution of statues. Those which remain are rude, simple, uniform,
+without beauty or grace (except a certain serenity of facial expression
+which seems to pervade all their portraiture), but colossal and grand.
+Nearly two thousand years before Christ the walls of Thebes were
+ornamented with sculptured figures, even as the gates of Babylon were
+made of sculptured bronze. The dimensions of Egyptian colossal figures
+surpass those of any other nation. The sitting statues of Memnon at
+Thebes are fifty feet in height, and the Sphinx is twenty-five,--all of
+granite. The number of colossal statues was almost incredible. The
+sculptures found among the ruins of Karnak must have been made nearly
+four thousand years ago. They exhibit great simplicity of design, but
+have not much variety of expression. They are generally carved from the
+hardest stones, and finished so nicely that we infer that the Egyptians
+were acquainted with the art of hardening metals for their tools to a
+degree not known in our times. But we see no ideal grandeur among any of
+the remains of Egyptian sculpture; however symmetrical or colossal,
+there is no diversity of expression, no trace of emotion, no
+intellectual force,--everything is calm, impassive, imperturbable. It
+was not until sculpture came into the hands of the Greeks that any
+remarkable excellence in grace of form or expression of face was
+reached. But the progress of development was slow. The earliest carvings
+were rude wooden images of the gods, and more than a thousand years
+elapsed before the great masters were produced whose works marked the
+age of Pericles.
+
+It is not my object to give a history of the development of the plastic
+art, but to show the great excellence it attained in the hands of
+immortal sculptors.
+
+The Greeks had an intuitive perception of the beautiful, and to this
+great national trait we ascribe the wonderful progress which sculpture
+made. Nature was most carefully studied by the Greek artists, and that
+which was most beautiful in Nature became the object of their imitation.
+They even attained to an ideal excellence, since they combined in a
+single statue what could not be found in a single individual,--as Zeuxis
+is said to have studied the beautiful forms of seven virgins of Crotona
+in order to paint his famous picture of Venus. Great as was the beauty
+of Phryne or Aspasia or Lais, yet no one of them could have served for a
+perfect model; and it required a great sensibility to beauty in order to
+select and idealize what was most perfect in the human figure. Beauty
+was adored in Greece, and every means were used to perfect it,
+especially beauty of form, which is the characteristic excellence of
+Grecian statuary. The gymnasia were universally frequented; and the
+great prizes of the games, bestowed for feats of strength and agility,
+were regarded as the highest honors which men could receive,--the
+subject of the poet's ode and the people's admiration. Statues of the
+victors perpetuated their fame and improved the sculptor's art. From the
+study of these statues were produced those great creations which all
+subsequent ages have admired; and from the application of the principles
+seen in these forms we owe the perpetuation of the ideas of grace and
+beauty such as no other people besides the Greeks had ever discovered,
+or indeed scarcely appreciated. The sculpture of the human figure became
+a noble object of ambition in Greece, and was most munificently
+rewarded. Great artists arose, whose works adorned the temples of Greece
+so long as she preserved her independence, and when that was lost, her
+priceless productions were scattered over Asia and Europe. The Romans
+especially seized what was most prized, whether or not they could tell
+what was most perfect. Greece lived in her marble statues more than in
+her government or laws; and when we remember the estimation in which
+sculpture was held among the Greeks, the great prices paid for
+masterpieces, the care and attention with which they were guarded and
+preserved, and the innumerable works which were produced, filling all
+the public buildings, especially consecrated places, and even open
+spaces and the houses of the rich and great, calling from all classes
+admiration and praise,--we cannot think it likely that so great
+perfection will ever be reached again in those figures which are
+designed to represent beauty of form. Even the comparatively few statues
+which have survived the wars and violence of two thousand years,
+convince us that the moderns can only imitate; they can produce no
+creations equal to those by Athenian artists. "No mechanical copying of
+Greek statues, however skilful the copyist, can ever secure for modern
+sculpture the same noble and effective character it possessed among the
+Greeks, for the simple reason that the imitation, close as may be the
+resemblance, is but the result of the eye and hand, while the original
+is the expression of a true and deeply felt sentiment. Art was not
+sustained by the patronage of a few who affect to have what is called
+_taste_; in Greece the artist, having a common feeling for the beautiful
+with his countrymen, produced his works for the public, which were
+erected in places of honor and dedicated in temples of the gods."
+
+It was not until the Persian wars awakened among the Greeks the
+slumbering consciousness of national power, and Athens became the
+central point of Grecian civilization, that sculpture, like architecture
+and painting, reached its culminating point of excellence under Phidias
+and his contemporaries. Great artists had previously made themselves
+famous, like Miron, Polycletus, and Ageladas; but the great riches which
+flowed into Athens at this time gave a peculiar stimulus to art,
+especially under the encouragement of such a ruler as Pericles, whose
+age was the golden era of Grecian history.
+
+Pheidias, or Phidias, was to sculpture what Aeschylus was to tragic
+poetry,--the representative of the sublime and grand. He was born four
+hundred and eighty-four years before Christ, and was the pupil of
+Ageladas. He stands at the head of the ancient sculptors, not from what
+_we_ know of him, for his masterpieces have perished, but from the
+estimation in which he was held by the greatest critics of antiquity. It
+was to him that Pericles intrusted the adornment of the Parthenon, and
+the numerous and beautiful sculptures of the frieze and the pediment
+were the work of artists whom he directed. His great work in that
+wonderful edifice was the statue of the goddess Minerva herself, made of
+gold and ivory, forty feet in height, standing victorious, with a spear
+in her left hand and an image of victory in her right, with helmet on
+her head, and her shield resting by her side. The cost of this statue
+may be estimated when we consider that the gold alone used upon it was
+valued at forty-four talents, equal to five hundred thousand dollars of
+our money,--an immense sum in that age. Some critics suppose that this
+statue was overloaded with ornament, but all antiquity was unanimous in
+its admiration. The exactness and finish of detail were as remarkable as
+the grandeur of the proportions. Another of the famous works of Phidias
+was a colossal bronze statue of Athene Promachos, sixty feet in height,
+on the Acropolis between the Propylaea and the Parthenon. But both of
+these yielded to the colossal statue of Zeus in his great temple at
+Olympia, represented in a sitting posture, forty feet high, on a
+pedestal of twenty feet. The god was seated on a throne. Ebony, gold,
+ivory, and precious stones formed, with a multitude of sculptured and
+painted figures, the wonderful composition of this throne. In this his
+greatest work the artist sought to embody the idea of majesty and
+repose,--of a supreme deity no longer engaged in war with Titans and
+Giants, but enthroned as a conqueror, ruling with a nod the subject
+world, and giving his blessing to those victories which gave glory to
+the Greeks. So famous was this statue, which was regarded as the
+masterpiece of Grecian art, that it was considered a calamity to die
+without having seen it; and this served for a model for all subsequent
+representations of majesty and power in repose among the ancients. It
+was removed to Constantinople by Theodosius I., and was destroyed by
+fire in the year 475 A.D. Phidias executed various other famous works,
+which have perished; but even those that were executed under his
+superintendence which have come down to our times,--like the statues
+which ornamented the pediment of the Parthenon,--are among the finest
+specimens of art that exist, and exhibit the most graceful and
+appropriate forms which could have been selected, uniting grandeur with
+simplicity, and beauty with accuracy of anatomical structure. His
+distinguishing excellence was ideal beauty, and that of the
+sublimest order.
+
+Of all the wonders and mysteries of ancient art the colossal statues of
+ivory and gold were perhaps the most remarkable, and the difficulty of
+executing them has been set forth by the ablest of modern critics, like
+Winckelmann, Heyne, and De Quincey. "The grandeur of their dimensions,
+the perfection of their workmanship, the richness of their materials,
+their majesty, beauty, and ideal truth, the splendor of the architecture
+and pictorial decoration with which they were associated,--all conspired
+to impress the beholder with wonder and awe, and induce a belief of the
+actual presence of the god."
+
+After the Peloponnesian War a new school of art arose in Athens, which
+appealed more to the passions. Of this school was Praxiteles, who aimed
+to please without seeking to elevate or instruct. No one has probably
+ever surpassed him in execution. He wrought in bronze and marble, and
+was one of the artists who adorned the Mausoleum of Artemisia. Without
+attempting the sublime impersonation of the deity, in which Phidias
+excelled, he was unsurpassed in the softer graces and beauties of the
+human form, especially in female figures. His most famous work was an
+undraped statue of Venus, for his native town of Cnidus, which was so
+remarkable that people flocked from all parts of Greece to see it. He
+did not aim at ideal majesty so much as at ideal gracefulness; his works
+were formed from the most beautiful living models, and hence expressed
+only the ideal of sensuous charms. It is probable that the Venus de
+Medici of Cleomenes was a mere copy of the Aphrodite of Praxiteles,
+which was so highly extolled by, the ancient authors; it was of Parian
+marble, and modelled from the celebrated Phryne. His statues of Dionysus
+also expressed the most consummate physical beauty, representing the god
+as a beautiful youth crowned with ivy, and expressing tender and dreamy
+emotions. Praxiteles sculptured several figures of Eros, or the god of
+love, of which that at Thespiae attracted visitors to the city in the
+time of Cicero. It was subsequently carried to Rome, and perished by a
+conflagration in the time of Titus. One of the most celebrated statues
+of this artist was an Apollo, many copies of which still exist. His
+works were very numerous, but chiefly from the circle of Dionysus,
+Aphrodite, and Eros, in which adoration for corporeal attractions is the
+most marked peculiarity, and for which the artist was fitted by his
+dissolute life.
+
+Scopas was the contemporary of Praxiteles, and was the author of the
+celebrated group of Niobe, which is one of the chief ornaments of the
+gallery of sculpture at Florence. He flourished about three hundred and
+fifty years before Christ, and wrought chiefly in marble. He was
+employed in decorating the Mausoleum which Artemisia erected to her
+husband,--one of the wonders of the world. His masterpiece is said to
+have been a group representing Achilles conducted to the island of Leuce
+by the divinities of the sea, which ornamented the shrine of Domitius in
+the Flaminian Circus. In this, tender grace, heroic grandeur, daring
+power, and luxurious fulness of life were combined with wonderful
+harmony. Like the other great artists of this school, Scopas exhibited
+the grandeur and sublimity for which Phidias was celebrated, but a
+greater refinement and luxury, as well as skill in the use of drapery.
+
+Sculpture in Greece culminated, as an art, in Lysippus, who worked
+chiefly in bronze. He is said to have executed fifteen hundred statues,
+and was much esteemed by Alexander the Great, by whom he was extensively
+patronized. He represented men not as they were, but as they appeared to
+be; and if he exaggerated, he displayed great energy of action. He aimed
+to idealize merely human beauty, and his imitation of Nature was carried
+out in the minutest details. None of his works are extant; but as he
+alone was permitted to make the statue of Alexander, we infer that he
+had no equals. The Emperor Tiberius transferred one of his statues (that
+of an athlete) from the baths of Agrippa to his own chamber, which so
+incensed the people that he was obliged to restore it. His favorite
+subject was Hercules, and a colossal statue of this god was carried to
+Rome by Fabius Maximus, when he took Tarentum, and afterward was
+transferred to Constantinople; the Farnese Hercules and the Belvidere
+Torso are probably copies of this work. He left many eminent scholars,
+among whom were Chares (who executed the famous Colossus of Rhodes),
+Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus who sculptured the group of the
+"Laocooen." The Rhodian school was the immediate offshoot from the school
+of Lysippus at Sicyon; and from this small island of Rhodes the Romans,
+when they conquered it, carried away three thousand statues. The
+Colossus was one of the wonders of the world (seventy cubits in height);
+and the Laocooen (the group of the Trojan hero and his two sons encoiled
+by serpents) is a perfect miracle of art, in which pathos is exhibited
+in the highest degree ever attained in sculpture. It was discovered in
+1506, near the baths of Titus, and is one of the choicest remains of
+ancient plastic art.
+
+The great artists of antiquity did not confine themselves to the
+representation of man, but also carved animals with exceeding accuracy
+and beauty. Nicias was famous for his dogs, Myron for his cows, and
+Lysippus for his horses. Praxiteles composed his celebrated lion after a
+living animal. "The horses of the frieze of the Elgin Marbles," says
+Flaxman, "appear to live and move; to roll their eyes, to gallop,
+prance, and curvet; the veins of their faces and legs seem distended
+with circulation. The beholder is charmed with the deer-like lightness
+and elegance of their make; and although the relief is not above an inch
+from the background, and they are so much smaller than nature, we can
+scarcely suffer reason to persuade us they are not alive." The Greeks
+also carved gems, cameos, medals, and vases, with unapproachable
+excellence. Very few specimens have come down to our times, but those
+which we possess show great beauty both in design and execution.
+
+Grecian statuary began with ideal representations of the deities, and
+was carried to the greatest perfection by Phidias in his statues of
+Jupiter and Minerva. Then succeeded the school of Praxiteles, in which
+the figures of gods and goddesses were still represented, but in mortal
+forms. The school of Lysippus was famous for the statues of celebrated
+men, especially in cities where Macedonian rulers resided. Artists were
+expected henceforth to glorify kings and powerful nobles and rulers by
+portrait statues. From this period, however, plastic art degenerated;
+nor were works of original genius produced, but rather copies or
+varieties from the three great schools to which allusion has been made.
+Sculpture may have multiplied, but not new creations; although some
+imitations of great merit were produced, like the Hermaphrodite, the
+Torso, the Farnese Hercules, and the Fighting Gladiator. When Corinth
+was sacked by Mummius, some of the finest statues of Greece were carried
+to Rome; and after the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, the Greek
+artists emigrated to Italy. The fall of Syracuse introduced many works
+of priceless value into Rome; but it was from Athens, Delphi, Corinth,
+Elis, and other great centres of art that the richest treasures were
+brought. Greece was despoiled to ornament Italy.
+
+The Romans did not create a school of sculpture. They borrowed wholly
+from the Greeks, yet made, especially in the time of Hadrian, many
+beautiful statues. They were fond of this art, and all eminent men had
+statues erected to their memory. The busts of emperors were found in
+every great city, and Rome was filled with statues. The monuments of the
+Romans were even more numerous than those of the Greeks, and among them
+some admirable portraits are found. These sculptures did not express
+that consummation of beauty and grace, of refinement and sentiment,
+which marked the Greeks; but the imitations were good. Art had reached
+its perfection under Lysippus; there was nothing more to learn. Genius
+in that department could soar no higher. It will never rise to
+loftier heights.
+
+It is noteworthy that the purest forms of Grecian art arose in its
+earlier stages. From a moral point of view, sculpture declined from the
+time of Phidias. It was prostituted at Rome under the emperors. The
+specimens which have often been found among the ruins of ancient baths
+make us blush for human nature. The skill of execution did not decline
+for several centuries; but the lofty ideal was lost sight of, and gross
+appeals to human passions were made by those who sought to please
+corrupt leaders of society in an effeminate age. The turgidity and
+luxuriance of art gradually passed into tameness and poverty. The
+reliefs on the Arch of Constantine are rude and clumsy compared with
+those on the column of Marcus Aurelius.
+
+It is not my purpose to describe the decline of art, or enumerate the
+names of the celebrated masters who exalted sculpture in the palmy days
+of Pericles or even Alexander. I simply speak of sculpture as an art
+which reached a great perfection among the Greeks and Romans, as we have
+a right to infer from the specimens that have been preserved. How many
+more must have perished, we may infer from the criticisms of the ancient
+authors. The finest productions of our own age are in a measure
+reproductions; they cannot be called creations, like the statue of the
+Olympian Jove. Even the Moses of Michael Angelo is a Grecian god, and
+Powers's Greek Slave is a copy of an ancient Venus. The very tints which
+have been admired in some of the works of modern sculptors are borrowed
+from Praxiteles, who succeeded in giving to his statues an appearance of
+living flesh. The Museum of the Vatican alone contains several thousand
+specimens of ancient sculpture which have been found among the debris of
+former magnificence, many of which are the productions of Greek artists
+transported to Rome. Among them are antique copies of the Cupid and the
+Faun of Praxiteles, the statue of Demosthenes, the Minerva Medica, the
+Athlete of Lysippus, the Torso Belvedere sculptured by Apollonius, the
+Belvidere Antinous, of faultless anatomy and a study for Domenichino,
+the Laocooen, so panegyrized by Pliny, the Apollo Belvedere, the work of
+Agasias of Ephesus, the Sleeping Ariadne, with numerous other statues of
+gods and goddesses, emperors, philosophers, poets, and statesmen of
+antiquity. The Dying Gladiator, which ornaments the capitol, is alone a
+magnificent proof of the perfection to which sculpture was carried
+centuries after the art had culminated at Athens. And these are only a
+few which stand out among the twenty thousand recovered statues that now
+embellish Italy, to say nothing of those that are scattered over Europe.
+We have the names of hundreds of artists who were famous in their day.
+Not merely the figures of men are chiselled, but of animals and plants.
+Nature in all her forms was imitated; and not merely Nature, but the
+dresses of the ancients are perpetuated in marble. No modern sculptor
+has equalled, in delicacy of finish, the draperies of those ancient
+statues as they appear to us even after the exposure and accidents of
+two thousand years. No one, after a careful study of the museums of
+Europe, can question that of all the nations who have claimed to be
+civilized, the ancient Greeks and Romans deserve a proud pre-eminence in
+an art which is still regarded as among the highest triumphs of human
+genius. All these matchless productions of antiquity are the result of
+native genius alone, without the aid of Christian ideas. Nor with the
+aid of Christianity are we sure that any nation will ever soar to
+loftier heights than did the Greeks in that proud realm which was
+consecrated to Paganism.
+
+We are not so certain in regard to the excellence of the ancients in the
+art of painting as we are in regard to sculpture and architecture, since
+so few specimens of painting have been preserved. We have only the
+testimony of the ancients themselves; and as they had so severe a taste
+and so great a susceptibility to beauty in all its forms, we cannot
+suppose that their notions were crude in this great art which the
+moderns have carried to such great perfection. In this art the moderns
+doubtless excel, especially in perspective and drawing, and light and
+shade. No age, we fancy, can surpass Italy in the fifteenth and
+sixteenth centuries, when the genius of Raphael, Correggio, and
+Domenichino blazed with such wonderful brilliancy.
+
+Painting in some form, however, is very ancient, though not so ancient
+as are the temples of the gods and the statues that were erected to
+their worship. It arose with the susceptibility to beauty of form and
+color, and with the view of conveying thoughts and emotions of the soul
+by imitation of their outward expression. The walls of Babylon were
+painted after Nature with representations of different species of
+animals and of combats between them and man. Semiramis was represented
+as on horseback, striking a leopard with a dart, and her husband Ninus
+as wounding a lion. Ezekiel describes various idols and beasts portrayed
+upon the walls, and even princes painted in vermilion, with girdles
+around their loins. In ages almost fabulous there were some rude
+attempts in this art, which probably arose from the coloring of statues
+and reliefs. The wooden chests of Egyptian mummies are covered with
+painted and hieroglyphic presentations of religious subjects; but the
+colors were laid without regard to light and shade. The Egyptians did
+not seek to represent the passions and emotions which agitate the soul,
+but rather to authenticate events and actions; and hence their
+paintings, like hieroglyphics, are but inscriptions. It was their great
+festivals and religious rites which they sought to perpetuate, not ideas
+of beauty or of grace. Thus their paintings abound with dismembered
+animals, plants, and flowers, with censers, entrails,--whatever was used
+in their religious worship. In Greece also the original painting
+consisted in coloring statues and reliefs of wood and clay. At Corinth,
+painting was early united with the fabrication of vases, on which were
+rudely painted figures of men and animals. Among the Etruscans, before
+Rome was founded, it is said there were beautiful paintings, and it is
+probable that these people were advanced in art before the Greeks. There
+were paintings in some of the old Etruscan cities which the Roman
+emperors wished to remove, so much admired were they even in the days of
+the greatest splendor. The ancient Etruscan vases are famous for designs
+which have never been exceeded in purity of form, but it is probable
+that these were copied from the Greeks.
+
+Whether the Greeks or the Etruscans were the first to paint, however,
+the art was certainly carried to the greatest perfection among the
+former. The development of it was, like all arts, very gradual. It
+probably began by drawing the outline of a shadow, without intermediate
+markings; the next step was the complete outline with the inner
+markings,--such as are represented on the ancient vases, or like the
+designs of Flaxman. They were originally practised on a white ground;
+then light and shade were introduced, and then the application of colors
+in accordance with Nature. We read of a great painting by Bularchus, of
+the battle of Magnete, purchased by a king of Lydia seven hundred and
+eighteen years before Christ. As the subject was a battle, it must have
+represented the movement of figures, although we know nothing of the
+coloring or of the real excellence of the work, except that the artist
+was paid munificently. Cimon of Cleona is the first great name connected
+with the art in Greece. He is praised by Pliny, to whom we owe the
+history of ancient painting more than to any other author. Cimon was not
+satisfied with drawing simply the outlines of his figures, such as we
+see in the oldest painted vases, but he also represented limbs, and
+folds of garments. He invented the art of foreshortening, or the various
+representations of the diminution of the length of figures as they
+appear when looked at obliquely; and hence was the first painter of
+perspective. He first made muscular articulations, indicated the veins,
+and gave natural folds to drapery.
+
+A much greater painter than he was Polygnotus of Thasos, the
+contemporary of Phidias, who came to Athens about the year 463
+B.C.,--one of the greatest geniuses of any age, and one of the most
+magnanimous, who had the good fortune to live in an age of exceeding
+intellectual activity. He painted on panels, which were afterward let
+into the walls, being employed on the public buildings of Athens, and on
+the great temple of Delphi, the hall of which he painted gratuitously.
+He also decorated the Propylaea, which was erected under the
+superintendence of Phidias. The pictures of Polygnotus had nothing of
+that elaborate grouping, aided by the powers of perspective, so much
+admired in modern art. His greatness lay in statuesque painting, which
+he brought nearly to perfection by ideal expression, accurate drawing,
+and improved coloring. He used but few colors, and softened the rigidity
+of his predecessors by making the mouth of beauty smile. He gave great
+expression to the face and figure, and his pictures were models of
+excellence for the beauty of the eyebrows, the blush upon the cheeks,
+and the gracefulness of the draperies. He strove, like Phidias, to
+express character in repose. He imitated the personages and the subjects
+of the old mythology, and treated them in an epic spirit, his subjects
+being almost invariably taken from Homer and the Epic cycle.
+
+Among the works of Polygnotus, as mentioned by Pliny, are his paintings
+in the Temple at Delphi, in the Propylaea of the Acropolis, in the
+Temple of Theseus, and in the Temple of the Dioscuri at Athens. He
+painted in a truly religious spirit, and upon symmetrical principles,
+with great grandeur and freedom, resembling Michael Angelo more than any
+other modern artist.
+
+The use of oil was unknown to the ancients. The artists painted upon
+wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, but not upon canvas, which was
+not used till the time of Nero. They painted upon tablets or panels, and
+not upon the walls,--the panels being afterward framed and encased in
+the walls. The stylus, or cestrum, used in drawing and for spreading the
+wax colors was pointed on one end and flat on the other, and generally
+made of metal. Wax was prepared by purifying and bleaching, and then
+mixed with colors. When painting was practised in watercolors, glue was
+used with the white of an egg or with gums; but wax and resins were also
+worked with water, with certain preparations. This latter mode was
+called encaustic, and was, according to Plutarch, the most durable of
+all methods. It was not generally adopted till the time of Alexander the
+Great. Wax was a most essential ingredient, since it prevented the
+colors from cracking. Encaustic painting was practised both with the
+cestrum and the pencil, and the colors were also burned in.
+
+Fresco, or water-color, on fresh plaster, was used for coloring walls,
+which were divided into compartments or panels. The composition of the
+stucco, and the method of preparing the walls for painting, is described
+by the ancient writers: "They first covered the walls with a layer of
+ordinary plaster, over which, when dry, were successively added three
+other layers of a finer quality, mixed with sand. Above these were
+placed three layers of a composition of chalk and marble-dust, the upper
+one being laid on before the under one was dry; by which process the
+different layers were so bound together that the whole mass formed one
+beautiful and solid slab, resembling marble, and was capable of being
+detached from the wall and transported in a wooden frame to any
+distance. The colors were applied when the composition was still wet.
+The fresco wall, when painted, was covered with an encaustic varnish,
+both to heighten the color and to preserve it from the effects of the
+sun or the weather; but this process required so much care, and was
+attended with so much expense, that it was used only in the better
+houses and palaces." The later discoveries at Pompeii show the same
+correctness of design in painting as in sculpture, and also considerable
+perfection in coloring. The great artists of Greece--Phidias and
+Euphranor, Zeuxis and Protogenes, Polygnotus and Lysippus--were both
+sculptors and painters, like Michael Angelo; and the ancient writers
+praise the paintings of these great artists as much as their sculpture.
+The Aldobrandini Marriage, found on the Esquiline Mount during the
+pontificate of Clement VIII., and placed in the Vatican by Pius VII., is
+admired both for drawing and color. Polygnotus was praised by Aristotle
+for his designs, and by Lucian for his color.
+
+Dionysius and Mikon were the great contemporaries of Polygnotus, the
+former being celebrated for his portraits. His pictures were deficient
+in the ideal, but were remarkable for expression and elegant drawing.
+Mikon was particularly skilled in painting horses, and was the first who
+used for a color the light Attic ochre, and the black made from burnt
+vine-twigs. He painted three of the walls of the Temple of Theseus, and
+also the walls of the Temple of the Dioscuri.
+
+A greater painter still was Apollodorus of Athens. Through his labors,
+about 408 B.C., dramatic effect was added to the style of Polygnotus,
+without departing from his pictures as models. "The acuteness of his
+taste," says Fuseli, "led him to discover that as all men were connected
+by one general form, so they were separated each by some predominant
+power, which fixed character and bound them to a class. Thence he drew
+his line of imitation, and personified the central form of the class to
+which his object belonged, and to which the rest of its qualities
+administered without being absorbed. Agility was not suffered to destroy
+firmness, solidity, or weight; nor strength and weight, agility.
+Elegance did not degenerate into effeminacy, nor grandeur swell to
+hugeness." His aim was to deceive the eye of the spectator by the
+semblance of reality: he painted men and things as they really appeared.
+He also made a great advance in coloring: he invented chiaro-oscuro.
+Other painters had given attention to the proper gradation of light and
+shade; he heightened this effect by the gradation of tints, and thus
+obtained what the moderns call _tone_. He was the first who conferred
+due honor on the pencil,--_primusque gloriam penicillo jure contulit_.
+
+This great painter was succeeded by Zeuxis, who belonged to his school,
+but who surpassed him in the power to give ideal form to rich effects.
+He began his great career four hundred and twenty-four years before
+Christ, and was most remarkable for his female figures. His Helen,
+painted from five of the most beautiful women of Croton, was one of the
+most renowned productions of antiquity, to see which the painter
+demanded money. He gave away his pictures, because, with an artist's
+pride, he maintained that their price could not be estimated. There is
+a tradition that Zeuxis laughed himself to death over an old woman
+painted by him. He arrived at illusion of the senses, regarded as a high
+attainment in art,--as in the instance recorded of his grapes, at which
+the birds pecked. He belonged to the Asiatic school, whose headquarters
+were at Ephesus,--the peculiarities of which were accuracy of imitation,
+the exhibition of sensuous charms, and the gratification of sensual
+tastes. He went to Athens about the time that the sculpture of Phidias
+was completed, which modified his style. His marvellous powers were
+displayed in the contrast of light and shade, which he learned from
+Apollodorus. He gave ideal beauty to his figures, but it was in form
+rather than in expression. He taught the true method of grouping, by
+making each figure the perfect representation of the class to which it
+belonged. His works were deficient in those qualities which elevate the
+feelings and the character. He was the Euripides rather than the Homer
+of his art. He exactly imitated natural objects, which are incapable of
+ideal representation. His works were not so numerous as they were
+perfect in their way, in some of which, as in the Infant Hercules
+strangling the Serpent, he displayed great dramatic power. Lucian highly
+praises his Female Centaur as one of the most remarkable paintings of
+the world, in which he showed great ingenuity of contrasts. His Jupiter
+Enthroned is also extolled by Pliny, as one of his finest works. Zeuxis
+acquired a great fortune, and lived ostentatiously.
+
+Contemporaneous with Zeuxis, and equal in fame, was Parrhasius, a native
+of Ephesus, whose skill lay in accuracy of drawing and power of
+expression. He gave to painting true proportion, and attended to minute
+details of the countenance and the hair. In his gods and heroes, he did
+for painting what Phidias did in sculpture. His outlines were so perfect
+as to indicate those parts of the figure which they did not express. He
+established a rule of proportion which was followed by all succeeding
+artists. While many of his pieces were of a lofty character, some were
+demoralizing. Zeuxis yielded the palm to him, since Parrhasius painted a
+curtain which deceived his rival, whereas the grapes of Zeuxis had
+deceived only birds. Parrhasius was exceedingly arrogant and luxurious,
+and boasted of having reached the utmost limits of his art. He combined
+the magic tone of Apollodorus with the exquisite design of Zeuxis and
+the classic expression of Polygnotus.
+
+Many were the eminent painters that adorned the fifth century before
+Christ, not only in Athens, but in the Ionian cities of Asia. Timanthes
+of Sicyon was distinguished for invention, and Eupompus of the same
+city founded a school. His advice to Lysippus is memorable: "Let Nature,
+not an artist, be your model." Protogenes was celebrated for his high
+finish. His Talissus took him seven years to complete. Pamphilus was
+celebrated for composition, Antiphilus for facility, Theon of Samos for
+prolific fancy, Apelles for grace, Pausias for his chiaro-oscuro,
+Nicomachus for his bold and rapid pencil, Aristides for depth of
+expression.
+
+The art probably culminated in Apelles, who was at once a rich colorist
+and portrayer of sensuous charm and a scientific artist, while he added
+a peculiar grace of his own, which distinguished him above both his
+predecessors and contemporaries. He was contemporaneous with Alexander,
+and was alone allowed to paint the picture of the great conqueror.
+Apelles was a native of Ephesus, studied under Pamphilus of Amphipolis,
+and when he had gained reputation he went to Sicyon and took lessons
+from Melanthius. He spent the best part of his life at the court of
+Philip and Alexander, and painted many portraits of these great men and
+of their generals. He excelled in portraits, and labored so assiduously
+to perfect himself in drawing that he never spent a day without
+practising. He made great improvement in the mechanical part of his art,
+inventing some colors, and being the first to varnish pictures. By the
+general consent of ancient authors, Apelles stands at the head of all
+the painters of their world. His greatest work was his Venus Anadyomene,
+or Venus rising out of the sea, in which female grace was personified;
+the falling drops of water from her hair gave the appearance of a
+transparent silver veil over her form. This picture cost one hundred
+talents, was painted for the Temple of Aesculapius at Cos, and afterward
+placed by Augustus in the temple which he dedicated to Julius Caesar.
+The lower part of it becoming injured, no one could be found to repair
+it; nor was there an artist who could complete an unfinished picture
+which Apelles left. He feared no criticism, and was unenvious of the
+fame of rivals.
+
+After Apelles, the art of painting declined, although great painters
+occasionally appeared, especially from the school of Sicyon, which was
+renowned for nearly two hundred years. The destruction of Corinth by
+Mummius, 146 B.C., gave a severe blow to Grecian art. This general
+destroyed, or carried to Rome, more works than all his predecessors
+combined. Sulla, when he spoiled Athens, inflicted a still greater
+injury; and from that time artists resorted to Rome and Alexandria and
+other flourishing cities for patronage and remuneration. The
+masterpieces of famous artists brought enormous prices, and Greece and
+Asia were ransacked for old pictures. The paintings which Aemilius
+Paulus brought from Greece required two hundred and fifty wagons to
+carry them in the triumphal procession. With the spoliation of Greece,
+the migration of artists began; and this spoliation of Greece, Asia, and
+Sicily continued for two centuries. We have already said that such was
+the wealth of Rhodes in works of art that three thousand statues were
+found there by the conquerors; nor could there have been less at Athens,
+Olympia, and Delphi. Scaurus had all the public pictures of Sicyon
+transported to Rome. Verres plundered every temple and public building
+in Sicily.
+
+Thus Rome was possessed of the finest paintings in the world, without
+the slightest claim to the advancement of the art. And if the opinion of
+Sir Joshua Reynolds is correct, art could advance no higher in the realm
+of painting, as well as of statuary, than the Greeks had already borne
+it. Yet the Romans learned to place as high value on the works of
+Grecian genius as the English do on the paintings of the old masters of
+Italy and Flanders. And if they did not add to the art, they gave such
+encouragement that under the emperors it may be said to have been
+flourishing. Varro had a gallery of seven hundred portraits of eminent
+men. The portraits as well as the statues of the great were placed in
+the temples, libraries, and public buildings. The baths especially were
+filled with paintings.
+
+The great masterpieces of the Greeks were either historical or
+mythological. Paintings of gods and heroes, groups of men and women, in
+which character and passion could be delineated, were the most highly
+prized. It was in the expression given to the human figure--in beauty of
+form and countenance, in which all the emotions of the soul, as well as
+the graces of the body were portrayed--that the Greek artists sought to
+reach the ideal, and to gain immortality. And they painted for a people
+who had both a natural and a cultivated taste and sensibility.
+
+Among the Romans portrait, decorative, and scene painting engrossed the
+art, much to the regret of such critics as Pliny and Vitruvius. Nothing
+could be in more execrable taste than a colossal painting of Nero, one
+hundred and twenty feet high. From the time of Augustus landscape
+decorations were common, and were carried out with every species of
+license. Among the Greeks we do not read of landscape painting. This has
+been reserved for our age, and is much admired, as it was at Rome in the
+latter days of the empire. Mosaic work, of inlaid stones or composition
+of varying shades and colors, gradually superseded painting in Rome; it
+was first used for floors, and finally walls and ceilings were
+ornamented with it. It is true, the ancients could show no such
+exquisite perfection of colors, tints, and shades as may be seen to-day
+in the wonderful reproductions of world-renowned paintings on the walls
+of St. Peter's at Rome; but many ancient mosaics have been preserved
+which attest beauty of design of the highest character,--like the Battle
+of Issus, lately discovered at Pompeii; and this brilliant art had its
+origin and a splendid development at the hands of the old Romans.
+
+Thus in all those arts of which modern civilization is proudest, and in
+which the genius of man has soared to the loftiest heights, the ancients
+were not merely our equals,--they were our superiors. It is greater to
+originate than to copy. In architecture, in sculpture, and perhaps in
+painting, the Greeks attained absolute perfection. Any architect of our
+time, who should build an edifice in different proportions from those
+that were recognized in the great cities of antiquity, would make a
+mistake. Who can improve upon the Doric columns of the Parthenon, or
+upon the Corinthian capitals of the Temple of Jupiter? Indeed, it is in
+proportion as we accurately copy the faultless models of the age of
+Pericles that excellence with us is attained and recognized; when we
+differ from them we furnish grounds of just criticism. So in
+sculpture,--the finest modern works are inspired by antique models. It
+is only when the artist seeks to bring out the purest and loftiest
+sentiments of the soul, such as only Christianity can inspire, that he
+may hope to surpass the sculpture of antiquity in one department of that
+art alone,--in expression, rather than in beauty of form, on which no
+improvement can be made. And if we possessed the painted Venus of
+Apelles, as we can boast of having the sculptured Venus of Cleomenes, we
+should probably discover greater richness of coloring as well as grace
+of figure than appear in that famous picture of Titian which is one of
+the proudest ornaments of the galleries of Florence, and one of the
+greatest marvels of Italian art.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Winckelmann's History of Ancient Art; Mueller's Ancient Art and its
+Remains; A.J. Guattani, Antiquites de la Grande Grece; Mazois,
+Antiquites de Pompeii; Sir W. Gill, Pompeiana; Donaldson's Antiquities
+of Athens; Vitruvius, Stuart, Chandler, Clarke, Dodwell, Cleghorn, De
+Quincey, Fergusson, Schliemann,--these are some of the innumerable
+authorities on Architecture among the ancients.
+
+In Sculpture, Pliny and Cicero are the most noted critics. There is a
+fine article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica on this subject. In Smith's
+Dictionary are the Lives and works of the most noted masters. Mueller's
+Ancient Art alludes to the leading masterpieces. Montfaucon's Antiquite
+Expliquee en Figures; Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, by the Society of
+Dilettanti, London, 1809; Ancient Marbles of the British Museum, by
+Taylor Combe; Millin, Introduction a l'Etude des Monuments Antiques;
+Monuments Inedits d'Antiquite figuree, recuellis et publies par
+Raoul-Rochette; Gerhard's Archaeologische Zeitung; David's Essai sur le
+Classement Chronologique des Sculpteurs Grecs les plus celebres.
+
+In Painting, see Mueller's Ancient Art; Fuseli's Lectures; Sir Joshua
+Reynolds's Lectures; Lanzi's History of Painting in Italy (translated by
+Roscoe); and the Article on "Painting," Encyclopaedia Britannica, and
+Article "Pictura," Smith's Dictionary, both of which last mentioned
+refer to numerous German, French, and other authorities, should the
+reader care to pursue the subject. Vitruvius (on Architecture,
+translated by Gwilt) writes at some length on ancient wall-paintings.
+The finest specimens of ancient paintings are found in catacombs, the
+baths, and the ruins of Pompeii. On this subject Winckelmann is the
+great authority.
+
+
+
+
+ANCIENT SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.
+
+
+ASTRONOMY, GEOGRAPHY, ETC.
+
+2000-100 B.C.
+
+
+It would be absurd to claim for the ancients any great attainments in
+science, such as they made in the field of letters or the realm of art.
+It is in science, especially when applied to practical life, that the
+moderns show their great superiority to the most enlightened nations of
+antiquity. In this great department of human inquiry modern genius
+shines with the lustre of the sun. It is this which most strikingly
+attests the advance of civilization. It is this which has distinguished
+and elevated the races of Europe, and carried them in the line of
+progress beyond the attainments of the Greeks and Romans. With the
+magnificent discoveries and inventions of the last three hundred years
+in almost every department of science, especially in the explorations of
+distant seas and continents, in the analysis of chemical compounds, in
+the wonders of steam and electricity, in mechanical appliances to
+abridge human labor, in astronomical researches, in the explanation of
+the phenomena of the heavens, in the miracles which inventive genius has
+wrought,--seen in our ships, our manufactories, our printing-presses,
+our observatories, our fortifications, our laboratories, our mills, our
+machines to cultivate the earth, to make our clothes, to build our
+houses, to multiply our means of offence and defence, to make weak
+children do the work of Titans, to measure our time with the accuracy of
+the planetary orbits, to use the sun itself in perpetuating our
+likenesses to distant generations, to cause a needle to guide the
+mariner with assurance on the darkest night, to propel a heavy ship
+against wind and tide without oars or sails, to make carriages ascend
+mountains without horses at the rate of thirty miles an hour, to convey
+intelligence with the speed of lightning from continent to continent and
+under oceans that ancient navigators never dared to cross,--these and
+other wonders attest an ingenuity and audacity of intellect which would
+have overwhelmed with amazement the most adventurous of Greeks and the
+most potent of Romans.
+
+But the great discoveries and inventions to which we owe this marked
+superiority are either accidental or the result of generations of
+experiment, assisted by an immense array of ascertained facts from which
+safe inductions can be made. It is not, probably, the superiority of
+the European races over the Greeks and Romans to which we may ascribe
+the wonderful advance of modern society, but the particular direction
+which genius was made to take. Had the Greeks given the energy of their
+minds to mechanical forces as they did to artistic creations, they might
+have made wonderful inventions. But it was not so ordered by Providence.
+At that time the world was not in the stage of development when this
+particular direction of intellect could have been favored. The
+development of the physical sciences, with their infinite multiplicity
+and complexity, required more centuries of observation, collection and
+collation of facts, deductions from known phenomena, than the ancients
+had had to work with; while the more ethereal realms of philosophy,
+ethics, aesthetics, and religion, though needing keen study of Nature
+and of man, depended more upon inner spiritual forces, and less upon
+accumulated detail of external knowledge. Yet as there were some
+subjects which the Greeks and Romans seemed to exhaust, some fields of
+labor and thought in which they never have been and perhaps never will
+be surpassed, so some future age may direct its energies into channels
+that are as unknown to us as clocks and steam-engines were to the
+Greeks. This is the age of mechanism and of science; and mechanism and
+science sweep everything before them, and will probably be carried to
+their utmost capacity and development. After that the human mind may
+seek some new department, some new scope for its energies, and an age of
+new wonders may arise,--perhaps after the present dominant races shall
+have become intoxicated with the greatness of their triumphs and have
+shared the fate of the old monarchies of the East. But I would not
+speculate on the destinies of the European nations, whether they are to
+make indefinite advances until they occupy and rule the whole world, or
+are destined to be succeeded by nations as yet undeveloped,--savages, as
+their fathers were when Rome was in the fulness of material wealth
+and grandeur.
+
+I have shown that in the field of artistic excellence, in literary
+composition, in the arts of government and legislation, and even in the
+realm of philosophical speculation, the ancients were our
+school-masters, and that among them were some men of most marvellous
+genius, who have had no superiors among us. But we do not see among them
+the exhibition of genius in what we call science, at least in its
+application to practical life. It would be difficult to show any
+department of science which the ancients carried to any considerable
+degree of perfection. Nevertheless, there were departments in which they
+made noble attempts, and in which they showed large capacity, even if
+they were unsuccessful in great practical results.
+
+Astronomy was one of these. In this science such men as Eratosthenes,
+Aristarchus, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy were great lights of whom humanity
+may be proud; and had they been assisted by our modern inventions, they
+might have earned a fame scarcely eclipsed by that of Kepler and Newton.
+The old astronomers did little to place this science on a true
+foundation, but they showed great ingenuity, and discovered some truths
+which no succeeding age has repudiated. They determined the
+circumference of the earth by a method identical with that which would
+be employed by modern astronomers; they ascertained the position of the
+stars by right ascension and declination; they knew the obliquity of the
+ecliptic, and determined the place of the sun's apogee as well as its
+mean motion. Their calculations on the eccentricity of the moon prove
+that they had a rectilinear trigonometry and tables of chords. They had
+an approximate knowledge of parallax; they could calculate eclipses of
+the moon, and use them for the correction of their lunar tables. They
+understood spherical trigonometry, and determined the motions of the sun
+and moon, involving an accurate definition of the year and a method of
+predicting eclipses; they ascertained that the earth was a sphere, and
+reduced the phenomena of the heavenly bodies to uniform movements of
+circular orbits. We have settled by physical geography the exact form
+of the earth, but the ancients arrived at their knowledge by
+astronomical reasoning. Says Whewell:--
+
+"The reduction of the motions of the sun, moon, and five planets to
+circular orbits, as was done by Hipparchus, implies deep concentrated
+thought and scientific abstraction. The theories of eccentrics and
+epicycles accomplished the end of explaining all the known phenomena.
+The resolution of the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies into an
+assemblage of circular motions was a great triumph of genius, and was
+equivalent to the most recent and improved processes by which modern
+astronomers deal with such motions."
+
+Astronomy was probably born in Chaldaea as early as the time of Abraham.
+The glories of the firmament were impressed upon the minds of the rude
+primitive races with an intensity which we do not feel, with all the
+triumphs of modern science. The Chaldaean shepherds, as they watched
+their flocks by night, noted the movements of the planets, and gave
+names to the more brilliant constellations. Before religious rituals
+were established, before great superstitions arose, before poetry was
+sung, before musical instruments were invented, before artists
+sculptured marble or melted bronze, before coins were stamped, before
+temples arose, before diseases were healed by the arts of medicine,
+before commerce was known, those Oriental shepherds counted the anxious
+hours by the position of certain constellations. Astronomy is therefore
+the oldest of the ancient sciences, although it remained imperfect for
+more than four thousand years. The old Assyrians, Egyptians, and Greeks
+made but few discoveries which are valued by modern astronomers, but
+they laid the foundation of the science, and ever regarded it as one of
+the noblest subjects that could stimulate the faculties of man. It was
+invested with all that was religious and poetical.
+
+The spacious level and unclouded horizon of Chaldaea afforded peculiar
+facilities of observation; and its pastoral and contemplative
+inhabitants, uncontaminated by the vices and superstitions of subsequent
+ages, active-minded and fresh, discovered after a long observation of
+eclipses--some say extending over nineteen centuries--the cycle of two
+hundred and twenty-three lunations, which brings back the eclipses in
+the same order. Having once established their cycle, they laid the
+foundation for the most sublime of all the sciences. Callisthenes
+transmitted from Babylon to Aristotle a collection of observations of
+all the eclipses that preceded the conquests of Alexander, together with
+the definite knowledge which the Chaldaeans had collected about the
+motions of the heavenly bodies. Such knowledge was rude and simple, and
+amounted to little beyond the fact that there were spherical
+revolutions about an inclined axis, and that the poles pointed always to
+particular stars. The Egyptians also recorded their observations, from
+which it would appear that they observed eclipses at least sixteen
+hundred years before the beginning of our era,--which is not improbable,
+if the speculations of modern philosophers respecting the age of the
+world are entitled to credit. The Egyptians discovered by the rising of
+Sirius that the year consists of three hundred and sixty-five and
+one-quarter days; and this was their sacred year, in distinction from
+the civil, which consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days. They
+also had observed the courses of the planets, and could explain the
+phenomena of the stations and retrogradations; and it is asserted too
+that they regarded Mercury and Venus as satellites of the sun. Some have
+maintained that the obelisks which the Egyptians erected served the
+purpose of gnomons for determining the obliquity of the ecliptic, the
+altitude of the pole, and the length of the tropical year. It is thought
+even that the Pyramids, by the position of their sides toward the
+cardinal points, attest Egyptian acquaintance with a meridional line.
+The Chinese boast of having noticed and recorded a series of eclipses
+extending over a period of thirty-eight hundred and fifty-eight years;
+and it is probable that they anticipated the Greeks two thousand years
+in the discovery of the Metonic cycle,--or the cycle of nineteen years,
+at the end of which time the new moons fall on the same days of the
+year. The Chinese also determined the obliquity of the ecliptic eleven
+hundred years before our era. The Hindus at a remote antiquity
+represented celestial phenomena with considerable exactness, and
+constructed tables by which the longitude of the sun and moon were
+determined, and dials to measure time. Bailly thinks that thirty-one
+hundred and two years before Christ astronomy was cultivated in Siam
+which hardly yields in accuracy to that which modern science has built
+on the theory of universal gravitation.
+
+But the Greeks after all were the only people of antiquity who elevated
+astronomy to the dignity of a science. They however confessed that they
+derived their earliest knowledge from the Babylonian and Egyptian
+priests, while the priests of Thebes claimed to be the originators of
+exact astronomical observations. Diodorus asserts that the Chaldaeans
+used the Temple of Belus, in the centre of Babylon, for their survey of
+the heavens. But whether the Babylonians or the Egyptians were the
+earliest astronomers is of little consequence, although the pedants make
+it a grave matter of investigation. All we know is that astronomy was
+cultivated by both Babylonians and Egyptians, and that they made but
+very limited attainments. They approximated to the truth in reference
+to the solar year, by observing the equinoxes and solstices and the
+heliacal rising of particular stars.
+
+The early Greek philosophers who visited Egypt and the East in search of
+knowledge, found very little to reward their curiosity or industry,--not
+much beyond preposterous claims to a high antiquity, and to an esoteric
+wisdom which has not yet been revealed. Plato and Eudoxus spent thirteen
+years in Heliopolis for the purpose of extracting the scientific
+knowledge of the Egyptian priests, yet they learned but little beyond
+the fact that the solar year was a trifle beyond three hundred and
+sixty-five days. No great names have come down to us from the priests of
+Babylon or Egypt; no one gained an individual reputation. The Chaldaean
+and Egyptian priests may have furnished the raw material of observation
+to the Greeks, but the latter alone possessed the scientific genius by
+which undigested facts were converted into a symmetrical system. The
+East never gave valuable knowledge to the West; it gave the tendency to
+religious mysticism, which in its turn tended to superstition. Instead
+of astronomy, it gave astrology; instead of science, it gave magic,
+incantations, and dreams. The Eastern astronomers connected their
+astronomy with divination from the stars, and made their antiquity reach
+back to two hundred and seventy thousand years. There were soothsayers
+in the time of Daniel, and magicians, exorcists, and interpreters of
+signs. They were not men of scientific research, seeking truth; it was
+power they sought, by perverting the intellect of the people. The
+astrology of the East was founded on the principle that a star or
+constellation presided over the birth of an individual, and that it
+either portended his fate, or shed a good or bad influence upon his
+future life. The star which looked upon a child at the hour of his birth
+was called the "horoscopus," and the peculiar influence of each planet
+was determined by the astrologers. The superstitions of Egypt and
+Chaldaea unfortunately spread among both the Greeks and Romans, and
+these were about all that the Western nations learned from the boastful
+priests of occult Oriental science. Whatever was known of real value
+among the ancients is due to the earnest inquiries of the Greeks.
+
+And yet their researches were very unsatisfactory until the time of
+Hipparchus. The primitive knowledge was almost nothing. The Homeric
+poems regarded the earth as a circular plain bounded by the heaven,
+which was a solid vault or hemisphere, with its concavity turned
+downward. This absurdity was believed until the time of Herodotus, five
+centuries after; nor was it exploded fully in the time of Aristotle. The
+sun, moon, and stars were supposed to move upon or with the inner
+surface of the heavenly hemisphere, and the ocean was thought to gird
+the earth around as a great belt, into which the heavenly bodies sank at
+night. Homer believed that the sun arose out of the ocean, ascended the
+heaven, and again plunged into the ocean, passing under the earth, and
+producing darkness. The Greeks even personified the sun as a divine
+charioteer driving his fiery steeds over the steep of heaven, until he
+bathed them at evening in the western waves. Apollo became the god of
+the sun, as Diana was the goddess of the moon. But the early Greek
+inquirers did not attempt to explain how the sun found his way from the
+west back again to the east; they merely took note of the diurnal
+course, the alternation of day and night, the number of the seasons, and
+their regular successions. They found the points of the compass by
+determining the recurrence of the equinoxes and solstices; but they had
+no conception of the ecliptic,--of that great circle in the heaven
+formed by the sun's annual course,--and of its obliquity when compared
+with our equator. Like the Egyptians and Babylonians, the Greeks
+ascertained the length of the year to be three hundred and sixty-five
+days; but perfect accuracy was lacking, for want of scientific
+instruments and of recorded observations of the heavenly bodies. The
+Greeks had not even a common chronological era for the designation of
+years. Herodotus informs us that the Trojan War preceded his time by
+eight hundred years: he merely states the interval between the event in
+question and his own time; he had certain data for distant periods. The
+Greeks reckoned dates from the Trojan War, and the Romans from the
+building of their city. The Greeks also divided the year into twelve
+months, and introduced the intercalary circle of eight years, although
+the Romans disused it afterward, until the calendar was reformed by
+Julius Caesar. Thus there was no scientific astronomical knowledge worth
+mentioning among the primitive Greeks.
+
+Immense research and learning have been expended by modern critics to
+show the state of scientific astronomy among the Greeks. I am amazed
+equally at the amount of research and its comparative worthlessness; for
+what addition to science can be made by an enumeration of the
+puerilities and errors of the Greeks, and how wasted and pedantic the
+learning which ransacks all antiquity to prove that the Greeks adopted
+this or that absurdity![1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The style of modern historical criticism is well
+exemplified in the discussions of the Germans whether the Arx on the
+Capitoline Hill occupied the northeastern or southwestern corner, which
+take up nearly one half of the learned article on the Capitoline in
+Smith's Dictionary.]
+
+The earliest historic name associated with astronomy in Greece was
+Thales, the founder of the Ionic school of philosophers. He is reported
+to have made a visit to Egypt, to have fixed the year at three hundred
+and sixty-five days, to have determined the course of the sun from
+solstice to solstice, and to have calculated eclipses. He attributed an
+eclipse of the moon to the interposition of the earth between the sun
+and moon, and an eclipse of the sun to the interposition of the moon
+between the sun and earth,--and thus taught the rotundity of the earth,
+sun, and moon. He also determined the ratio of the sun's diameter to its
+apparent orbit. As he first solved the problem of inscribing a
+right-angled triangle in a circle, he is the founder of geometrical
+science in Greece. He left, however, nothing to writing; hence all
+accounts of him are confused,--some doubting even if he made the
+discoveries attributed to him. His philosophical speculations, which
+science rejects,--such as that water is the principle of all
+things,--are irrelevant to a description of the progress of astronomy.
+That he was a great light no one questions, considering the ignorance
+with which he was surrounded.
+
+Anaximander, who followed Thales in philosophy, held to puerile
+doctrines concerning the motions and nature of the stars, which it is
+useless to repeat. His addition to science, if he made any, was in
+treating the magnitudes and distances of the planets. He constructed
+geographical charts, and attempted to delineate the celestial sphere,
+and to measure time with a gnomon, or time-pillar, by the motion of its
+shadow upon a dial.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: Dr. E.H. Knight, in his "American Mechanical Dictionary"
+(i. 692), cites the Scriptural account of the beautiful altar seen by
+King Ahaz of Jerusalem, in Damascus, when he went thither to greet
+Tiglath-Pileser, the Assyrian who had helped him against his Samarian
+enemy. Ahaz erected a similar altar at Jerusalem, and also a _sun-dial,_
+the same one mentioned in the account of the miraculous cure of his son
+Hezekiah. "This," says Dr. Knight, "was probably the first dial on
+record, and is one hundred and forty years before Thales, and nearly
+four hundred before Plato and Aristotle, and just a little previous to
+the lunar eclipses observed at Babylon, as recorded by Ptolemy.... The
+Hebrew word [for this dial] is said by Colonel White of the Bengal army
+to signify a _staircase_, which much strengthens the inference that it
+was like the equinoctial dial of the Indian nations and of Mesopotamia,
+from whence its pattern is assumed to have been derived."]
+
+Anaximenes of Miletus taught, like his predecessors, crude notions of
+the sun and stars, and speculated on the nature of the moon, but did
+nothing to advance his science on true grounds, except by the
+construction of sun-dials. The same may be said of Heraclitus,
+Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Anaxagoras: they were great men, but they
+gave to the world mere speculations, some of which are very puerile.
+They all held to the idea that the heavenly bodies revolved around the
+earth, and that the earth was a plain; but they explained eclipses, and
+supposed that the moon derived its light from the sun. Some of them
+knew the difference between the planets and the fixed stars. Anaxagoras
+scouted the notion that the sun was a god, and supposed it to be a mass
+of ignited stone,--for which he was called an atheist.
+
+Socrates, who belonged to another school, avoided all barren
+speculations concerning the universe, and confined himself to human
+actions and interests. He looked even upon geometry in a very practical
+way, valuing it only so far as it could be made serviceable to
+land-measuring. As for the stars and planets, he supposed it was
+impossible to arrive at a true knowledge of them, and regarded
+speculations upon them as useless.
+
+It must be admitted that the Greek astronomers, however barren were
+their general theories, laid the foundation of science. Pythagoras
+taught the obliquity of the ecliptic, probably learned in Egypt, and the
+identity of the morning and evening stars. It is supposed that he
+maintained that the sun was the centre of the universe, and that the
+earth revolved around it; but this he did not demonstrate, and his whole
+system was unscientific, assuming certain arbitrary principles, from
+which he reasoned deductively. "He assumed that fire is more worthy than
+earth; that the more worthy place must be given to the more worthy; that
+the extremity is more worthy than the intermediate parts,--and hence,
+as the centre is an extremity, the place of fire is at the centre of the
+universe, and that therefore the earth and other heavenly bodies move
+round the fiery centre." But this was no heliocentric system, since the
+sun moved, like the earth, in a circle around the central fire. This was
+merely the work of the imagination, utterly unscientific, though bold
+and original. Nor did this hypothesis gain credit, since it was the
+fixed opinion of philosophers that the earth was the centre of the
+universe, around which the sun, moon, and planets revolved. But the
+Pythagoreans were the first to teach that the motions of the sun, moon,
+and planets are circular and equable. Their idea that the celestial
+bodies emitted a sound, and were combined into a harmonious symphony,
+was exceedingly crude, however beautiful "The music of the spheres"
+belongs to poetry, as well as to the speculations of Plato.
+
+Eudoxus, in the fifth century before Christ, contributed to science by
+making a descriptive map of the heavens, which was used as a manual of
+sidereal astronomy to the sixth century of our era.
+
+The error of only one hundred and ninety days in the periodic time of
+Saturn shows that there had been for a long time close observations.
+Aristotle--whose comprehensive intellect, like that of Bacon, took in
+all forms of knowledge--condensed all that was known in his day into a
+treatise concerning the heavens. He regarded astronomy as more
+intimately connected with mathematics than any other branch of science.
+But even he did not soar far beyond the philosophers of his day, since
+he held to the immobility of the earth,--the grand error of the
+ancients. Some few speculators in science (like Heraclitus of Pontus,
+and Hicetas) conceived a motion of the earth itself upon its axis, so as
+to account for the apparent motion of the sun; but they also thought it
+was in the centre of the universe.
+
+The introduction of the gnomon (time-pillar) and dial into Greece
+advanced astronomical knowledge, since they were used to determine the
+equinoxes and solstices, as well as parts of the day. Meton set up a
+sun-dial at Athens in the year 433 B.C., but the length of the hour
+varied with the time of the year, since the Greeks divided the day into
+twelve equal parts. Dials were common at Rome in the time of Plautus,
+224 B.C.; but there was a difficulty in using them, since they failed at
+night and in cloudy weather, and could not be relied on. Hence the
+introduction of water-clocks instead.
+
+Aristarchus is said to have combated (280 B.C.) the geocentric theory so
+generally received by philosophers, and to have promulgated the
+hypothesis "that the fixed stars and the sun are immovable; that the
+earth is carried round the sun in the circumference of a circle of
+which the sun is the centre; and that the sphere of the fixed stars,
+having the same centre as the sun, is of such magnitude that the orbit
+of the earth is to the distance of the fixed stars as the centre of the
+sphere of the fixed stars is to its surface." Aristarchus also,
+according to Plutarch, explained the apparent annual motion of the sun
+in the ecliptic by supposing the orbit of the earth to be inclined to
+its axis. There is no evidence that this great astronomer supported his
+heliocentric theory with any geometrical proof, although Plutarch
+maintains that he demonstrated it. This theory gave great offence,
+especially to the Stoics; and Cleanthes, the head of the school at that
+time, maintained that the author of such an impious doctrine should be
+punished. Aristarchus left a treatise "On the Magnitudes and Distances
+of the Sun and Moon;" and his methods to measure the apparent diameters
+of the sun and moon are considered theoretically sound by modern
+astronomers, but practically inexact owing to defective instruments. He
+estimated the diameter of the sun at the seven hundred and twentieth
+part of the circumference of the circle which it describes in its
+diurnal revolution, which is not far from the truth; but in this
+treatise he does not allude to his heliocentric theory.
+
+Archimedes of Syracuse, born 287 B.C., is stated to have measured the
+distance of the sun, moon, and planets, and he constructed an orrery in
+which he exhibited their motions. But it was not in the Grecian colony
+of Syracuse, but of Alexandria, that the greatest light was shed on
+astronomical science. Here Aristarchus resided, and also Eratosthenes,
+who lived between the years 276 and 196 B.C. The latter was a native of
+Athens, but was invited by Ptolemy Euergetes to Alexandria, and placed
+at the head of the library. His great achievement was the determination
+of the circumference of the earth. This was done by measuring on the
+ground the distance between Syene, a city exactly under the tropic, and
+Alexandria, situated on the same meridian. The distance was found to be
+five thousand stadia. The meridional distance of the sun from the zenith
+of Alexandria he estimated to be 7 deg. 12', or a fiftieth part of the
+circumference of the meridian. Hence the circumference of the earth was
+fixed at two hundred and fifty thousand stadia,--which is not very
+different from our modern computation. The circumference being known,
+the diameter of the earth was easily determined. The moderns have added
+nothing to this method. He also calculated the diameter of the sun to be
+twenty-seven times greater than that of the earth, and the distance of
+the sun from the earth to be eight hundred and four million stadia, and
+that of the moon seven hundred and eighty thousand stadia,--a close
+approximation to the truth.
+
+Astronomical science received a great impulse from the school of
+Alexandria, the greatest light of which was Hipparchus, who flourished
+early in the second century before Christ. He laid the foundation of
+astronomy upon a scientific basis. "He determined," says Delambre, "the
+position of the stars by right ascensions and declinations, and was
+acquainted with the obliquity of the ecliptic. He determined the
+inequality of the sun and the place of its apogee, as well as its mean
+motion; the mean motion of the moon, of its nodes and apogee; the
+equation of the moon's centre, and the inclination of its orbit. He
+calculated eclipses of the moon, and used them for the correction of his
+lunar tables, and he had an approximate knowledge of parallax." His
+determination of the motions of the sun and moon, and his method of
+predicting eclipses evince great mathematical genius. But he combined
+with this determination a theory of epicycles and eccentrics which
+modern astronomy discards. It was however a great thing to conceive of
+the earth as a solid sphere, and to reduce the phenomena of the heavenly
+bodies to uniform motions in circular orbits. "That Hipparchus should
+have succeeded in the first great steps of the resolution of the
+heavenly bodies into circular motions is a circumstance," says Whewell,
+"which gives him one of the most distinguished places in the roll of
+great astronomers." But he did even more than this: he discovered that
+apparent motion of the fixed stars round the axis of the ecliptic, which
+is called the Precession of the Equinoxes,--one of the greatest
+discoveries in astronomy. He maintained that the precession was not
+greater than fifty-nine seconds, and not less than thirty-six seconds.
+Hipparchus also framed a catalogue of the stars, and determined their
+places with reference to the ecliptic by their latitudes and longitudes.
+Altogether he seems to have been one of the greatest geniuses of
+antiquity, and his works imply a prodigious amount of calculation.
+
+Astronomy made no progress for three hundred years, although it was
+expounded by improved methods. Posidonius constructed an orrery, which
+exhibited the diurnal motions of the sun, moon, and five planets.
+Posidonius calculated the circumference of the earth to be two hundred
+and forty thousand stadia, by a different method from Eratosthenes. The
+barrenness of discovery from Hipparchus to Ptolemy,--the Alexandrian
+mathematician, astronomer, and geographer in the second century of the
+Christian era,--in spite of the patronage of the royal Ptolemies of
+Egypt, was owing to the want of instruments for the accurate measure of
+time (like our clocks), to the imperfection of astronomical tables, and
+to the want of telescopes. Hence the great Greek astronomers were unable
+to realize their theories. Their theories however were magnificent, and
+evinced great power of mathematical combination; but what could they do
+without that wondrous instrument by which the human eye indefinitely
+multiplies its power? Moreover, the ancients had no accurate almanacs,
+since the care of the calendar belonged not so much to the astronomers
+as to the priests, who tampered with the computation of time for
+sacerdotal objects. The calendars of different communities differed.
+Hence Julius Caesar rendered a great service to science by the reform of
+the Roman calendar, which was exclusively under the control of the
+college of pontiffs, or general religious overseers. The Roman year
+consisted of three hundred and fifty-five days; and in the time of
+Caesar the calendar was in great confusion, being ninety days in
+advance, so that January was an autumn month. He inserted the regular
+intercalary month of twenty-three days, and two additional ones of
+sixty-seven days. These, together with ninety days, were added to three
+hundred and sixty-five days, making a year of transition of four hundred
+and forty-five days, by which January was brought back to the first
+month in the year after the winter solstice; and to prevent the
+repetition of the error, he directed that in future the year should
+consist of three hundred and sixty-five and one-quarter days, which he
+effected by adding one day to the months of April, June, September, and
+November, and two days to the months of January, Sextilis, and
+December, making an addition of ten days to the old year of three
+hundred and fifty-five. And he provided for a uniform intercalation of
+one day in every fourth year, which accounted for the remaining
+quarter of a day.
+
+Caesar was a student of astronomy, and always found time for its
+contemplation. He is said even to have written a treatise on the motion
+of the stars. He was assisted in his reform of the calendar by
+Sosigines, an Alexandrian astronomer. He took it out of the hands of the
+priests, and made it a matter of pure civil regulation. The year was
+defined by the sun, and not as before by the moon.
+
+Thus the Romans were the first to bring the scientific knowledge of the
+Greeks into practical use; but while they measured the year with a great
+approximation to accuracy, they still used sun-dials and water-clocks to
+measure diurnal time. Yet even these were not constructed as they should
+have been. The hour-marks on the sun-dial were all made equal, instead
+of varying with the periods of the day,--so that the length of the hour
+varied with the length of the day. The illuminated interval was divided
+into twelve equal parts; so that if the sun rose at five A.M., and set
+at eight P.M., each hour was equal to eighty minutes. And this rude
+method of measurement of diurnal time remained in use till the sixth
+century. Clocks, with wheels and weights, were not invented till the
+twelfth century.
+
+The last great light among the ancients in astronomical science was
+Ptolemy, who lived from 100 to 170 A.D., in Alexandria. He was
+acquainted with the writings of all the previous astronomers, but
+accepted Hipparchus as his guide. He held that the heaven is spherical
+and revolves upon its axis; that the earth is a sphere, and is situated
+within the celestial sphere, and nearly at its centre; that it is a mere
+point in reference to the distance and magnitude of the fixed stars, and
+that it has no motion. He adopted the views of the ancient astronomers,
+who placed Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars next under the sphere of the fixed
+stars, then the sun above Venus and Mercury, and lastly the moon next to
+the earth. But he differed from Aristotle, who conceived that the earth
+revolves in an orbit around the centre of the planetary system, and
+turns upon its axis,--two ideas in common with the doctrines which
+Copernicus afterward unfolded. But even Ptolemy did not conceive the
+heliocentric theory,--the sun the centre of our system. Archimedes and
+Hipparchus both rejected this theory.
+
+In regard to the practical value of the speculations of the ancient
+astronomers, it may be said that had they possessed clocks and
+telescopes, their scientific methods would have sufficed for all
+practical purposes. The greatness of modern discoveries lies in the
+great stretch of the perceptive powers, and the magnificent field they
+afford for sublime contemplation. "But," as Sir G. Cornewall Lewis
+remarks, "modern astronomy is a science of pure curiosity, and is
+directed exclusively to the extension of knowledge in a field which
+human interests can never enter. The periodic time of Uranus, the nature
+of Saturn's ring, and the occultation of Jupiter's satellites are as far
+removed from the concerns of mankind as the heliacal rising of Sirius,
+or the northern position of the Great Bear." This may seem to be a
+utilitarian view, with which those philosophers who have cultivated
+science for its own sake, finding in the same a sufficient reward, can
+have no sympathy.
+
+The upshot of the scientific attainments of the ancients, in the
+magnificent realm of the heavenly bodies, would seem to be that they
+laid the foundation of all the definite knowledge which is useful to
+mankind; while in the field of abstract calculation they evinced
+reasoning and mathematical powers that have never been surpassed.
+Eratosthenes, Archimedes, and Hipparchus were geniuses worthy to be
+placed by the side of Kepler, Newton, and La Place, and all ages will
+reverence their efforts and their memory. It is truly surprising that
+with their imperfect instruments, and the absence of definite data,
+they reached a height so sublime and grand. They explained the doctrine
+of the sphere and the apparent motions of the planets, but they had no
+instruments capable of measuring angular distances. The ingenious
+epicycles of Ptolemy prepared the way for the elliptic orbits and laws
+of Kepler, which in turn conducted Newton to the discovery of the law of
+gravitation,--the grandest scientific discovery in the annals of
+our race.
+
+Closely connected with astronomical science was geometry, which was
+first taught in Egypt,--the nurse and cradle of ancient wisdom. It arose
+from the necessity of adjusting the landmarks disturbed by the
+inundations of the Nile. There is hardly any trace of geometry among the
+Hebrews. Among the Hindus there are some works on this science, of great
+antiquity. Their mathematicians knew the rule for finding the area of a
+triangle from its sides, and also the celebrated proposition concerning
+the squares on the sides of the right-angled triangle. The Chinese, it
+is said, also knew this proposition before it was known to the Greeks,
+among whom it was first propounded by Thales. He applied a circle to the
+measurement of angles. Anaximander made geographical charts, which
+required considerable geometrical knowledge. Anaxagoras employed
+himself in prison in attempting to square the circle. Thales, as has
+been said, discovered the important theorem that in a right-angled
+triangle the squares on the sides containing the right angle are
+together equal to the square on the opposite side of it. Pythagoras
+discovered that of all figures having the same boundary, the circle
+among plane figures and the sphere among solids are the most capacious.
+Hippocrates treated of the duplication of the cube, and wrote elements
+of geometry, and knew that the area of a circle was equal to a triangle
+whose base is equal to its circumference and altitude equal to its
+radius. The disciples of Plato invented conic sections, and discovered
+the geometrical foci.
+
+It was however reserved for Euclid to make his name almost synonymous
+with geometry. He was born 323 B.C., and belonged to the Platonic sect,
+which ever attached great importance to mathematics. His "Elements" are
+still in use, as nearly perfect as any human production can be. They
+consist of thirteen books. The first four are on plane geometry; the
+fifth is on the theory of proportion, and applies to magnitude in
+general; the seventh, eighth, and ninth are on arithmetic; the tenth on
+the arithmetical characteristics of the division of a straight line; the
+eleventh and twelfth on the elements of solid geometry; the thirteenth
+on the regular solids. These "Elements" soon became the universal study
+of geometers throughout the civilized world; they were translated into
+the Arabic, and through the Arabians were made known to mediaeval
+Europe. There can be no doubt that this work is one of the highest
+triumphs of human genius, and it has been valued more than any single
+monument of antiquity; it is still a text-book, in various English
+translations, in all our schools. Euclid also wrote various other works,
+showing great mathematical talent.
+
+Perhaps a greater even than Euclid was Archimedes, born 287 B.C. He
+wrote on the sphere and cylinder, terminating in the discovery that the
+solidity and surface of a sphere are two thirds respectively of the
+solidity and surface of the circumscribing cylinder. He also wrote on
+conoids and spheroids. "The properties of the spiral and the quadrature
+of the parabola were added to ancient geometry by Archimedes, the last
+being a great step in the progress of the science, since it was the
+first curvilineal space legitimately squared." Modern mathematicians may
+not have the patience to go through his investigations, since the
+conclusions he arrived at may now be reached by shorter methods; but the
+great conclusions of the old geometers were reached by only prodigious
+mathematical power. Archimedes is popularly better known as the inventor
+of engines of war and of various ingenious machines than as a
+mathematician, great as were his attainments in this direction. His
+theory of the lever was the foundation of statics till the discovery of
+the composition of forces in the time of Newton, and no essential
+addition was made to the principles of the equilibrium of fluids and
+floating bodies till the time of Stevin, in 1608. Archimedes detected
+the mixture of silver in a crown of gold which his patron, Hiero of
+Syracuse, ordered to be made; and he invented a water-screw for pumping
+water out of the hold of a great ship which he had built. He contrived
+also the combination of pulleys, and he constructed an orrery to
+represent the movement of the heavenly bodies. He had an extraordinary
+inventive genius for discovering new provinces of inquiry and new points
+of view for old and familiar objects. Like Newton, he had a habit of
+abstraction from outward things, and would forget to take his meals. He
+was killed by Roman soldiers when Syracuse was taken; and the Sicilians
+so soon forgot his greatness that in the time of Cicero they did not
+know where his tomb was.
+
+Eratosthenes was another of the famous geometers of antiquity, and did
+much to improve geometrical analysis. He was also a philosopher and
+geographer. He gave a solution of the problem of the duplication of the
+cube, and applied his geometrical knowledge to the measurement of the
+magnitude of the earth,--being one of the first who brought
+mathematical methods to the aid of astronomy, which in our day is almost
+exclusively the province of the mathematician.
+
+Apollonius of Perga, probably about forty years younger than Archimedes,
+and his equal in mathematical genius, was the most fertile and profound
+writer among the ancients who treated of geometry. He was called the
+Great Geometer. His most important work is a treatise on conic sections,
+which was regarded with unbounded admiration by contemporaries, and in
+some respects is unsurpassed by any thing produced by modern
+mathematicians. He however made use of the labors of his predecessors,
+so that it is difficult to tell how far he is original. But all men of
+science must necessarily be indebted to those who have preceded them.
+Even Homer, in the field of poetry, made use of the bards who had sung
+for a thousand years before him; and in the realms of philosophy the
+great men of all ages have built up new systems on the foundations which
+others have established. If Plato or Aristotle had been contemporaries
+with Thales, would they have matured so wonderful a system of
+dialectics? Yet if Thales had been contemporaneous with Plato, he might
+have added to the great Athenian's sublime science even more than did
+Aristotle. So of the great mathematicians of antiquity; they were all
+wonderful men, and worthy to be classed with the Newtons and Keplers of
+our times. Considering their means and the state of science, they made
+as _great_ though not as _fortunate_ discoveries,--discoveries which
+show patience, genius, and power of calculation. Apollonius was one of
+these,--one of the master intellects of antiquity, like Euclid and
+Archimedes; one of the master intellects of all ages, like Newton
+himself. I might mention the subjects of his various works, but they
+would not be understood except by those familiar with mathematics.
+
+Other famous geometers could also be named, but such men as Euclid,
+Archimedes, and Apollonius are enough to show that geometry was
+cultivated to a great extent by the philosophers of antiquity. It
+progressively advanced, like philosophy itself, from the time of Thales
+until it had reached the perfection of which it was capable, when it
+became merged into astronomical science. It was cultivated more
+particularly by the disciples of Plato, who placed over his school this
+inscription: "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here." He believed
+that the laws by which the universe is governed are in accordance with
+the doctrines of mathematics. The same opinion was shared by Pythagoras,
+the great founder of the science, whose main formula was that _number_
+is the essence or first principle of all things. No thinkers ever
+surpassed the Greeks in originality and profundity; and mathematics,
+being highly prized by them, were carried to the greatest perfection
+their method would allow. They did not understand algebra, by the
+application of which to geometry modern mathematicians have climbed to
+greater heights than the ancients; but then it is all the more
+remarkable that without the aid of algebraic analysis they were able to
+solve such difficult problems as occupied the minds of Archimedes and
+Apollonius. No positive science can boast of such rapid development as
+geometry for two or three hundred years before Christ, and never was the
+intellect of man more severely tasked than by the ancient
+mathematicians.
+
+No empirical science can be carried to perfection by any one nation or
+in any particular epoch; it can only expand with the progressive
+developments of the human race itself. Nevertheless, in that science
+which for three thousand years has been held in the greatest honor, and
+which is one of the three great liberal professions of our modern times,
+the ancients, especially the Greeks, made considerable advance. The
+science of medicine, having in view the amelioration of human misery and
+the prolongation of life itself, was very early cultivated. It was,
+indeed, in old times another word for _physics_,--the science of
+Nature,--and the _physician_ was the observer and expounder of physics.
+The physician was supposed to be acquainted with the secrets of
+Nature,--that is, the knowledge of drugs, of poisons, of antidotes to
+them, and the way to administer them. He was also supposed to know the
+process of preserving the body after death. Thus Joseph, seventeen
+hundred years before the birth of Christ, commanded his physician to
+embalm the body of his father; and the process of embalming was probably
+known to the Egyptians before the period when history begins. Helen, of
+Trojan fame, put into wine a drug that "frees man from grief and anger,
+and causes oblivion of all ills." Solomon was a great botanist,--a realm
+with which the science of medicine is indissolubly connected. The origin
+of Hindu medicine is lost in remote antiquity. The Ayur Veda, written
+nine hundred years before Hippocrates was born, sums up the knowledge of
+previous periods relating to obstetric surgery, to general pathology, to
+the treatment of insanity, to infantile diseases, to toxicology, to
+personal hygiene, and to diseases of the generative functions.
+
+Thus Hippocrates, the father of European medicine, must have derived his
+knowledge not merely from his own observations, but from the writings of
+men unknown to us and from systems practised for an indefinite period.
+The real founders of Greek medicine are fabled characters, like Hercules
+and Aesculapius,--that is, benefactors whose fictitious names alone
+have descended to us. They are mythical personages, like Hermes and
+Chiron. Twelve hundred years before Christ temples were erected to
+Aesculapius in Greece, the priests of which were really physicians, and
+the temples themselves hospitals. In them were practised rites
+apparently mysterious, but which modern science calls by the names of
+mesmerism, hydropathy, the use of mineral springs, and other essential
+elements of empirical science. And these temples were also medical
+schools. That of Cos gave birth to Hippocrates, and it was there that
+his writings were begun. Pythagoras--for those old Grecian philosophers
+were the fathers of all wisdom and knowledge, in mathematics and
+empirical sciences as well as philosophy itself--studied medicine in the
+schools of Egypt, Phoenicia, Chaldaea, and India, and came in conflict
+with sacerdotal power, which has ever been antagonistic to new ideas in
+science. He travelled from town to town as a teacher or lecturer,
+establishing communities in which _medicine_ as well as _numbers_
+was taught.
+
+The greatest name in medical science in ancient or in modern times, the
+man who did the most to advance it, the greatest medical genius of whom
+we have any early record, was Hippocrates, born on the island of Cos,
+460 B.C., of the great Aesculapian family. He received his instruction
+from his father. We know scarcely more of his life than we do of Homer
+himself, although he lived in the period of the highest splendor of
+Athens. Even his writings, like those of Homer, are thought by some to
+be the work of different men. They were translated into Arabic, and were
+no slight means of giving an impulse to the Saracenic schools of the
+Middle Ages in that science in which the Saracens especially excelled.
+The Hippocratic collection consists of more than sixty works, which were
+held in the highest estimation by the ancient physicians. Hippocrates
+introduced a new era in medicine, which before his time had been
+monopolized by the priests. He carried out a system of severe induction
+from the observation of facts, and is as truly the creator of the
+inductive method as Bacon himself. He abhorred theories which could not
+be established by facts; he was always open to conviction, and candidly
+confessed his mistakes; he was conscientious in the practice of his
+profession, and valued the success of his art more than silver and gold.
+The Athenians revered Hippocrates for his benevolence as well as genius.
+The great principle of his practice was _trust in Nature_; hence he was
+accused of allowing his patients to die. But this principle has many
+advocates among scientific men in our day; and some suppose that the
+whole successful practice of Homoeopathy rests on the primal principle
+which Hippocrates advanced, although the philosophy of it claims a
+distinctly scientific basis in the principle _similia similibus
+curantur_. Hippocrates had great skill in diagnosis, by which medical
+genius is most severely tested; his practice was cautious and timid in
+contrast with that of his contemporaries. He is the author of the
+celebrated maxim, "Life is short and art is long." He divides the causes
+of disease into two principal classes,--the one comprehending the
+influence of seasons, climates, and other external forces; the other
+including the effects of food and exercise. To the influence of climate
+he attributes the conformation of the body and the disposition of the
+mind; to a vicious system of diet he attributes innumerable forms of
+disease. For more than twenty centuries his pathology was the foundation
+of all the medical sects. He was well acquainted with the medicinal
+properties of drugs, and was the first to assign three periods to the
+course of a malady. He knew but little of surgery, although he was in
+the habit of bleeding, and often employed the knife; he was also
+acquainted with cupping, and used violent purgatives. He was not aware
+of the importance of the pulse, and confounded the veins with the
+arteries. Hippocrates wrote in the Ionic dialect, and some of his works
+have gone through three hundred editions, so highly have they been
+valued. His authority passed away, like that of Aristotle, on the
+revival of science in Europe. Yet who have been greater ornaments and
+lights than these two distinguished Greeks?
+
+The school of Alexandria produced eminent physicians, as well as
+mathematicians, after the glory of Greece had departed. So highly was it
+esteemed that Galen in the second century,--born in Greece, but famous
+in the service of Rome,--went there to study, five hundred years after
+its foundation. It was distinguished for inquiries into scientific
+anatomy and physiology, for which Aristotle had prepared the way. Galen
+was the Humboldt of his day, and gave great attention to physics. In
+eight books he developed the general principles of natural science known
+to the Greeks. On the basis of the Aristotelian researches, the
+Alexandrian physicians carried out extensive inquiries in physiology.
+Herophilus discovered the fundamental principles of neurology, and
+advanced the anatomy of the brain and spinal cord.
+
+Although the Romans had but little sympathy with science or philosophy,
+being essentially political and warlike in their turn of mind, yet when
+they had conquered the world, and had turned their attention to arts,
+medicine received a good share of their attention. The first physicians
+in Rome were Greek slaves. Of these was Asclepiades, who enjoyed the
+friendship of Cicero. It is from him that the popular medical theories
+as to the "pores" have descended. He was the inventor of the
+shower-bath. Celsus wrote a work on medicine which takes almost equal
+rank with the Hippocratic writings.
+
+Medical science at Rome culminated in Galen, as it did at Athens in
+Hippocrates. Galen was patronized by Marcus Aurelius, and availed
+himself of all the knowledge of preceding naturalists and physicians. He
+was born at Pergamos about the year 130 A.D., where he learned, under
+able masters, anatomy, pathology, and therapeutics. He finished his
+studies at Alexandria, and came to Rome at the invitation of the
+Emperor. Like his imperial patron, Galen was one of the brightest
+ornaments of the heathen world, and one of the most learned and
+accomplished men of any age. He left five hundred treatises, most of
+them relating to some branch of medical science, which give him the name
+of being one of the most voluminous of authors. His celebrity is founded
+chiefly on his anatomical and physiological works. He was familiar with
+practical anatomy, deriving his knowledge from dissection. His
+observations about health are practical and useful; he lays great stress
+on gymnastic exercises, and recommends the pleasures of the chase, the
+cold bath in hot weather, hot baths for old people, the use of wine, and
+three meals a day. The great principles of his practice were that
+disease is to be overcome by that which is contrary to the disease
+itself,--hence the name Allopathy, invented by the founder of
+Homoeopathy to designate the fundamental principle of the general
+practice,--and that nature is to be preserved by that which has relation
+with nature. His "Commentaries on Hippocrates" served as a treasure of
+medical criticism, from which succeeding annotators borrowed. No one
+ever set before the medical profession a higher standard than Galen
+advanced, and few have more nearly approached it. He did not attach
+himself to any particular school, but studied the doctrines of each. The
+works of Galen constituted the last production of ancient Roman
+medicine, and from his day the decline in medical science was rapid,
+until it was revived among the Arabs.
+
+The physical sciences, it must be confessed, were not carried by the
+ancients to any such length as geometry and astronomy. In physical
+geography they were particularly deficient. Yet even this branch of
+knowledge can boast of some eminent names. When men sailed timidly along
+the coasts, and dared not explore distant seas, the true position and
+characteristics of countries could not be ascertained with the
+definiteness that it is at present. But geography was not utterly
+neglected in those early times, nor was natural history.
+
+Herodotus gives us most valuable information respecting the manners and
+customs of Oriental and barbarous nations; and Pliny wrote a Natural
+History in thirty-seven books, which is compiled from upwards of two
+thousand volumes, and refers to twenty thousand matters of importance.
+He was born 23 A.D., and was fifty-six when the eruption of Vesuvius
+took place, which caused his death. Pliny cannot be called a scientific
+genius in the sense understood by modern savants; nor was he an original
+observer,--his materials being drawn up second-hand, like a modern
+encyclopaedia. Nor did he evince great judgment in his selection: he had
+a great love of the marvellous, and his work was often unintelligible;
+but it remains a wonderful monument of human industry. His Natural
+History treats of everything in the natural world,--of the heavenly
+bodies, of the elements, of thunder and lightning, of the winds and
+seasons, of the changes and phenomena of the earth, of countries and
+nations, of seas and rivers, of men, animals, birds, fishes, and plants,
+of minerals and medicines and precious stones, of commerce and the fine
+arts. He is full of errors, but his work is among the most valuable
+productions of antiquity. Buffon pronounced his Natural History to
+contain an infinity of knowledge in every department of human
+occupation, conveyed in a dress ornate and brilliant. It is a literary
+rather than a scientific monument, and as such it is wonderful. In
+strict scientific value, it is inferior to the works of modern research;
+but there are few minds, even in these times, who have directed
+inquiries to such a variety of subjects as are treated in Pliny's
+masterpiece.
+
+If we would compare the geographical knowledge of the ancients with that
+of the moderns, we confess to the immeasurable inferiority of
+the ancients.
+
+Eratosthenes, though more properly an astronomer, and the most
+distinguished among the ancients, was also a considerable writer on
+geography, indeed, the first who treated the subject systematically,
+although none of his writings have reached us. The improvements he
+pointed out were applied by Ptolemy himself. His work was a presentation
+of the geographical knowledge known in his day, so far as geography is
+the science of determining the position of places on the earth's
+surface. When Eratosthenes began his labors, in the third century before
+Christ, it was known that the surface of the earth was spherical; he
+established parallels of latitude and longitude, and attempted the
+difficult undertaking of measuring the circumference of the globe by the
+actual measurement of a segment of one of its great circles.
+
+Hipparchus (beginning of second century before Christ) introduced into
+geography a great improvement; namely, the relative situation of
+places, by the same process that he determined the positions of the
+heavenly bodies. He also pointed out how longitude might be determined
+by observing the eclipses of the sun and moon. This led to the
+construction of maps; but none have reached us except those that were
+used to illustrate the geography of Ptolemy. Hipparchus was the first
+who raised geography to the rank of a science. He starved himself to
+death, being tired of life.
+
+Posidonius, who was nearly a century later, determined the arc of a
+meridian between Rhodes and Alexandria to be a forty-eighth part of the
+whole circumference,--an enormous calculation, yet a remarkable one in
+the infancy of astronomical science. His writings on history and
+geography are preserved only in quotations by Cicero, Strabo,
+and others.
+
+Geographical knowledge however was most notably advanced by Strabo, who
+lived in the Augustan era; although his researches were chiefly confined
+to the Roman empire. Strabo was, like Herodotus, a great traveller, and
+much of his geographical information is the result of his own
+observations. It is probable he was much indebted to Eratosthenes, who
+preceded him by three centuries. The authorities of Strabo were chiefly
+Greek, but his work is defective from the imperfect notions which the
+ancients had of astronomy; so that the determination of the earth's
+figure by the measure of latitude and longitude, the essential
+foundation of geographical description, was unknown. The enormous
+strides which all forms of physical science have made since the
+discovery of America throw all ancient descriptions and investigations
+into the shade, and Strabo appears at as great disadvantage as Pliny or
+Ptolemy; yet the work of Strabo, considering his means, and the
+imperfect knowledge of the earth's surface and astronomical science in
+his day, was really a great achievement. He treats of the form and
+magnitude of the earth, and devotes eight books to Europe, six to Asia,
+and one to Africa. The description of places belongs to Strabo, whose
+work was accepted as the text-book of the science till the fifteenth
+century, for in his day the Roman empire had been well surveyed. He
+maintained that the earth is spherical, and established the terms
+_longitude_ and _latitude_, which Eratosthenes had introduced, and
+computed the earth to be one hundred and eighty thousand stadia in
+circumference, and a degree to be five hundred stadia in length, or
+sixty-two and a-half Roman miles. His estimates of the length of a
+degree of latitude were nearly correct; but he made great errors in the
+degrees of longitude, making the length of the world from east to west
+too great, which led to the belief in the practicability of a western
+passage to India. He also assigned too great length to the
+Mediterranean, arising from the difficulty of finding the longitude with
+accuracy. But it was impossible, with the scientific knowledge of his
+day, to avoid errors, and we are surprised that he made so few.
+
+Whatever may be said of the accuracy of the great geographer of
+antiquity, it cannot be denied that he was a man of immense research and
+learning. His work in seventeen books is one of the most valuable that
+have come down from antiquity, both from the discussions which run
+through it, and the curious facts which can be found nowhere else. It is
+scarcely fair to estimate the genius of Strabo by the correctness and
+extent of his geographical knowledge. All men are comparatively ignorant
+in science, because science is confessedly a progressive study. The
+great scientific lights of our day may be insignificant, compared with
+those who are to arise, if profundity and accuracy of knowledge be made
+the test. It is the genius of the ancients, their grasp and power of
+mind, their original labors, which we are to consider.
+
+Thus it would seem that among the ancients, in those departments of
+science which are inductive, there were not sufficient facts, well
+established, from which to make sound inductions; but in those
+departments which are deductive, like pure mathematics, and which
+require great reasoning powers, there were lofty attainments,--which
+indeed gave the foundation for the achievements of modern science.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+An exceedingly learned work (London, 1862) on the Astronomy of the
+Ancients, by Sir George Cornewall Lewis, though rather ostentatious in
+the parade of authorities, and minute on points which are not of much
+consequence, is worth consulting. Delambre's History of Ancient
+Astronomy has long been a classic, but is richer in materials for a
+history than a history itself. There is a valuable essay in the
+Encyclopaedia Britannica, which refers to a list of special authors.
+Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences may also be consulted with
+profit. Dunglison's History of Medicine is a standard, giving much
+detailed information, and Leclerc among the French and Speugel among the
+Germans are esteemed authorities. Strabo's Geography is the most
+valuable of antiquity; see also Polybius: both of these have been
+translated and edited for English readers.
+
+
+
+
+MATERIAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS.
+
+
+MECHANICAL AND USEFUL ARTS.
+
+4000-50 B.C.
+
+
+While the fine arts made great progress among the cultivated nations of
+antiquity, and with the Greeks reached a refinement that has never since
+been surpassed, the ancients were far behind modern nations in
+everything that has utility for its object. In implements of war, in
+agricultural instruments, in the variety of manufactures, in machinery,
+in chemical compounds, in domestic utensils, in grand engineering works,
+in the comfort of houses, in modes of land-travel and transportation, in
+navigation, in the multiplication of books, in triumphs over the forces
+of Nature, in those discoveries and inventions which abridge the labors
+of mankind and bring races into closer intercourse,--especially by such
+wonders as are wrought by steam, gas, electricity, gunpowder, the
+mariner's compass, and the art of printing,--the modern world feels its
+immense superiority to all the ages that have gone before. And yet,
+considering the infancy of science and the youth of nations, more was
+accomplished by the ancients for the comfort and convenience and luxury
+of man than we naturally might suppose.
+
+Egypt was the primeval seat of what may be called material civilization,
+and many arts and inventions were known there when the rest of the world
+was still in ignorance and barbarism. More than four thousand years ago
+the Egyptians had chariots of war and most of the military weapons known
+afterward to the Greeks,--especially the spear and bow, which were the
+most effective offensive weapons known to antiquity or the Middle Ages.
+Some of their warriors were clothed in coats of brass equal to the steel
+or iron cuirass worn by the Mediaeval knights of chivalry. They had the
+battle-axe, the shield, the sword, the javelin, the metal-headed arrow.
+One of the early Egyptian kings marched against his enemies with six
+hundred thousand infantry, twenty thousand cavalry, and twenty-three
+thousand chariots of war, each drawn by two horses. The saddles and
+bridles of their horses were nearly as perfect as ours are at the
+present time; the leather they used was dyed in various colors, and
+adorned with metal edges. The wheels of their chariots were bound with
+hoops of metal, and had six spokes. Umbrellas to protect from the rays
+of the sun were held over the heads of their women of rank when they
+rode in their highly-decorated chariots. Walls of solid masonry, thick
+and high, surrounded their principal cities, while an attacking or
+besieging army used movable towers. Their disciplined troops advanced to
+battle in true military precision, at the sound of the trumpet.
+
+The public works of Egyptian kings were on a grand scale. They united
+rivers with seas by canals which employed hundreds of thousands of
+workmen. They transported heavy blocks of stone, of immense weight and
+magnitude, for their temples, palaces, and tombs. They erected obelisks
+in single shafts nearly one hundred feet in height, and they engraved
+the sides of these obelisks from top to bottom with representations of
+warriors, priests, and captives. They ornamented their vast temples with
+sculptures which required the hardest metals. Rameses the Great, the
+Sesostris of the Greeks, had a fleet of four hundred vessels in the
+Arabian Gulf, and the rowers wore quilted helmets. His vessels had
+sails, which implies the weaving of flax and the twisting of heavy
+ropes; some of his war-galleys were propelled by forty-four oars, and
+were one hundred and twenty feet in length.
+
+Among their domestic utensils the Egyptians used the same kind of
+buckets for wells that we find to-day among the farmhouses of New
+England. Skilful gardeners were employed in ornamenting grounds and in
+raising fruits and vegetables. The leather cutters and dressers were
+famous for their skill, as well as workers in linen. Most products of
+the land, as well as domestic animals, were sold by weight in carefully
+adjusted scales. Instead of coins, money was in rings of gold, silver,
+and copper. The skill used by the Egyptians in rearing fowls, geese, and
+domestic animals greatly surpassed that known to modern farmers.
+According to Wilkinson, they caught fish in nets equal to the seines
+employed by modern fishermen. Their houses as well as their monuments
+were built of brick, and were sometimes four or five stories in height,
+and secured by bolts on the doors. Locks and keys were also in use, made
+of iron; and the doorways were ornamented. Some of the roofs of their
+public buildings were arched with stone. In their mills for grinding
+wheat circular stones were used, resembling in form those now employed,
+generally turned by women, but sometimes so large that asses and mules
+were employed in the work. The walls and ceilings of their buildings
+were richly painted, the devices being as elaborate as those of the
+Greeks. Besides town-houses, the rich had villas and gardens, where they
+amused themselves with angling and spearing fish in the ponds. The
+gardens were laid in walks shaded with trees, and were well watered from
+large tanks. Vines were trained on trellis-work supported by pillars,
+and sometimes in the form of bowers. For gathering fruit, baskets were
+used somewhat similar to those now employed. Their wine-presses showed
+considerable ingenuity, and after the necessary fermentation the wine
+was poured into large earthen jars, corresponding to the amphorae of the
+Romans, and covered with lids made air-tight by resin and bitumen. The
+Egyptians had several kinds of wine, highly praised by the ancients; and
+wine among them was cheap and abundant. Egypt was also renowned for
+drugs unknown to other nations, and for beer made of barley, as well as
+wine. As for fruits, they had the same variety as we have at the present
+day, their favorite fruit being dates. "So fond were the Egyptians of
+trees and flowers that they exacted a contribution from the nations
+tributary to them of their rarest plants, so that their gardens bloomed
+with flowers of every variety in all seasons of the year." Wreaths and
+chaplets were in common use from the earliest antiquity. It was in their
+gardens, abounding with vegetables as well as with fruits and flowers,
+that the Egyptians entertained their friends.
+
+In Egyptian houses were handsome chairs and fauteuils, stools and
+couches, the legs of which were carved in imitation of the feet of
+animals; and these were made of rare woods, inlaid with ivory, and
+covered with rich stuffs. Some of the Egyptian chairs were furnished
+with cushions and covered with the skins of leopards and lions; the
+seats were made of leather, painted with flowers. Footstools were
+sometimes made of elegant patterns, inlaid with ivory and precious
+woods. Mats were used in the sitting-rooms. The couches were of every
+variety of form, and utilized in some instances as beds. The tables were
+round, square, and oblong, and were sometimes made of stone and highly
+ornamented with carvings. Bronze bedsteads were used by the
+wealthy classes.
+
+In their entertainments nothing was omitted by the Egyptians which would
+produce festivity,--music, songs, dancing, and games of chance. The
+guests arrived in chariots or palanquins, borne by servants on foot, who
+also carried parasols over the heads of their masters. Previous to
+entering the festive chamber water was brought for the feet and hands,
+the ewers employed being made often of gold and silver, of beautiful
+form and workmanship. Servants in attendance anointed the head with
+sweet-scented ointment from alabaster vases, and put around the heads of
+the guests garlands and wreaths in which the lotus was conspicuous; they
+also perfumed the apartments with myrrh and frankincense, obtained
+chiefly from Syria. Then wine was brought, and emptied into
+drinking-cups of silver or bronze, and even of porcelain, beautifully
+engraved, one of which was exclusively reserved for the master of the
+house. While at dinner the party were enlivened with musical
+instruments, the chief of which were the harp, the lyre, the guitar, the
+tambourine, the pipe, the flute, and the cymbal. Music was looked upon
+by the Egyptians as an important science, and was diligently studied and
+highly prized; the song and the dance were united with the sounds of
+musical instruments. Many of the ornamented vases and other vessels used
+by the Egyptians in their banquets were not inferior in elegance of form
+and artistic finish to those made by the Greeks at a later day. The
+Pharaoh of the Jewish Exodus had drinking-vessels of gold and silver,
+exquisitely engraved and ornamented with precious stones.
+
+Some of the bronze vases found at Thebes and other parts of Egypt show
+great skill in the art of compounding metals, and were highly polished.
+Their bronze knives and daggers had an elastic spring, as if made of
+steel. Wilkinson expresses his surprise at the porcelain vessels
+recently discovered, as well as admiration of them, especially of their
+rich colors and beautiful shapes. There is a porcelain bowl of exquisite
+workmanship in the British Museum inscribed with the name of Rameses
+II., proving that the arts of pottery were carried to great perfection
+two thousand years before Christ. Boxes of elaborate workmanship, made
+of precious woods finely carved and inlaid with ivory, are also
+preserved in the different museums of Europe, all dating from a remote
+antiquity. These boxes are of every form, with admirably fitting lids,
+representing fishes, birds, and animals. The rings, bracelets, and other
+articles of jewelry that have been preserved show great facility on the
+part of the Egyptians in cutting the hardest stones. The skill displayed
+in the sculptures on the hard obelisks and granite monuments of Egypt
+was remarkable, since they were executed with hardened bronze.
+
+Glass-blowing was another art in which the Egyptians excelled. Fifteen
+hundred years before Christ they made ornaments of glass, and glass
+vessels of large size were used for holding wine. Such was their skill
+in the manufacture of glass that they counterfeited precious stones with
+a success unknown to the moderns. We read of a counterfeited emerald six
+feet in length. Counterfeited necklaces were sold at Thebes which
+deceived strangers. The uses to which glass was applied were in the
+manufacture of bottles, beads, mosaic work, and drinking-cups, and their
+different colors show considerable knowledge of chemistry. The art of
+cutting and engraving stones was doubtless learned by the Israelites in
+their sojourn in Egypt. So perfect were the Egyptians in the arts of
+cutting precious stones that they were sought by foreign merchants, and
+they furnished an important material in commerce.
+
+From the earliest times the Egyptians were celebrated for their
+manufacture of linen, which was one of the principal articles of
+commerce; and cotton and woollen cloths as well as linen were woven.
+Cotton was used not only for articles of dress, but for the covering of
+chairs and other kinds of furniture. The great mass of the mummy cloths
+is of coarse texture; but the "fine linen" spoken of in the Scripture
+was as fine as muslin, in some instances containing more than five
+hundred threads to an inch, while the finest productions of the looms of
+India have only one hundred threads to the inch. Not only were the
+threads of linen cloth of extraordinary fineness, but the dyes were
+equally remarkable, and were unaffected by strong alkalies. Spinning was
+principally the occupation of women, who also practised the art of
+embroidery, in which gold thread was used, supposed to be beaten out by
+the hammer; but in the arts of dyeing and embroidery the Egyptians were
+surpassed by the Babylonians, who were renowned for their cloths of
+various colors.
+
+The manufacture of paper was another art for which the Egyptians were
+famous, made from the papyrus, a plant growing in the marsh-land of the
+Nile. The papyrus was also applied to the manufacture of sails, baskets,
+canoes, and parts of sandals. Some of the papyri, on which is
+hieroglyphic writing dating from two thousand years before our era, are
+in good preservation. Sheep-skin parchment also was used for writing.
+
+The Egyptians were especially skilled in the preparation of leather for
+sandals, shields, and chairs. The curriers used the same semicircular
+knife which is now in use. The great consumption of leather created a
+demand far greater than could be satisfied by the produce of the
+country, and therefore skins from foreign countries were imported as
+part of the tribute laid on conquered nations or tribes.
+
+More numerous than the tanners in Egypt were the potters, among whom the
+pottery-wheel was known from a remote antiquity, previous to the arrival
+of Joseph from Canaan, and long before the foundation of the Greek
+Athens. Earthenware was used for holding wine, oils, and other liquids;
+but the finest production of the potter were the vases, covered with a
+vitreous glaze and modelled in every variety of forms, some of which
+were as elegant as those made later by the Greeks, who excelled in this
+department of art.
+
+Carpenters and cabinet-makers formed a large class of Egyptian workmen
+for making coffins, boxes, tables, chairs, doors, sofas, and other
+articles of furniture, frequently inlaid with ivory and rare woods.
+Veneering was known to these workmen, probably arising from the scarcity
+of wood. The tools used by the carpenters, as appear from the
+representations on the monuments, were the axe, the adze, the hand-saw,
+the chisel, the drill, and the plane. These tools were made of bronze,
+with handles of acacia, tamarisk, and other hard woods. The hatchet, by
+which trees were felled, was used by boat-builders. The boxes and other
+articles of furniture were highly ornamented with inlaid work.
+
+Boat-building in Egypt also employed many workmen. Boats were made of
+the papyrus plant, deal, cedar, and other woods, and were propelled both
+by sails and oars. One ship-of-war built for Ptolemy Philopater is said
+by ancient writers to have been 478 feet long, to have had forty banks
+of oars, and to have carried 400 sailors, 4,000 rowers, and 3,000
+soldiers. This is doubtless an exaggeration, but indicates great
+progress in naval architecture. The construction of boats varied
+according to the purpose for which they were intended. They were built
+with ribs as at the present day, with small keels, square sails, with
+spacious cabins in the centre, and ornamented sterns; there was usually
+but one mast, and the prows terminated in the heads of animals. The
+boats of burden were somewhat similar to our barges; the sails were
+generally painted with rich colors. The origin of boat-building was
+probably the raft, and improvement followed improvement until the
+ship-of-war rivalled in size our largest vessels, while Egyptian
+merchant vessels penetrated to distant seas, and probably doubled the
+Cape of Good Hope.
+
+In regard to agriculture the Egyptians were the most advanced of the
+nations of antiquity, since the fertility of their soil made the
+occupation one of primary importance. Irrigation was universally
+practised, the Nile furnishing water for innumerable canals. The soil
+was often turned up with the hoe rather than the plough. The grain was
+sown broadcast, and was trodden in by goats. Their plough was very
+simple, and was drawn by oxen; the yoke being attached to the horns.
+Although the soil was rich, manures were frequently used. The chief
+crops were those of wheat, barley, beans, peas, lentils, vetches,
+lupines, clover, rice, indigo, cotton, lettuce, flax, hemp, cumin,
+coriander, poppy, melons, cucumbers, onions, and leeks. We do not read
+of carrots, cabbages, beets, or potatoes, which enter so largely into
+modern husbandry. Oil was obtained from the olive, the castor-berry,
+simsin, and coleseed. Among the principal trees which were cultivated
+were the vine, olive, locust, acacia, date, sycamore, pomegranate, and
+tamarisk. Grain, after harvest, was trodden out by oxen, and the straw
+was used as provender. To protect the fields from inundation dykes
+were built.
+
+All classes in Egypt delighted in the sports of the field, especially in
+the hunting of wild animals, in which the arrow was most frequently
+used. Sometimes the animals were caught in nets, in enclosed places near
+water-brooks. The Egyptians also had numerous fish-ponds, since they
+were as fond of angling as they were of hunting. Hunting in Egypt was an
+amusement, not an occupation as among nomadic people. Not only was
+hunting for pleasure a great amusement among Egyptians, but also among
+Babylonians and Persians, who coursed the plains with dogs. They used
+the noose or lasso also to catch antelopes and wild cattle, which were
+hunted with lions; the bow used in the chase was similar to that
+employed in war. All the subjects of the chase were sculptured on the
+monuments with great spirit and fidelity, especially the stag, the ibex,
+the porcupine, the wolf, the hare, the lion, the fox, and the giraffe.
+The camel is not found among the Egyptian sculptures, nor the bear. Of
+the birds found in their sculptures were vultures, eagles, kites, hawks,
+owls, ravens, larks, swallows, turtle-doves, quails, ostriches, storks,
+plovers, snipes, geese, and ducks, many of which were taken in nets. The
+Nile and Lake Birket el Keroun furnished fish in great abundance. The
+profits of the fisheries were enormous, and were farmed out by the
+government.
+
+The Egyptians were very fond of ornaments in dress, especially the
+women. They paid great attention to their sandals; they wore their hair
+long and plaited, bound round with an ornamented fillet fastened by a
+lotus bud; they wore ear-rings and a profusion of rings on the fingers
+and bracelets for the arms, made of gold and set with precious stones.
+The scarabaeus, or sacred beetle, was the adornment of rings and
+necklaces; even the men wore necklaces and rings and chains. Both men
+and women stained the eyelids and brows. Pins and needles were among the
+articles of the toilet, usually made of bronze; also metallic mirrors
+finely polished. The men carried canes or walking-sticks,--the wands of
+Moses and Aaron.
+
+As the Egyptians paid great attention to health, physicians were held in
+great repute; and none were permitted to practise but in some particular
+branch, such as diseases of the eye, the ear, the head, the teeth, and
+the internal maladies. They were paid by government, and were skilled in
+the knowledge of drugs. The art of curing diseases originated, according
+to Pliny, in Egypt. Connected with the healing art was the practice of
+embalming dead bodies, which was carried to great perfection.
+
+In elegance of life the Greeks and Romans, however, far surpassed any
+of the nations of antiquity, if not in luxury itself, which was confined
+to the palaces of kings. In social refinements the Greeks were not
+behind any modern nation, as one infers from reading Becker's Charicles.
+Among the Greeks was the network of trades and professions, as in Paris
+and London, and a complicated social life in which all the amenities
+known to the modern world were seen, especially in Athens and Corinth
+and the Ionian capitals. What could be more polite and courteous than
+the intercourse carried on in Greece among cultivated and famous people?
+When were symposia more attractive than when the _elite_ of Athens, in
+the time of Pericles, feasted and communed together? When was art ever
+brought in support of luxury to greater perfection? We read of libraries
+and books and booksellers, of social games, of attractive gardens and
+villas, as well as of baths and spectacles, of markets and fora in
+Athens. The common life of a Pericles or a Cicero differed but little
+from that of modern men of rank and fortune.
+
+In describing the various arts which marked the nations of antiquity, we
+cannot but feel that in a material point of view the ancient
+civilization in its important features was as splendid as our own. In
+the decoration of houses, in social entertainments, in cookery, the
+Romans were our equals. The mosaics, the signet rings, cameos,
+bracelets, bronzes, vases, couches, banqueting-tables, lamps, colored
+glass, potteries, all attest great elegance and beauty. The tables of
+thuga root and Delian bronze were as expensive as modern sideboards;
+wood and ivory were carved in Rome as exquisitely as in Japan and China;
+mirrors were made of polished silver. Glass-cutters could imitate the
+colors of precious stones so well that the Portland vase, from the tomb
+of Alexander Severus, was long considered as a genuine sardonyx. The
+palace of Nero glittered with gold and jewels; perfumes and flowers were
+showered from ivory ceilings. The halls of Heliogabalus were hung with
+cloth of gold, enriched with jewels; his beds were silver, and his
+tables of gold. A banquet dish of Drusillus weighed five hundred pounds
+of silver. Tunics were embroidered with the figures of various animals;
+sandals were garnished with precious stones. Paulina wore jewels, when
+she paid visits, valued at $800,000. Drinking-cups were engraved with
+scenes from the poets; libraries were adorned with busts, and presses of
+rare woods; sofas were inlaid with tortoise-shell, and covered with
+gorgeous purple. The Roman grandees rode in gilded chariots, bathed in
+marble baths, dined from golden plate, drank from crystal cups, slept on
+beds of down, reclined on luxurious couches, wore embroidered robes,
+and were adorned with precious stones. They ransacked the earth and the
+seas for rare dishes for their banquets, and ornamented their houses
+with carpets from Babylon, onyx cups from Bithynia, marbles from
+Numidia, bronzes from Corinth, statues from Athens,--whatever, in short,
+was precious or rare or curious in the most distant countries.
+
+What a concentration of material wonders was to be seen in all the
+countries that bordered on the Mediterranean,--not merely in Italy and
+Greece, but in Sicily and Asia Minor, and even in Gaul and Spain! Every
+country was dotted with cities, villas, and farms. Every country was
+famous for oil, or fruit, or wine, or vegetables, or timber, or flocks,
+or pastures, or horses. More than two hundred and fifty cities or towns
+in Italy alone are historical, and some were famous.
+
+The excavations of Pompeii attest great luxury and elegance of life.
+Cortona, Clusium, Veii, Ancona, Ostia, Praeneste, Antium, Misenum,
+Baiae, Puteoli, Neapolis, Brundusium, Sybaris, were all celebrated.
+
+And still more remarkable were the old capitals of Greece, Asia Minor,
+and Africa. Syracuse was older than Rome, and had a fortress of a mile
+and a half in length. Carthage, under the emperors, nearly equalled its
+ancient magnificence. Athens was never more splendid than in the time of
+the Roman Antonines. In spite of successive conquests, there still
+towered upon the Acropolis the most wonderful temple of antiquity, built
+of Pentelic marble, and adorned with the sculptures of Phidias. Corinth
+was richer and more luxurious than Athens, and possessed the most
+valuable pictures of Greece, as well as the finest statues; a single
+street for three miles was adorned with costly edifices. And even the
+islands which were colonized by Greeks were seats of sculpture and
+painting, as well as of schools of learning. Still grander were the
+cities of Asia Minor. Antioch had a street four miles in length, with
+double colonnades; and its baths, theatres, museums, and temples excited
+universal admiration. At Ephesus was the grand temple of Diana, four
+times as large as the Parthenon at Athens, covering as much ground as
+Cologne Cathedral, with one hundred and twenty-eight columns sixty feet
+high. The Ephesian theatre was capable of seating sixty thousand
+spectators. Tarsus, the birthplace of Paul, was no mean city; and
+Damascus, the old capital of Syria, was both beautiful and rich.
+
+Laodicea was famous for tapestries, Hierapolis for its iron wares,
+Cybara for its dyes, Sardis for its wines, Smyrna for its beautiful
+monuments, Delos for its slave-trade, Cyrene for its horses, Paphos for
+its temple of Venus, in which were a hundred altars. Seleucia, on the
+Tigris, had a population of four hundred thousand. Caesarea in
+Palestine, founded by Herod the Great, and the principal seat of
+government to the Roman prefects, had a harbor equal in size to the
+renowned Piraeus, and was secured against the southwest winds by a mole
+of such massive construction that the blocks of stone, sunk under the
+water, were fifty feet in length, eighteen in width, and nine in
+thickness. The city itself was constructed of polished stone, with an
+agora, a theatre, a circus, a praetorium, and a temple to Caesar. Tyre,
+which had resisted for seven months the armies of Alexander, remained to
+the fall of the empire a great emporium of trade; it monopolized the
+manufacture of imperial purple. Sidon was equally celebrated for its
+glass and embroidered robes. The Sidonians cast glass mirrors, and
+imitated precious stones. But the glory of both Tyre and Sidon was in
+ships, which visited all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and even
+penetrated to Britain and India.
+
+But greater than Tyre or Antioch, or any eastern city, was Alexandria,
+the capital of Egypt. Egypt even in its decline was still a great
+monarchy; and when the sceptre of three hundred kings passed from
+Cleopatra the last of the Ptolemies, to Augustus Caesar the conqueror at
+Actium, the military force of Egypt is said to have amounted to seven
+hundred thousand men. The annual revenues of this State under the
+Ptolemies amounted to about seventeen million dollars in gold and
+silver, besides the produce of the earth. A single feast cost
+Philadelphus more than half a million of pounds sterling, and he had
+accumulated treasures to the amount of seven hundred and forty thousand
+talents, or about eight hundred and sixty million dollars. What European
+monarch ever possessed such a sum? The kings of Egypt, even when
+tributary to Rome, were richer in gold and silver than was Louis XIV. in
+the proudest hour of his life.
+
+The ground-plan of Alexandria was traced by Alexander himself, but it
+was not completed until the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Its
+circumference was about fifteen miles; the streets were regular, and
+crossed one another at right angles, being wide enough for free passage
+of both carriages and foot passengers. Its harbor could hold the largest
+fleet ever congregated; its walls and gates were constructed with all
+the skill and strength known to antiquity; its population numbered six
+hundred thousand, and all nations were represented in its crowded
+streets. The wealth of the city may be inferred from the fact that in
+one year sixty-two hundred and fifty talents, or more than six million
+dollars, were paid to the public treasury for port dues. The library was
+the largest in the world, numbering over seven hundred thousand
+volumes; and this was connected with a museum, a menagerie, a botanical
+garden, and various halls for lectures, altogether forming the most
+famous university in the Roman empire. The inhabitants were chiefly
+Greek, and had all the cultivated tastes and mercantile thrift of that
+quick-witted people. In a commercial point of view Alexandria was the
+most important city in the world, and its ships whitened every sea.
+Unlike most commercial cities, it was intellectual, and its schools of
+poetry, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, and theology were more
+renowned than even those of Athens during the third and fourth
+centuries. Alexandria, could it have been transported in its former
+splendor to our modern world, would be a great capital in these times.
+
+And all these cities were connected with one another and with Rome by
+magnificent roads, perfectly straight, and paved with large blocks of
+stone. They were originally constructed for military purposes, but were
+used by travellers, and on them posts were regularly established; they
+crossed valleys upon arches, and penetrated mountains; in Italy,
+especially, they were great works of art, and connected all the
+provinces. There was an uninterrupted communication from the wall of
+Antoninus through York, London, Sandwich, Boulogne, Rheims, Lyons,
+Milan, Rome, Brundusium, Dyrrachium, Byzantium, Ancyra, Tarsus,
+Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem,--a distance of thirty-seven hundred and forty
+miles; and these roads were divided by milestones, and houses for
+travellers erected upon them at points of every five or six miles.
+
+Commerce under the Roman emperors was not what it now is, but still was
+very considerable, and thus united the various provinces together. The
+most remote countries were ransacked to furnish luxuries for Rome; every
+year a fleet of one hundred and twenty vessels sailed from the Red Sea
+for the islands of the Indian Ocean. But the Mediterranean, with the
+rivers which flowed into it, was the great highway of the ancient
+navigator. Navigation by the ancients was even more rapid than in modern
+times before the invention of steam, since oars were employed as well as
+sails. In summer one hundred and sixty-two Roman miles were sailed over
+in twenty-four hours; this was the average speed, or about seven knots.
+From the mouth of the Tiber vessels could usually reach Africa in two
+days, Massilia in three, and the Pillars of Hercules in seven; from
+Puteoli the passage to Alexandria had been effected, with moderate
+winds, in nine days. These facts, however, apply only to the summer, and
+to favorable winds. The Romans did not navigate in the inclement
+seasons; but in summer the great inland sea was white with sails. Great
+fleets brought corn from Gaul, Spain, Sardinia, Africa, Sicily, and
+Egypt. This was the most important trade; but a considerable commerce
+was carried on also in ivory, tortoise-shell, cotton and silk fabrics,
+pearls and precious stones, gums, spices, wines, wool, and oil. Greek
+and Asiatic wines, especially the Chian and Lesbian, were in great
+demand at Rome. The transport of earthenware, made generally in the
+Grecian cities, of wild animals for the amphitheatre, of marble, of the
+spoils of eastern cities, of military engines and stores, and of horses,
+required very large fleets and thousands of mariners, which probably
+belonged chiefly to great maritime cities. These cities with their
+dependencies required even more vessels for communication with one
+another than for Rome herself,--the great central object of enterprise
+and cupidity.
+
+In this survey of ancient cities I have not yet spoken of the great
+central city,--the City of the Seven Hills, to which all the world was
+tributary. Whatever was costly or rare or beautiful, in Greece or Asia
+or Egypt, was appropriated by her citizen kings, since citizens were
+provincial governors. All the great highways, from the Atlantic to the
+Tigris, converged to the capital,--all roads led to Rome; all the ships
+of Alexandria and Carthage and Tarentum, and other commercial capitals,
+were employed in furnishing her with luxuries or necessities. Never was
+there so proud a city as this "Epitome of the Universe." London, Paris,
+Vienna, Constantinople, St. Petersburg, Berlin, are great centres of
+fashion and power; but they are rivals, and excel only in some great
+department of human enterprise and genius, as in letters, or fashions,
+or commerce, or manufactures,--centres of influence and power in the
+countries of which they are capitals, yet they do not monopolize the
+wealth and energies of the world. London may contain more people than
+did ancient Rome, and may possess more commercial wealth; but London
+represents only the British monarchy, not a universal empire. Rome,
+however, monopolized every thing, and controlled all nations and
+peoples; she could shut up the schools of Athens, or disperse the ships
+of Alexandria, or regulate the shops of Antioch. What Lyons and Bordeaux
+are to Paris, Corinth and Babylon were to Rome,--mere dependent cities.
+Paul, condemned at Jerusalem, stretched out his arms to Rome, and Rome
+protected him. The philosophers of Greece were the tutors of Roman
+nobility. The kings of the East resorted to the palaces of Mount
+Palatine for favors or safety; the governors of Syria and Egypt,
+reigning in the palaces of ancient kings, returned to Rome to squander
+the riches they had accumulated. Senators and nobles took their turn as
+sovereign rulers of all the known countries of the world. The halls in
+which Darius and Alexander and Pericles and Croesus and Solomon and
+Cleopatra had feasted, became the witness of the banquets of Roman
+proconsuls. Babylon, Thebes, and Athens were only what Delhi and
+Calcutta are to the English of our day,--cities to be ruled by the
+delegates of the imperial Senate. Rome was the only "home" of the proud
+governors who reigned on the banks of the Thames, of the Seine, of the
+Rhine, of the Nile, of the Tigris. After they had enriched themselves
+with the spoils of the ancient monarchies they returned to their estates
+in Italy, or to their palaces on the Aventine. What a concentration of
+works of art on the hills, and around the Forum, and in the Campus
+Martius, and other celebrated quarters! There were temples rivalling
+those of Athens and Ephesus; baths covering more ground than the
+Pyramids, surrounded with Corinthian columns, and filled with the
+choicest treasures ransacked from the cities of Greece and Asia; palaces
+in comparison with which the Tuileries and Versailles are small;
+theatres which seated a larger audience than any present public
+buildings in Europe; amphitheatres more extensive and costly than
+Cologne, Milan, and York Minster cathedrals combined, and seating eight
+times as many spectators as could be crowded into St. Peter's Church;
+circuses where, it is said, three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+persons could witness the games and chariot-races at a time; bridges,
+still standing, which have furnished models for the most beautiful at
+Paris and London; aqueducts carried over arches one hundred feet in
+height, through which flowed the surplus water of distant lakes; drains
+of solid masonry in which large boats could float; pillars more than one
+hundred feet in height, coated with precious marbles or plates of brass,
+and covered with bas-reliefs; obelisks brought from Egypt; fora and
+basilicas connected together, and extending more than three thousand
+feet in length, every part of which was filled with "animated busts" of
+conquerors, kings, statesmen, poets, publicists, and philosophers;
+mausoleums greater and more splendid than that Artemisia erected to the
+memory of her husband; triumphal arches under which marched in stately
+procession the victorious armies of the Eternal City, preceded by the
+spoils and trophies of conquered empires.
+
+Such was the proud capital,--a city of palaces, a residence of nobles
+who were virtually kings, enriched with the accumulated treasures of
+ancient civilization. Great were the capitals of Greece and Asia, but
+how pre-eminent was Rome, since all were subordinate to her! How
+bewildering and bewitching to a traveller must have been the varied
+wonders of the city! Go where he would, his eye rested on something
+which was both a study and a marvel. Let him drive or walk about the
+suburbs,--there were villas, tombs, aqueducts looking like our railroads
+on arches, sculptured monuments, and gardens of surpassing beauty and
+luxury. Let him approach the walls,--they were great fortifications
+extending twenty-one miles in circuit, according to the measurement of
+Ammon as adopted by Gibbon, and forty-five miles according to other
+authorities. Let him enter any of the various gates that opened into the
+city from the roads which radiated to all parts of Italy and the
+world,--they were of monumental brass covered with bas-reliefs, on which
+the victories of generals for a thousand years were commemorated. Let
+him pass through any of the crowded thoroughfares,--he saw houses
+towering scarcely ever less than seventy feet, as tall as those of
+Edinburgh in its oldest sections. Most of the houses in which this vast
+population lived, according to Strabo, possessed pipes which gave a
+never-failing supply of water from the rivers that flowed into the city
+through the aqueducts and out again through the sewers into the Tiber.
+Let the traveller walk up the Via Sacra,--that short street, scarcely
+half a mile in length,--and he passed the Flavian Amphitheatre, the
+Temple of Venus and Rome, the Arch of Titus, the Temples of Peace, of
+Vesta, and of Castor, the Forum Romanum, the Basilica Julia, the Arch
+of Severus, the Temple of Saturn, and stood before the majestic ascent
+to the Capitoline Jupiter, with its magnificent portico and ornamented
+pediment, surpassing the facade of any modern church. On his left, as he
+emerged from beneath the sculptured Arch of Titus, was the Palatine
+Mount, nearly covered by the palace of the Caesars, the magnificent
+residences of the higher nobility, and various temples, of which that of
+Apollo was the most magnificent, built by Augustus, of solid white
+marble from Luna. Here were the palaces of Vaccus, of Flaccus, of
+Cicero, of Catiline, of Scaurus, of Antoninus, of Clodius, of Agrippa,
+and of Hortensius. Still on his left, in the valley between the Palatine
+and the Capitoline, though he could not see it, concealed from view by
+the great Temples of Vesta and of Castor, and the still greater edifice
+known as the Basilica Julia, was the quarter called the Velabrum,
+extending to the river, where the Pons Aemilius crossed it,--a low
+quarter of narrow streets and tall houses where the rabble lived and
+died. On his right, concealed from view by the Aedes Divi Julii and the
+Forum Romanum, was that magnificent series of edifices extending from
+the Temple of Peace to the Temple of Trajan, including the Basilica
+Pauli, the Forum Julii, the Forum Augusti, the Forum Trajani, the
+Basilica Ulpia,--a space more than three thousand feet in length, and
+six hundred in breadth, almost entirely surrounded by porticos and
+colonnades, and filled with statues and pictures,--displaying on the
+whole probably the grandest series of public buildings clustered
+together ever erected, especially if we include the Forum Romanum and
+the various temples and basilicas which connected the whole,--a forest
+of marble pillars and statues. Ascending the steps which led from the
+Temple of Concord to the Temple of Juno Moneta upon the Arx, or Tarpeian
+Rock, on the southwestern summit of the hill, itself one of the most
+beautiful temples in Rome, erected by Camillus on the spot where the
+house of M. Manlius Capitolinus had stood, and one came upon the Roman
+mint. Near this was the temple erected by Augustus to Jupiter Tonans,
+and that built by Domitian to Jupiter Custos. But all the sacred
+edifices which crowned the Capitoline were subordinate to the Templum
+Jovis Capitolini, standing on a platform of eight thousand square feet,
+and built of the richest materials. The portico which faced the Via
+Sacra consisted of three rows of Doric columns, the pediment profusely
+ornamented with the choicest sculptures, the apex of the roof surmounted
+by the bronze horses of Lysippus, and the roof itself covered with
+gilded tiles. The temple had three separate cells, though covered with
+one roof; in front of each stood colossal statues of the three deities
+to whom it was consecrated. Here were preserved what was most sacred in
+the eyes of Romans, and it was itself the richest of all the temples
+of the city.
+
+What a beautiful panorama was presented to the view from the summit of
+this consecrated hill, only mounted by a steep ascent of one hundred
+steps! To the south was the Via Sacra extending to the Colosseum, and
+beyond it the Appia Via, lined with monuments as far as the eye could
+reach. A little beyond the fora to the east was the Carinae, a
+fashionable quarter of beautiful shops and houses, and still farther off
+were the Baths of Titus, extending from the Carinae to the Esquiline
+Mount. To the northeast were the Viminal and Quirinal hills, after the
+Palatine the most ancient part of the city, the seat of the Sabine
+population, abounding in fanes and temples, the most splendid of which
+was the Temple of Quirinus, erected originally to Romulus by Numa, but
+rebuilt by Augustus, with a double row of columns on each of its sides,
+seventy-six in number. Near by was the house of Atticus, and the gardens
+of Sallust in the valley between the Quirinal and Pincian, afterward the
+property of the Emperor. Far back on the Quirinal, near the wall of
+Servius, were the Baths of Diocletian, and still farther to the east the
+Pretorian Camp established by Tiberius, and included within the wall of
+Aurelian. To the northeast the eye lighted on the Pincian Hill covered
+with the gardens of Lucullus, to possess which Messalina caused the
+death of Valerius Asiaticus, into whose possession they had fallen. In
+the valley which lay between the fora and the Quirinal was the
+celebrated Subura, the quarter of shops, markets, and artificers,--a
+busy, noisy, vulgar section, not beautiful, but full of life and
+enterprise and wickedness. The eye then turned to the north, and the
+whole length of the Via Flamina was exposed to view, extending from the
+Capitoline to the Flaminian gate, perfectly straight, the finest street
+in Rome, and parallel to the modern Corso; it was the great highway to
+the north of Italy. Monuments and temples and palaces lined this
+celebrated street; it was spanned by the triumphal arches of Claudius
+and Marcus Aurelius. To the west of it was the Campus Martius, with its
+innumerable objects of interest,--the Baths of Agrippa, the Pantheon,
+the Thermae Alexandrinae, the Column of Marcus Aurelius, and the
+Mausoleum of Augustus. Beneath the Capitoline on the west, toward the
+river, was the Circus Flaminius, the Portico of Octavius, the Theatre of
+Balbus, and the Theatre of Pompey, where forty thousand spectators were
+accommodated. Stretching beyond the Thermae Alexandrinae, near the
+Pantheon, was the magnificent bridge which crossed the Tiber, built by
+Hadrian when he founded his Mausoleum, to which it led, still standing
+under the name of the Ponte S. Angelo. The eye took in eight or nine
+bridges over the Tiber, some of wood, but generally of stone, of
+beautiful masonry, and crowned with statues. In the valley between the
+Palatine and the Aventine, was the great Circus Maximus, founded by the
+early Tarquin; it was the largest open space, inclosed by walls and
+porticos, in the city; it seated three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+spectators. How vast a city, which could spare nearly four hundred
+thousand of its population to see the chariot-races! Beyond was the
+Aventine itself. This also was rich in legendary monuments and in the
+palaces of the great, though originally a plebeian quarter. Here dwelt
+Trajan before he was emperor, and Ennius the poet, and Paula the friend
+of Saint Jerome. Beneath the Aventine, and a little south of the Circus
+Maximus, were the great Baths of Caracalla, the ruins of which, next to
+those of the Colosseum, made on my mind the strongest impression of all
+I saw that pertains to antiquity, though these were not so large as
+those of Diocletian. The view south took in the Caelian Hill, the
+ancient residence of Tullus Hostilius. This hill was the residence of
+many distinguished Romans, among whose palaces was that of Claudius
+Centumalus, which towered ten or twelve stories into the air. But
+grander than any of these palaces was that of Plautius Lateranus, on
+whose site now stands the basilica of St. John Lateran,--the gift of
+Constantine to the bishop of Rome,--one of the most ancient of the
+Christian churches, in which, for fifteen hundred years, daily services
+have been performed.
+
+Such were the objects of interest and grandeur that met the eye as it
+was turned toward the various quarters of the city, which contained
+between three and four millions of people. Lipsius estimates four
+millions as the population, including slaves, women, children, and
+strangers. Though this estimate is regarded as too large by Merivale and
+others, yet how enormous must have been the number of the people when
+there were nine thousand and twenty-five baths, and when those of
+Diocletian could accommodate thirty-two hundred bathers at a time! The
+wooden theatre of Scaurus contained eighty thousand seats; that of
+Marcellus twenty thousand; the Colosseum would seat eighty-seven
+thousand persons, and give standing space for twenty-two thousand more.
+The Circus Maximus would hold three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+spectators. If only one person out of four of the free population
+witnessed the games and spectacles at a time, we thus must have four
+millions of people altogether in the city. The Aurelian walls are now
+only thirteen miles in circumference, but Lipsius estimates the
+original circumference at forty-five miles, and Vopiscus at nearly
+fifty. The diameter of the city must have been eleven miles, since
+Strabo tells us that the actual limit of Rome was at a place between the
+fifth and sixth milestone from the column of Trajan in the Forum,--the
+central and most conspicuous object in the city except the capitol.
+
+Modern writers, taking London and Paris for their measure of material
+civilization, seem unwilling to admit that Rome could have reached such
+a pitch of glory and wealth and power. To him who stands within the
+narrow limits of the Forum, as it now appears, it seems incredible that
+it could have been the centre of a much larger city than Europe can now
+boast of. Grave historians are loath to compromise their dignity and
+character for truth by admitting statements which seem, to men of
+limited views, to be fabulous, and which transcend modern experience.
+But we should remember that most of the monuments of ancient Rome have
+entirely disappeared. Nothing remains of the Palace of the Caesars,
+which nearly covered the Palatine Hill; little of the fora which,
+connected together, covered a space twice as large as that inclosed by
+the palaces of the Louvre and Tuileries, with all their galleries and
+courts; almost nothing of the glories of the Capitoline Hill; and little
+comparatively of those Thermae which were a mile in circuit. But what
+does remain attests an unparalleled grandeur,--the broken pillars of the
+Forum; the lofty columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius; the Pantheon,
+lifting its spacious dome two hundred feet into the air; the mere
+vestibule of the Baths of Agrippa; the triumphal arches of Titus and
+Trajan and Constantine; the bridges which span the Tiber; the aqueducts
+which cross the Campagna; the Cloaca Maxima, which drained the marshes
+and lakes of the infant city; and, above all, the Colosseum. What glory
+and shame are associated with that single edifice! That alone, if
+nothing else remained of Pagan antiquity, would indicate a grandeur and
+a folly such as cannot now be seen on earth. It reveals a wonderful
+skill in masonry and great architectural strength; it shows the wealth
+and resources of rulers who must have had the treasures of the world at
+their command; it shows the restless passions of the people for
+excitement, and the necessity on the part of government of yielding to
+this taste. What leisure and indolence marked a city which could afford
+to give up so much time to the demoralizing sports! What facilities for
+transportation were afforded, when so many wild beasts could be brought
+to the capitol from the central parts of Africa without calling out
+unusual comment! How imperious a populace that compels the government to
+provide such expensive pleasures! The games of Titus, on the dedication
+of the Colosseum, lasted one hundred days, and five thousand wild beasts
+were slaughtered in the arena. The number of the gladiators who fought
+surpasses belief. At the triumph of Trajan over the Dacians, ten
+thousand gladiators were exhibited, and the Emperor himself presided
+under a gilded canopy, surrounded by thousands of his lords. Underneath
+the arena, strewed with yellow sand and sawdust, was a solid pavement,
+so closely cemented that it could be turned into an artificial lake, on
+which naval battles were fought. But it was the conflict of gladiators
+which most deeply stimulated the passions of the people. The benches
+were crowded with eager spectators, and the voices of one hundred
+thousand were raised in triumph or rage as the miserable victims sank
+exhausted in the bloody sport.
+
+Yet it was not the gladiatorial sports of the amphitheatre which most
+strikingly attested the greatness and splendor of the city; nor the
+palaces, in which as many as four hundred slaves were sometimes
+maintained as domestic servants for a single establishment,--twelve
+hundred in number according to the lowest estimate, but probably five
+times as numerous, since every senator, every knight, and every rich man
+was proud to possess a residence which would attract attention; nor the
+temples, which numbered four hundred and twenty-four, most of which
+were of marble, filled with statues, the contributions of ages, and
+surrounded with groves; nor the fora and basilicas, with their porticos,
+statues, and pictures, covering more space than any cluster of public
+buildings in Europe, a mile and a half in circuit; nor the baths, nearly
+as large, still more completely filled with works of art; nor the Circus
+Maximus, where more people witnessed the chariot races at a time than
+are nightly assembled in all the places of public amusement in Paris,
+London, and New York combined,--more than could be seated in all the
+cathedrals of England and France. It is not these which most
+impressively make us feel the amazing grandeur of the old capital of the
+world. The triumphal processions of the conquering generals were still
+more exciting to behold, for these appealed more directly to the
+imagination, and excited those passions which urged the Romans to a
+career of conquest from generation to generation. No military review of
+modern times equalled those gorgeous triumphs, even as no scenic
+performance compares with the gladiatorial shows; the sun has never
+shone upon any human assemblage so magnificent and so grand, so imposing
+and yet so guilty. Not only were displayed the spoils of conquered
+kingdoms, and the triumphal cars of generals, but the whole military
+strength of the capital; an army of one hundred thousand men, flushed
+with victory, followed the gorgeous procession of nobles and princes.
+The triumph of Aurelian, on his return from the East, gives us some idea
+of the grandeur of that ovation to conquerors. "The pomp was opened by
+twenty elephants, four royal tigers, and two hundred of the most curious
+animals from every climate, north, south, east, and west. These were
+followed by sixteen hundred gladiators, devoted to the cruel amusement
+of the amphitheatre. Then were displayed the arms and ensigns of
+conquered nations, the plate and wardrobe of the Syrian queen. Then
+ambassadors from all parts of the earth, all remarkable in their rich
+dresses, with their crowns and offerings. Then the captives taken in the
+various wars,--Goths, Vandals, Samaritans, Alemanni, Franks, Gauls,
+Syrians, and Egyptians, each marked by their national costume. Then the
+Queen of the East, the beautiful Zenobia, confined by fetters of gold,
+and fainting under the weight of jewels, preceding the beautiful chariot
+in which she had hoped to enter the gates of Rome. Then the chariot of
+the Persian king. Then the triumphal car of Aurelian himself, drawn by
+elephants. Finally the most illustrious of the Senate and the army
+closed the solemn procession, amid the acclamations of the people, and
+the sound of musical instruments. It took from dawn of day until the
+ninth hour for the procession to pass to the capitol; and the festival
+was protracted by theatrical representations, the games of the circus,
+the hunting of wild beasts, combats of gladiators, and naval
+engagements."
+
+Such were the material wonders of the ancient civilizations, culminating
+in their latest and greatest representative, and displayed in its proud
+capital,--nearly all of which became later the spoil of barbarians, who
+ruthlessly marched over the classic world, having no regard for its
+choicest treasures. Those old glories are now indeed succeeded by a
+prouder civilization,--the work of nobler races after sixteen hundred
+years of new experiments. But why such an eclipse of the glory of man?
+The reason is apparent if we survey the internal state of the ancient
+empires, especially of society as it existed under the Roman emperors.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Titus Livius,
+Pausanias, on the geography and resources of the ancient nations. See an
+able chapter on Mediterranean prosperity in Louis Napoleon's History of
+Caesar. Smith's Dictionary of Ancient Geography is exhaustive. Wilkinson
+has revealed the civilization of ancient Egypt. Professor Becker's
+Handbook of Rome, as well as his Gallus and Charicles shed much light on
+manners and customs. Dyer's History of the City of Rome is the fullest
+description of its wonders that I have read. Niebuhr, Bunsen, and
+Platner, among the Germans, have written learnedly, but also have
+created much doubt about things supposed to be established. Mommsen,
+Curtius, and Merivale are also great authorities. Nor are the
+magnificent chapters of Gibbon to be disregarded by the student of Roman
+history, notwithstanding his elaborate and inflated style.
+
+
+
+
+THE MILITARY ART.
+
+
+WEAPONS, ENGINES, DISCIPLINE.
+
+1300-100 A.D.
+
+
+In surveying the nations of antiquity nothing impresses us more forcibly
+than the perpetual wars in which they were engaged, and the fact that
+military art and science seem to have been among the earliest things
+that occupied the thoughts of men. Personal strife and tribal warfare
+are coeval with the earliest movements of humanity.
+
+The first recorded act in the Hebraic history of the world after the
+expulsion of Adam from Paradise is a murder. In patriarchal times we
+read of contentions between the servants of Abraham and of Lot, and
+between the petty kings and chieftains of the countries where they
+journeyed. Long before Abraham was born, violence was the greatest evil
+with which the world was afflicted. Before his day mighty conquerors
+arose and founded kingdoms. Babylon and Egypt were powerful military
+States in pre-historic times. Wars more or less fierce were waged before
+nations were civilized. The earliest known art, therefore, was the art
+of destruction, growing out of the wicked and brutal passions of
+men,--envy and hatred, ambition and revenge; in a word, selfishness.
+Race fought with race, kingdom with kingdom, and city with city, in the
+very infancy of society. In secular history the greatest names are those
+of conquerors and heroes in every land under the sun; and it was by
+conquerors that those grand monuments were erected the ruins of which
+astonish every traveller, especially in Egypt and Assyria.
+
+But wars in the earliest ages were not carried on scientifically, or
+even as an art. There was little to mark them except brute force. Armies
+were scarcely more than great collections of armed men, led by kings,
+either to protect their States from hostile invaders, or to acquire new
+territory, or to exact tribute from weaker nations. We do not read of
+military discipline, or of skill in strategy and tactics. A battle was
+lost or won by individual prowess; it was generally a hand-to-hand
+encounter, in which the strongest and bravest gained the victory.
+
+One of the earliest descriptions of war is to be found in the Iliad of
+Homer, where individual heroes fought with one another, armed with the
+sword, the lance, and the javelin, protected by shields, helmets, and
+coats of mail. They fought on foot, or from chariots, which were in use
+before cavalry. The war-horse was driven before he was ridden in Egypt
+or Palestine; but the Aryan barbarians in their invasion rode their
+horses, and fought on horseback, like the modern Cossacks.
+
+Until the Greeks became familiar with war as an art, armies were usually
+very large, as if a great part of the population of a country followed
+the sovereign who commanded them. Rameses the Great, the Sesostris of
+the Greeks, according to Herodotus led nearly a million of men in his
+expeditions. He was the most noted of ancient warriors until Cyrus the
+Persian arose, and was nearly contemporaneous with Moses. The Trojan war
+is supposed to have taken place during the period when the Israelites
+were subject to the Ammonites; and about the time that the Philistines
+were defeated by David, the Greeks were forced by war to found colonies
+in Asia Minor.
+
+After authentic history begins, war is the main subject with which it
+has to deal; and for three thousand years history is simply the record
+of the feats of warriors and generals, of their conquests and defeats,
+of the rise and fall of kingdoms and cities, of the growth or decline of
+military virtues. No arts of civilization have preserved nations from
+the sword of the conqueror, and war has been both the amusement and the
+business of kings. From the earliest ages, the most valued laurels have
+been bestowed for success in war, and military fame has eclipsed all
+other glories. The cry of the mourner has been unheeded in the blaze of
+conquest; even the aspirations of the poet and the labors of the artist
+have been as nought, except to celebrate the achievements of heroes.
+
+It is interesting then to inquire how far the ancients advanced in the
+arts of war, which include military weapons, movements, the structure of
+camps, the discipline of armies, the construction of ships and of
+military engines, and the concentration and management of forces under a
+single man. What was that mighty machinery by which nations were
+subdued, or rose to greatness on the ruin of States and Empires? The
+conquests of Rameses, of David, of Nebuchadnezzar, of Cyrus, of
+Alexander, of Hannibal, of Caesar, and other heroes are still the
+subjects of contemplation among statesmen and schoolboys. The exploits
+of heroes are the pith of history.
+
+The art of war must have made great progress in the infancy of
+civilization, when bodily energies were most highly valued, when men
+were fierce, hardy, strong, and uncorrupted by luxury; when mere
+physical forces gave law alike to the rich and the poor, to the learned
+and the ignorant; and when the avenue to power led across the field
+of battle.
+
+We must go to Egypt for the earliest development of art and science in
+all departments; and so far as the art of war consists in the
+organization of physical forces for conquest or defence, under the
+direction of a single man, it was in Egypt that this was first
+accomplished, about seventeen hundred years before Christ, as
+chronologists think, by Rameses the Great.
+
+This monarch, according to Wilkinson, the greatest and most ambitious of
+the Egyptian kings, to whom the Greeks gave the name of Sesostris,
+showed great ability in collecting together large bodies of his
+subjects, and controlling them by a rigid military discipline. He
+accustomed them to heat and cold, hunger and thirst, fatigue, and
+exposure to danger. With bodies thus rendered vigorous by labor and
+discipline, they were fitted for distant expeditions. Rameses first
+subdued the Arabians and Libyans, and annexed them to the Egyptian
+monarchy. While he inured his subjects to fatigue and danger, he was
+careful to win their affections by acts of munificence and clemency. He
+then made his preparations for the conquest of the known world, and
+collected an army, according to Diodorus Siculus, of six hundred
+thousand infantry, twenty-four thousand cavalry, and twenty-seven
+thousand war-chariots. It is difficult to understand how a small country
+like Egypt could furnish such an immense force. If the account of the
+historian be not exaggerated, Rameses must have enrolled the conquered
+Libyans and Arabians and other nations among his soldiers. He subjected
+his army to a stern discipline and an uncomplaining obedience to
+orders,--the first principle in the science of war, which no successful
+general in the world's history has ever disregarded, from Alexander to
+Napoleon. With this powerful army his march was irresistible. Ethiopia
+was first subdued, and an exaction made from the conquered of a tribute
+of gold, ivory, and ebony. In those ancient times a conquering army did
+not resettle or colonize the territories it had subdued, but was
+contented with overrunning the country and exacting tribute from the
+people. Such was the nature of the Babylonian and Persian conquests.
+After overrunning Ethiopia and some other countries near the Straits of
+Babelmandeb, the conqueror proceeded to India, which he overran beyond
+the Ganges, and ascended the high table-land of Central Asia; then
+proceeding westward, he entered Europe, nor halted in his devastating
+career until he reached Thrace. From thence he marched to Asia Minor,
+conquering as he went, and invaded Assyria, seating himself on the
+throne of Ninus and Semiramis. Then, laden with booty from the Eastern
+world, he returned to Egypt after an absence of thirty years and
+consolidated his empire, building those vast structures at Thebes, which
+for magnitude have never been surpassed. Thus was Egypt enriched with
+the spoil of nations, and made formidable for a thousand years. Rameses
+was the last of the Pharaohs who pursued the phantom of military renown,
+or sought glory in distant expeditions.
+
+We are in ignorance as to the details of the conquests and the generals
+who served under Rameses. There is doubtless some exaggeration in the
+statements of the Greek historian, but there is no doubt that this
+monarch was among the first of the great conquerors to establish a
+regular army, and to provide a fleet to co-operate with his land forces.
+
+The strength of the Egyptian army consisted mainly in archers. They
+fought either on foot or in chariots; cavalry was not much relied upon,
+although mention is frequently made of horsemen as well as of chariots.
+The Egyptian infantry was divided into regiments, and Wilkinson tells us
+that they were named according to the arms they bore,--as "bowmen,
+spearmen, swordsmen, clubmen, slingers." These regiments were divided
+into battalions and companies, commanded by their captains. The
+infantry, heavily armed with spears and shields, formed a phalanx almost
+impenetrable of twelve men deep, who marched with great regularity. Each
+company had its standard-bearer, who was an officer of approved valor;
+the royal standards were carried by the royal princes or by persons of
+the royal household. The troops were summoned by the sound of trumpet,
+and also by the drum, both used from the earliest period. The offensive
+weapons were the bow, the spear, the javelin, the sword, the club, or
+mace, and the battle-axe. The chief defensive weapon was the shield,
+about three feet in length, covered with bull's hide, having the hair
+outward and studded with nails. The shape of the bow was not essentially
+different from that used in Europe in the Middle Ages, being about five
+feet and a half long, round, and tapering at the ends; the bowstring was
+of hide or catgut. The arrows of the archers averaged about thirty
+inches in length, and were made of wood or reeds, tipped with a metal
+point, or flint, and winged with feathers. Each bowman was furnished
+with a plentiful supply of arrows. When arrows were exhausted, the
+bowman fought with swords and battle-axes; his defensive armor was
+confined chiefly to the helmet and a sort of quilted coat. The spear was
+of wood, with a metal head, was about five or six feet in length, and
+used for thrusting. The javelin was lighter, for throwing. The sling was
+a thong of plaited leather, broad in the middle, with a loop at the end.
+The sword was straight and short, between two and three feet in length,
+with a double edge, tapering to a sharp point, and used for either cut
+or thrust; the handle was frequently inlaid with precious stones. The
+metal used in the manufacture of swords and spear-heads was bronze,
+hardened by a process unknown to us. The battle-axe had a handle about
+two-and a-half feet in length, and was less ornamented than other
+weapons. The cuirass, or coat of armor, was made of horizontal rows of
+metal plate, about an inch in breadth, well secured together by bronze
+pieces. The Egyptian chariot held two persons,--the charioteer, and the
+warrior armed with his bow-and-arrow and wearing a cuirass, or coat of
+mail. The warrior carried also other weapons for close encounter, when
+he should descend from his chariot to fight on foot. The chariot was of
+wood, the body of which was light, strengthened with metal; the pole was
+inserted in the axle; the two wheels usually had six spokes, but
+sometimes only four; the wheel revolved on the axle, and was secured by
+a lynch-pin. The leathern harness and housings were simple, and the
+bridles, or reins, were nearly the same as are now in use.
+
+"The Egyptian chariot corps, like the infantry," says Wilkinson, "were
+divided into light and heavy troops, both armed with bows,--the former
+chiefly employed in harassing the enemy with missiles; the latter called
+upon to break through opposing masses of infantry." The infantry, when
+employed in the assault of fortified towns, were provided with shields,
+under cover of which they made their approaches to the place to be
+attacked. In their attack they advanced under cover of the arrows of the
+bowmen, and instantly applied the scaling-ladder to the ramparts. The
+testudo, a wooden shelter, was also used, large enough to contain
+several men. The battering-ram and movable towers resembled those of the
+Romans a thousand years later.
+
+It would thus appear that the ancient Egyptians, in the discipline of
+armies, in military weapons offensive and defensive, in chariots and
+horses, and in military engines for the reduction of fortified towns,
+were scarcely improved upon by the Greeks and Romans, or by the
+Europeans in the Middle Ages. Yet the Egyptians were an ingenious rather
+than a warlike people, fond of peace, and devoted to agricultural
+pursuits.
+
+More warlike than they were the Assyrians and the Persians, although we
+fail to discover any essential difference in the organization of armies,
+or in military weapons. The great difference between the Persian and the
+Egyptian armies was in the use of cavalry. From their earliest
+settlements the Persians were skilful horsemen, and these formed the
+guard of their kings. Under Cyrus, the Persians became the masters of
+the world, but they rapidly degenerated, not being able to withstand the
+luxurious life of the conquered Babylonians; and when they were
+marshalled against the Greeks, and especially against the disciplined
+forces of Alexander, they were disgracefully routed in spite of their
+enormous armies, which could not be handled, and became mere mobs of
+armed men.
+
+The art of war made a great advance under the Greeks, although we do
+not notice any striking superiority of arms over the Eastern armies led
+by Sesostris or Cyrus. The Greeks were among the most warlike of all the
+races of men; they had a genius for war. The Grecian States were engaged
+in perpetual strifes with one another, and constant contention developed
+military strength; and yet the Greeks, until the time of Philip, had no
+standing armies. They relied for offence and defence on the volunteer
+militia, which was animated by intense patriotic ideas. All armies in
+the nature of things are more or less machines, moved by one commanding
+will; but the Greek armies owed much of their success to the individual
+bravery of their troops, who were citizens of States under
+constitutional forms of government.
+
+The most remarkable improvement in the art of war was made by the
+Spartans, who, in addition to their strict military discipline,
+introduced the _phalanx_,--files of picked soldiers, eight deep, heavily
+armed with spear, sword, and shield, placed in ranks of eight, at
+intervals of about six feet apart. This phalanx of eight files and eight
+ranks,--sixty-four men,--closely locked when the soldiers received or
+advanced to attack, proved nearly impregnable and irresistible. It
+combined solidity and the power of resistance with mobility. The picked
+men were placed in the front and rear; for in skilful evolutions the
+front often became the rear, and the rear became the front. Armed with
+spears projecting beyond the front, and with their shields locked
+together, the phalanx advanced to meet the enemy with regular step, and
+to the cadence of music; if beaten, it retired in perfect order. After
+battle, each soldier was obliged to produce his shield as a proof that
+he had fought or retired as a soldier should. The Athenian phalanx was
+less solid than that of Sparta,--Miltiades having decreased the depth to
+four ranks, in order to lengthen his front,--but was more efficient in a
+charge against the enemy. The Spartan phalanx was stronger in defence,
+the Athenian more agile in attack. The attack was nearly irresistible,
+as the soldiers advanced with accelerated motion, corresponding to the
+double-quick time of modern warfare. This was first introduced by
+Miltiades at Marathon.
+
+Philip of Macedon adopted the Spartan phalanx, but made it sixteen deep,
+which gave it greater solidity, and rendered it still more effective. He
+introduced the large oval buckler and a larger and heavier spear. When
+the phalanx was closed for action, each man occupied but three square
+feet of ground: as the pikes were twenty-four feet in length, and
+projected eighteen feet beyond the front, the formation presented an
+array of points such as had never been seen before. The greatest
+improvement effected by Philip, however, was the adoption of standing
+armies instead of the militia heretofore in use throughout the Grecian
+States. He also attached great importance to his cavalry, which was
+composed of the flower of the nobility, about twelve hundred in number,
+all covered with defensive armor; these he formed into eight squadrons,
+and constituted them his body-guard. The usual formation of the regular
+cavalry was in the form of a wedge, so as to penetrate and break the
+enemy's line,--a manoeuvre probably learned from Epaminondas of Thebes,
+a great master in the art of war, who defeated the Spartan phalanx by
+forming his columns upon a front less than their depth, thus enabling
+him to direct his whole force against a given point. By these tactics he
+gained the great victory at Leuctra, as Napoleon likewise prevailed over
+the Austrians in his Italian campaign. In like manner Philip's son
+Alexander, following the example of Epaminondas, concentrated his forces
+upon the enemy's centre, and easily defeated the Persian hosts by
+creating a panic. There was no resisting a phalanx sixteen files deep,
+with their projecting pikes, aided by the heavily armed cavalry, all
+under the strictest military discipline and animated by patriotic ardor.
+This terrible Macedonian phalanx was a great advance over the early
+armies of the Greeks, who fought without discipline in a hand to hand
+encounter, with swords and spears, after exhausting their arrows. They
+had learned two things of great importance,--a rigid discipline, and a
+concentration of forces which made an army a machine. Under Alexander,
+the grand phalanx consisted of 16,384 men, made up of four divisions and
+smaller phalanxes.
+
+In Roman armies we see a still further advance in the military art, as
+it existed in the time of Augustus, which required centuries to perfect.
+The hardy physique and stern nature of the Romans, exercised and
+controlled by their organizing genius, evolved the Roman legion, which
+learned to resist the impetuous assaults of the elephants of the East,
+the phalanx of the Greeks, and the Teutonic barbarians. The indomitable
+courage of the Romans, trained under severest discipline and directed by
+means of an organization divided and subdivided and officered almost as
+perfectly as our modern corps and divisions and brigades and regiments
+and companies and squads, marched over and subdued the world.
+
+The Roman soldier was trained to march twenty miles a day, under a
+burden of eighty pounds; to swim rivers, to climb mountains, to
+penetrate forests, and to encounter every kind of danger. He was taught
+that his destiny was to die in battle: death was at once his duty and
+his glory. He enlisted in the army with little hope of revisiting his
+home; he crossed seas and deserts and forests with the idea of spending
+his life in the service of his country. His pay was only a denarius
+daily, equal to about sixteen cents of our money. Marriage for him was
+discouraged or forbidden. However insignificant the legionary was as a
+man, he gained importance from the great body with which he was
+identified: he was both the servant and the master of the State. He had
+an intense _esprit de corps_; he was bound up in the glory of his
+legion. Both religion and honor bound him to his standards; the golden
+eagle which glittered in his front was the object of his fondest
+devotion. Nor was it possible to escape the penalty of cowardice or
+treachery or disobedience; he could be chastised with blows by his
+centurion, and his general could doom him to death. Never was the
+severity of military discipline relaxed; military exercises were
+incessant, in winter as in summer. In the midst of peace the Roman
+troops were familiarized with the practice of war.
+
+It was the spirit which animated the Roman legions, and the discipline
+to which they were inured that gave them their irresistible strength.
+When we remember that they had not our firearms, we can but be surprised
+at their efficiency, especially in taking strongly fortified cities.
+Jerusalem was defended by a triple wall, the most elaborate
+fortifications, and twenty-four thousand soldiers, besides the aid
+received from the citizens; and yet it fell in little more than four
+months before an army of eighty thousand under Titus. How great must
+have been the military science that could reduce a place of such
+strength, in so short a time, without the aid of other artillery than
+the ancient catapult and battering-ram! Whether the military science of
+the Romans was superior or inferior to our own, no one can question that
+it was as perfect as it could be, lacking any knowledge of gunpowder; we
+surpass them only in the application of this great invention, especially
+in artillery. There can be no doubt that a Roman army was superior to a
+feudal army in the brightest days of chivalry. The world has produced no
+generals greater than Caesar, Pompey, Sulla, and Marius. No armies ever
+won greater victories over superior numbers than the Roman, and no
+armies of their size ever retained in submission so vast an empire, and
+for so long a time. At no period in the history of the Roman empire were
+the armies so large as those sustained by France in time of peace. Two
+hundred thousand legionaries, and as many more auxiliaries, controlled
+diverse nations and powerful monarchies. The single province of Syria
+once boasted of a military force equal in the number of soldiers to that
+wielded by the Emperor Tiberius. Twenty-five Roman legions made the
+conquest of the world, and retained that conquest for five hundred
+years. The self-sustained energy of Caesar in Gaul puts to the blush
+the efforts of all modern generals, unless we except Frederic II.,
+Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Grant, Sherman, and a few other great
+geniuses whom warlike crises have developed; nor is there a better
+text-book on the art of war than that furnished by Caesar himself in his
+Commentaries. The great victories of the Romans over barbarians, over
+Gauls, over Carthaginians, over Greeks, over Syrians, over Persians,
+were not the result of a short-lived enthusiasm, like those of Attila
+and Tamerlane, but extended over a thousand years.
+
+The Romans were essentially military in all their tastes and habits.
+Luxurious senators and nobles showed the greatest courage and skill in
+the most difficult campaigns. Antony, Caesar, Pompey, and Lucullus at
+home were enervated and self-indulgent, but at the head of their legions
+they were capable of any privation and fatigue.
+
+The Roman legion was a most perfect organization, a great mechanical
+force, and could sustain furious attacks after vigor, patriotism, and
+public spirit had fled. For three hundred years a vast empire was
+sustained by mechanism alone. The legion is coeval with the foundation
+of Rome, but the number of the troops of which it was composed varied at
+different periods. It rarely exceeded six thousand men; Gibbon estimates
+the number at six thousand eight hundred and twenty-six men. For many
+centuries it was composed exclusively of Roman citizens. Up to the year
+B.C. 107, no one was permitted to serve among the regular troops except
+those who were regarded as possessing a strong personal interest in the
+stability of the republic. Marius admitted all orders of citizens; and
+after the close of the Social War, B.C. 87, the whole free population of
+Italy was allowed to serve in the regular army. Claudius incorporated
+with the legion the vanquished Goths, and after him the barbarians
+filled up the ranks on account of the degeneracy of the times. But
+during the period when the Romans were conquering the world every
+citizen was trained to arms, like the Germans of the present day, and
+was liable to be called upon to serve in the armies. In the early age of
+the republic the legion was disbanded as soon as the special service was
+performed, and was in all essential respects a militia. For three
+centuries we have no record of a Roman army wintering in the field; but
+when Southern Italy became the seat of war, and especially when Rome was
+menaced by foreign enemies, and still more when a protracted foreign
+service became inevitable, the same soldiers remained in activity for
+several years. Gradually the distinction between the soldier and the
+civilian was entirely obliterated. The distant wars of the
+republic--such as the prolonged operations of Caesar in Gaul, and the
+civil contests--made a standing army a necessity. During the civil wars
+between Caesar and Pompey the legions were forty in number; under
+Augustus, but twenty-five. Alexander Severus increased them to
+thirty-two. This was the standing force of the empire,--from one hundred
+and fifty thousand to two hundred and forty thousand men, stationed in
+the various provinces.
+
+The main dependence of the legion was on the infantry, which wore heavy
+armor consisting of helmet, breastplate, greaves on the right leg, and
+on the left arm a buckler, four feet in length and two and a half in
+width. The helmet was originally made of leather or untanned skin,
+strengthened and adorned by bronze or gold, and surmounted by a crest
+which was often of horse-hair, and so made as to give an imposing look.
+The crests served not only for ornament, but to distinguish the
+different centurions. The breastplate, or cuirass, was generally made of
+metal, and sometimes was highly ornamented. Chain-mail was also used.
+The greaves were of bronze or brass, with a lining of leather or felt,
+and reached above the knees. The shield worn by the heavy-armed infantry
+was not round, like that of the early Greeks, but oval or oblong,
+adapted to the shape of the body, such as was adopted by Philip and
+Alexander, and was made of wood or wicker-work. The weapons were a light
+spear, a pilum, or javelin, over six feet long, terminated by a steel
+point, and a short cut-and-thrust sword with a double edge. Besides the
+armor and weapons of the legionary, he usually carried on the marches
+provisions for two weeks, three or four stakes used in forming the
+palisade of the camp, besides various tools,--altogether a burden of
+sixty or eighty pounds per man. The legion was drawn up eight deep, and
+three feet intervened between rank and file, which disposition gave
+great activity, and made it superior to the Macedonian phalanx, the
+strength of which depended on sixteen ranks of long pikes wedged
+together. The general period of service for the infantry was twenty
+years, after which the soldier received a discharge, together with a
+bounty in money or land.
+
+The cavalry attached to each legion consisted of three hundred men, who
+originally were selected from the leading men in the State. They were
+mounted at the expense of the State, and formed a distinct order. The
+cavalry was divided into ten squadrons. To each legion was attached also
+a train of ten military engines of the largest size, and fifty-five of
+the smaller,--all of which discharged stones and darts with great
+effect. This train corresponded with our artillery.
+
+The Roman legion--whether it was composed of four thousand men, as in
+the early ages of the republic, or six thousand, as in the time of
+Augustus--was divided into ten cohorts, and each cohort was composed of
+Hastati (raw troops), Principes (trained troops), Triarii (veterans),
+and Velites (light troops, or skirmishers). The soldiers of the first
+line, called Hastati, consisted of youths in the bloom of manhood, who
+were distributed into fifteen companies, or maniples. Each company
+contained sixty privates, two centurions, and a standard-bearer. Two
+thirds were heavily armed, and bore the long shield; the remainder
+carried only a spear and light javelins. The second line, the Principes,
+was composed of men in the full vigor of life, divided also into fifteen
+companies, all heavily armed, and distinguished by the splendor of their
+equipments. The third body, the Triarii, was composed of tried veterans,
+in fifteen companies, the least trustworthy of which were placed in the
+rear; these formed three lines. The Velites were light-armed troops,
+employed on out-post duty, and mingled with the horsemen. The Hastati
+were so called because they were armed with the _hasta_, or spear; the
+Principes for being placed so near to the front; the Triarii, from
+having been arrayed behind the first two lines as a body of reserve. The
+Triarii were armed with the pilum, thicker and stronger than the Grecian
+lance, four and a half feet long, of wood, with a barbed head of
+iron,--so that the whole length of the weapon was six feet nine inches.
+It was used either to throw or thrust with, and when it pierced the
+enemy's shield the iron head was bent, and the spear, owing to the twist
+in the iron, still held to the shield. Each soldier carried two of these
+weapons, and threw the heavy pilum over the heads of their comrades in
+front, in order to break the enemy's line. In the time of the empire,
+when the legion was modified, the infantry wore cuirasses and helmets,
+and carried a sword and dagger. The select infantry were armed with a
+long spear and a shield; the rest, with a pilum. Each man carried a saw,
+a basket, a mattock, a hatchet, a leather strap, a hook, a chain, and
+provisions for three days. The Equites (cavalry) wore helmets and
+cuirasses, like the infantry, having a broadsword at the right side, and
+in the hand a long pole. A buckler swung at the horse's flank. They were
+also furnished with a quiver containing three or four javelins.
+
+The artillery were used both for hurling missiles in battle, and for the
+attack on fortresses. The _tormentum_, which was an elastic instrument,
+discharged stones and darts, and was held in general use until the
+discovery of gunpowder. In besieging a city, the ram was employed for
+destroying the lower part of a wall, and the _balista,_ which discharged
+stones, was used to overthrow the battlements. The balista would project
+a stone weighing from fifty to three hundred pounds. The _aries_, or
+battering-ram, consisted of a large beam made of the trunk of a tree,
+frequently one hundred feet in length, to one end of which was fastened
+a mace of iron or bronze resembling in form the head of a ram; it was
+often suspended by ropes from a beam fixed transversely over it, so that
+the soldiers were relieved from supporting its weight, and were able to
+give it a rapid and forcible swinging motion backward and forward. When
+this machine was further perfected by rigging it upon wheels, and
+constructing over it a roof, so as to form a _testudo_, which protected
+the besieging party from the assaults of the besieged, there was no
+tower so strong, no wall so thick, as to resist a long-continued attack,
+the great length of the beam enabling the soldiers to work across the
+defensive ditch, and as many as one hundred men being often employed
+upon it. The Romans learned from the Greeks the art of building this
+formidable engine, which was used with great effect by Alexander, but
+with still greater by Titus in the siege of Jerusalem; it was first used
+by the Romans in the siege of Syracuse. The _vinea_ was a sort of roof
+under which the soldiers protected themselves when they undermined
+walls. The _helepolis_, also used in the attack on cities, was a square
+tower furnished with all the means of assault. This also was a Greek
+invention; and the one used by Demetrius at the siege of Rhodes, B. C.
+306, was one hundred and thirty-five feet high and sixty-eight wide,
+divided into nine stories. The _turris_, a tower of the same class, was
+used both by Greeks and Romans, and even by Asiatics. Mithridates used
+one at the siege of Cyzicus one hundred and fifty feet in height. These
+most formidable engines were generally made of beams of wood covered on
+three sides with iron and sometimes with rawhides. They were higher than
+the walls and all the other fortifications of a besieged place, and
+divided into stories pierced with windows; in and upon them were
+stationed archers and slingers, and in the lower story was a
+battering-ram. The soldiers in the turris were also provided with
+scaling-ladders, sometimes on wheels; so that when the top of the wall
+was cleared by means of the turris, it might be scaled by means of the
+ladders. It was impossible to resist these powerful engines except by
+burning them, or by undermining the ground upon which they stood, or by
+overturning them with stones or iron-shod beams hung from a mast on the
+wall, or by increasing the height of the wall, or by erecting temporary
+towers on the wall beside them.
+
+Thus there was no ancient fortification capable of withstanding a long
+siege when the besieged city was short of defenders or provisions. With
+forces equal between the combatants an attack was generally a failure,
+for the defenders had always a great advantage; but when the number of
+defenders was reduced, or when famine pressed, the skill and courage of
+the assailants would ultimately triumph. Some ancient cities made a most
+obstinate resistance, like Tarentum; like Carthage, which stood a siege
+of four years; like Numantia in Spain, and like Jerusalem. When cities
+were of immense size, population, and resources, like Rome when besieged
+by Alaric, it was easier to take them by cutting off all ingress and
+egress, so as to produce famine. Tyre was taken by Alexander only by
+cutting off the harbor. Cyrus could not have taken Babylon by assault,
+since the walls were of such enormous height, and the ditch was too wide
+for the use of battering-rams; he resorted to an expedient of which the
+blinded inhabitants of that doomed city never dreamed, which rendered
+their impregnable fortifications useless. Nor probably would the Romans
+have prevailed against Jerusalem had not famine decimated and weakened
+its defenders. Fortified cities, though scarcely ever impregnable, were
+yet more in use in ancient than modern times, and greatly delayed the
+operations of advancing armies; and it was probably the fortified camp
+of the Romans, which protected an army against surprises and other
+misfortunes, that gave such permanent efficacy to the legions.
+
+The chief officers of the legion were the Tribunes; and originally
+there was one in each legion from the three tribes,--the Ramnes,
+Luceres, and Tities. In the time of Polybius the number in each legion
+was six. Their authority extended equally over the whole legion; but to
+prevent confusion, it was the custom for them to divide into three
+sections of two, and each pair undertook the routine duties for two
+months out of six; they nominated the centurions, and assigned each to
+the company to which he belonged. These tribunes at first were chosen
+the commanders-in-chief, by the kings and consuls; but during the palmy
+days of the republic, when the patrician power was pre-eminent, they
+were elected by the people, that is, the citizens. Later they were
+named, half by the Senate and half by the consuls. No one was eligible
+to this great office who had not served ten years in the infantry or
+five in the cavalry. The tribunes were distinguished by their dress from
+the common soldier. Next in rank to the tribunes, who corresponded to
+the rank of brigadiers and colonels in our times, were the Centurions,
+of whom there were sixty in each legion,--men who were more remarkable
+for calmness and sagacity than for courage and daring valor; men who
+would keep their posts at all hazards. It was their duty to drill the
+soldiers, to inspect arms, clothing, and food, to visit the sentinels
+and regulate the conduct of the men. They had the power of inflicting
+corporal punishment. They were chosen for merit solely, until the later
+ages of the empire, when their posts were bought, as is the case to some
+extent to-day in the English army. The centurions were of unequal
+rank,--those of the Triarii before those of the Principes, and those of
+the Principes before those of the Hastati. The first centurion of the
+first maniple of the Triarii stood next in rank to the tribunes, and had
+a seat in the military councils. His office was very lucrative. To his
+charge was intrusted the eagle of the legion. As the centurion might
+rise from the ranks by regular gradation through the different maniples
+of the Hastati, Principes, and Triarii, there was great inducement held
+out to the soldiers. It would, however, appear that the centurion
+received only twice the pay of the ordinary legionary. There was not
+therefore so much difference in rank between a private and a captain as
+there is in our day. There were no aristocratic distinctions in the
+ancient world so marked as those existing in the modern. In the Roman
+legion there was nevertheless a regular gradation of rank, although
+there were but few distinct offices. The gradation was determined not by
+length of service, but for merit alone, of which the tribunes were the
+sole judges; hence the tribune in a Roman legion had more power than
+that of a modern colonel. As the tribunes named the centurions, so the
+centurions appointed their lieutenants, who were called sub-centurions.
+Still below these were two sub-officers, or sergeants, and the
+_decanus_, or corporal, to every ten men.
+
+There was a change in the constitution and disposition of the legion
+after the time of Marius, until the fall of the republic. The legions
+were thrown open to men of all grades; they were all armed and equipped
+alike; the lines were reduced to two, with a space between every two
+cohorts, of which there were five in each line; the young soldiers were
+placed in the rear; the distinction between Hastati, Principes, and
+Triarii ceased; the Velites disappeared, their work being done by the
+foreign mercenaries; the cavalry ceased to be part of the legion, and
+became a distinct body; and the military was completely severed from the
+rest of the State. Formerly no one could aspire to office who had not
+completed ten years of military service, but in the time of Cicero a man
+could pass through all the great dignities of the State with a very
+limited experience of military life. Cicero himself did military service
+in but one campaign.
+
+Under the emperors there were still other changes. The regular army
+consisted of legions and supplementa,--the latter being subdivided into
+the imperial guards and the auxiliary troops.
+
+The Auxiliaries (_Socii_) consisted of troops from the States in
+alliance with Rome, or those compelled to furnish subsidies. The
+infantry of the allies was generally more numerous than that of the
+Romans, while the cavalry was three times as numerous. All the
+auxiliaries were paid by the State; their infantry received the same pay
+as the Roman infantry, but their cavalry received only two thirds of
+what was paid to the Roman cavalry. The common foot-soldier received in
+the time of Polybius three and a half asses a day, equal to about three
+cents; the horseman three times as much. The praetorian cohorts received
+twice as much as the legionaries. Julius Caesar allowed about six asses
+a day as the pay of the legionary, and under Augustus the daily pay was
+raised to ten asses,--little more than eight cents per day. Domitian
+raised the stipend still higher. The soldier, however, was fed and
+clothed by the government.
+
+The Praetorian Cohort was a select body of troops instituted by Augustus
+to protect his person, and consisted of ten cohorts, each of one
+thousand men, chosen from Italy. This number was increased by Vitellius
+to sixteen thousand, and they were assembled by Tiberius in a permanent
+camp, which was strongly fortified. They had peculiar privileges, and
+when they had served sixteen years received twenty thousand sesterces,
+or more than one hundred pounds sterling. Each praetorian had the rank
+of a centurion in the regular army. Like the body-guard of Louis XIV.
+they were all gentlemen, and formed gradually a great power, like the
+Janissaries at Constantinople, and frequently disposed of the
+purple itself.
+
+Our notice of the Roman legion would be incomplete without some
+description of the camp in which the soldier virtually lived. A Roman
+army never halted for a single night without forming a regular
+intrenchment capable of holding all the fighting men, the beasts of
+burden, and the baggage. During the winter months, when the army could
+not retire into some city, it was compelled to live in the camp, which
+was arranged and fortified according to a uniform plan, so that every
+company and individual had a place assigned. We cannot tell when this
+practice of intrenchment began; it was matured gradually, like all other
+things pertaining to all arts. The system was probably brought to
+perfection during the wars with Hannibal. Skill in the choice of ground,
+giving facilities for attack and defence, and for procuring water and
+other necessities, was of great account with the generals. An area of
+about five thousand square feet was allowed for a company of infantry,
+and ten thousand feet for a troop of thirty dragoons. The form of a camp
+was an exact square, the length of each side being two thousand and
+seventeen feet; there was a space of two hundred feet between the
+ramparts and the tents to facilitate the marching in and out of
+soldiers, and to guard the cattle and booty; the principal street was
+one hundred feet wide, and was called Principia. The defences of the
+camp consisted of a ditch, the earth from which was thrown inward, and
+of strong palisades of wooden stakes driven into the top of the
+earthwork so formed; the ditch was sometimes fifteen feet deep, and the
+_vallum_, or rampart, ten feet in height. When the army encamped for the
+first time the tribunes administered an oath to each individual,
+including slaves, to the effect that they would steal nothing out of the
+camp. Every morning at daybreak the centurions and the equites presented
+themselves before the tents of the tribunes, and the tribunes in like
+manner presented themselves before the praetorian, to learn the orders
+of the consuls, which through the centurions were communicated to the
+soldiers. Four companies took charge of the principal street, to see
+that it was properly cleaned and watered; one company took charge of the
+tent of the tribune; a strong guard attended to the horses, and another
+of fifty men stood beside the tent of the general, that he might be
+protected from open danger and secret treachery. The _velites_ mounted
+guard the whole night and day along the whole extent of the vallum, and
+each gate was guarded by ten men; the _equites_ were intrusted with the
+duty of acting as sentinels during the night, and most ingenious
+measures were adopted to secure their watchfulness and fidelity. The
+watchword for the night was given by the commander-in-chief. "On the
+first signal being given by the trumpet, the tents were all struck and
+the baggage packed; at the second signal, the baggage was placed upon
+the beasts of burden; and at the third, the whole army began to move.
+Then the herald, standing at the right hand of the general, demands
+thrice if they are ready for war, to which they all respond with loud
+and repeated cheers that they are ready, and for the most part, being
+filled with martial ardor, anticipate the question, 'and raise their
+right hands on high with a shout.'" [3]
+
+[Footnote 3: Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, article "Castra."]
+
+From what has come down to us of Roman military life, it appears to have
+been full of excitement, toil, danger, and hardship. The pecuniary
+rewards of the soldier were small; he was paid in glory. No profession
+brought so much honor as the military; and it was from the undivided
+attention of a great people to this profession, that it was carried to
+all the perfection which could be attained before the great invention of
+gunpowder changed the art of war. It was not the number of men employed
+in the Roman armies which particularly arrests attention, but the genius
+of organization which controlled and the spirit which animated them.
+The Romans loved war, but so reduced it to a science that it required
+comparatively small armies to conquer the world. Sulla defeated
+Mithridates with only thirty thousand men, while his adversary
+marshalled against him over one hundred thousand. Caesar had only ten
+legions to effect the conquest of Gaul, and none of these were of
+Italian origin. At the great decisive battle of Pharsalia, when most of
+the available forces of the empire were employed on one side or the
+other, Pompey commanded a legionary army of forty-five thousand men, and
+his cavalry amounted to seven thousand more, but among them were
+included the flower of the Roman nobility; the auxiliary force has not
+been computed, although it was probably numerous. In the same battle
+Caesar had under him only twenty-two thousand legionaries and one
+thousand cavalry. But every man in both armies was prepared to conquer
+or die. The forces were posted on the open plain, and the battle was
+really a hand-to-hand encounter, in which the soldiers, after hurling
+their lances, fought with their swords chiefly; and when the cavalry of
+Pompey rushed upon the legionaries of Caesar, no blows were wasted on
+the mailed panoply of the mounted Romans, but were aimed at the face
+alone, as that only was unprotected. The battle was decided by the
+coolness, bravery, and discipline of Caesar's veterans, inspired by the
+genius of the greatest general of antiquity. Less than one hundred
+thousand men, in all probability, were engaged in one of the most
+memorable conflicts which the world has seen.
+
+Thus it was by blended art and heroism that the Roman legions prevailed
+over the armies of the ancient world. But this military power was not
+gained in a say; it took nearly two hundred years, after the expulsion
+of the kings, to regain supremacy over the neighboring people, and
+another century to conquer Italy. The Romans did not contend with
+regular armies until they were brought in conflict with the king of
+Epirus and the phalanx of the Greeks, "which improved their military
+tactics, and introduced between the combatants those mutual regards of
+civilized nations which teach men to honor their adversaries, to spare
+the vanquished, and to lay aside wrath when the struggle is ended."
+
+After the consolidation of Roman power in Italy, it took but one hundred
+and fifty years more to complete the conquest of the world,--of Northern
+Africa, Spain, Gaul, Illyria, Epirus, Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor,
+Pontus, Syria, Egypt, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pergamus, and the islands of
+the Mediterranean. The conquest of Carthage left Rome without a rival in
+the Mediterranean, and promoted intercourse with the Greeks. The
+Illyrian wars opened to the Romans the road to Greece and Asia, and
+destroyed the pirates of the Adriatic. The invasion of Cisalpine Gaul,
+now that part of Italy which is north of the Apennines, protected Italy
+from the invasion of barbarians. The Macedonian War against Philip put
+Greece under the protection of Rome, and that against Antiochus laid
+Syria at her mercy; when these kingdoms were reduced to provinces, the
+way was opened to further conquests in the East, and the Mediterranean
+became a Roman lake.
+
+But these conquests introduced luxury, wealth, pride, and avarice, which
+degrade while they elevate. Successful war created great generals, and
+founded great families; increased slavery, and promoted inequalities.
+Meanwhile the great generals struggled for supremacy; civil wars
+followed in the train of foreign conquests; Marius, Sulla, Pompey,
+Caesar, Antony, Augustus, sacrificed the State to their own ambitions.
+Good men lamented and protested, and hid themselves; Cato, Cicero,
+Brutus, spoke in vain. Degenerate morals kept pace with civil contests.
+Rome revelled in the spoils of all kingdoms and countries, was
+intoxicated with power, became cruel and tyrannical, and after
+sacrificing the lives of citizens to fortunate generals, yielded at last
+her liberties, and imperial despotism began its reign. War had added
+empire, but undermined prosperity; it had created a great military
+monarchy, but destroyed liberty; it had brought wealth, but introduced
+inequalities; it had filled the city with spoils, but sown the vices of
+self-interest. The machinery remained perfect, but life had fled. It
+henceforth became the labor of Emperors to keep together their vast
+possessions with this machinery, which at last wore out, since there was
+neither genius to repair it nor patriotism to work it. It lasted three
+hundred years, but was broken to pieces by the barbarians.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Wilkinson is the best authority pertaining to Egyptian armies. The
+highest authority in relation to the construction of an army is
+Polybius, contemporary with Scipio, when Roman discipline was most
+perfect. The eighth chapter of Livy is also very much prized. Salmasius
+and Lepsius wrote learned treatises. Tacitus, Sallust, Livy, Dion
+Cassius, Pliny, and Caesar reveal incidentally much that we wish to
+know, the last giving us the liveliest idea of the military habits and
+tactics of the Romans. Gibbon gives some important facts. The subject of
+ancient machines is treated by Folard's Commentary attached to his
+translation of Polybius. Josephus describes with great vividness the
+siege of Jerusalem. Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities is full of details
+in everything pertaining to the weapons, the armor, the military
+engines, the rewards and punishments of the soldiers. The articles
+"Exercitus," in Smith's Dictionary, and "Army," in the Encyclopedia
+Britannica, give a practical summary of the best writers.
+
+
+
+
+CICERO.
+
+
+106-43 B.C.
+
+ROMAN LITERATURE.
+
+
+Marcus Tullius Cicero is one of the great lights of history, because his
+genius and influence were directed to the conservation of what was most
+precious in civilization among the cultivated nations of antiquity.
+
+He was not a warrior, like so many of the Roman Senators, but his
+excellence was higher than that of a conqueror. "He was doomed, by his
+literary genius, to an immortality," and was confessedly the most
+prominent figure in the political history of his time, next to Caesar
+and Pompey. His influence was greater than his power, reaching down to
+our time; and if his character had faults, let us remember that he was
+stained by no crimes and vices, in an age of violence and wickedness.
+Until lately he has received almost unmixed praise. The Fathers of the
+Church revered him. To Erasmus, as well as to Jerome and Augustine, he
+was an oracle.
+
+In presenting this immortal benefactor, I have no novelties to show.
+Novelties are for those who seek to upturn the verdicts of past ages by
+offering something new, rather than what is true.
+
+Cicero was born B.C. 106, in the little suburban town of Arpinum, about
+fifty miles from Rome,--the town which produced Marius. The period of
+his birth was one of marked national prosperity. Great military roads
+were built, which were a marvel of engineering skill; canals were dug;
+sails whitened the sea; commerce was prosperous; the arts of Greece were
+introduced, and its literature also; elegant villas lined the shores of
+the Mediterranean; pictures and statues were indefinitely
+multiplied,--everything indicated an increase of wealth and culture.
+With these triumphs of art and science and literature, we are compelled
+to notice likewise a decline in morals. Money had become the god which
+everybody worshipped. Religious life faded away; there was a general
+eclipse of faith. An Epicurean life produced an Epicurean philosophy.
+Pleasure-seeking was universal, and even revolting in the sports of the
+Amphitheatre. Sensualism became the convertible word for utilities. The
+Romans were thus rapidly "advancing" to a materialistic millennium,--an
+outward progress of wealth and industries, but an inward decline in
+"those virtues on which the strength of man is based," accompanied with
+seditions among the people, luxury and pride among the nobles, and
+usurpations on the part of successful generals,--when Cicero began his
+memorable career.
+
+He was well-born, but not of noble ancestors. The great peculiarity of
+his youth was his precocity. He was an intellectual prodigy,--like Pitt,
+Macaulay, and Mill. Like them, he had a wonderful memory. He early
+mastered the Greek language; he wrote poetry, studied under eminent
+professors, frequented the Forum, listened to the speeches of different
+orators, watched the posture and gestures of actors, and plunged into
+the mazes of literature and philosophy. He was conscious of his
+marvellous gifts, and was, of course, ambitious of distinction.
+
+There were only three ways at Rome in which a man could rise to eminence
+and power. One was by making money, like army contractors and merchants,
+such as the Equites, to whose ranks he belonged; the second was by
+military service; and the third by the law,--an honorable profession.
+Like Caesar, a few years younger than he, Cicero selected the law. But
+he was a _new man_,--not a patrician, as Caesar was,--and had few
+powerful friends. Hence his progress was not rapid in the way of
+clients. He was twenty-five years of age before he had a case. He was
+twenty-seven when he defended Roscius, which seems to have brought him
+into notice,--even as the fortune of Erskine was made in the Greenwich
+Hospital case and that of Daniel Webster in the case of Dartmouth
+College. To have defended Roscius against all the influence of Sulla,
+then the most powerful man in Rome, was considered bold and audacious.
+His fame for great logical power rests on his defence of Milo,--the
+admiration of all lawyers.
+
+Cicero was not naturally robust. His figure was tall and spare, his neck
+long and slender, and his mouth anything but sensual. He looked more
+like an elegant scholar than a popular public speaker. Yet he was
+impetuous, ardent, and fiery, like Demosthenes, resorting to violent
+gesticulations. The health of such a young man could not stand the
+strain on his nervous system, and he was obliged to leave Rome for
+recreation; he therefore made the tour of Greece and Asia Minor, which
+every fashionable and cultivated man was supposed to do. Yet he did not
+abandon himself to the pleasures of cities more fascinating than Rome
+itself, but pursued his studies in rhetoric and philosophy under eminent
+masters, or "professors" as we should now call them. He remained abroad
+two years, returning when he was thirty years of age and settling down
+in his profession, taking at first but little part in politics. He
+married Terentia, with whom he lived happily for thirty years.
+
+But the Roman lawyer was essentially a politician, looking ultimately to
+political office, since only through the great public offices could he
+enter the Senate,--the object of ambition to all distinguished Romans,
+as a seat in Parliament is the goal of an Englishman. The Roman lawyer
+did not receive fees, like modern lawyers, but derived his support from
+presents and legacies. When he became a political leader, a man of
+influence with the great, his presents were enormous. Cicero
+acknowledged, late in life, to have received what would now be equal to
+more than a million of dollars from legacies alone. The great political
+leaders and orators were the stipendiaries of Eastern princes and nobles
+who wanted favors from the Senate, and who knew as well how to reward
+such services as do the railway kings in our times.
+
+Before Cicero, then, could be a Senator, he must pass through those
+great public offices which were in the gift of the people. The first
+step on the ladder of advancement was the office of quaestor, which
+entailed the duty of collecting revenues in one of the provinces. This
+office he was sufficiently influential to secure, being sent to Sicily,
+where he distinguished himself for his activity and integrity. At the
+end of a year he renewed his practice in the courts at Rome,--being
+hardly anything more than a mere lawyer for five years, when he was
+elected an Aedile, to whom the care of the public buildings was
+intrusted.
+
+It was while he was aedile-elect that Cicero appeared as the public
+prosecutor of Verres. This was one of the great cases of antiquity, and
+the one from which the orator's public career fairly dates. His
+residence in Sicily had prepared him for this duty; and he secured the
+conviction of this great criminal, whose peculations and corruptions
+would amaze our modern New Yorkers and all the "rings" of our great
+cities combined. But the Praetor of Sicily was a provincial
+governor,--more like Warren Hastings than Tweed. For this public service
+Cicero gained more _eclat_ than Burke did for his prosecution of
+Hastings; since Hastings, though a corrupt man, laid, after Clive, the
+foundation of the English empire in India, and was a man of immense
+talents,--greater than those of any who has since filled his place.
+Hence the nation screened Hastings. But Verres had no virtues and no
+great abilities; he was an outrageous public robber, and hoped, from his
+wealth and powerful connections, to purchase immunity for his crimes. In
+the hands of such an orator as Cicero he could not escape the penalty of
+the law, powerful as he was, even at Rome. This case placed Cicero above
+Hortensius, hitherto the leader of the Roman bar.
+
+It was at this period that the extant correspondence of Cicero began,
+which is the best picture we have of the manners and habits of the Roman
+aristocracy at the time. History could scarcely spare those famous
+letters, especially to Atticus, in which also the private life and
+character of Cicero shine to the most advantage, revealing no vices, no
+treacheries,--only egotism, vanity, and vacillation, and a way that some
+have of speaking about people in private very differently from what they
+say in public, which looks like insincerity. In these letters Cicero
+appears as a very frank man, genial, hospitable, domestic, witty, whose
+society and conversation must have been delightful. In no modern
+correspondence do we see a higher perfection in the polished courtesies
+and urbanities of social life, with the alloy of vanity, irony, and
+discontent. But in these letters he also evinces a friendship which is
+immortal; and what is nobler than the capacity of friendship? In these
+he not only shines as a cultivated scholar, but as a great statesman and
+patriot, living for the good of his country, though not unmindful of the
+luxuries of home and the charms of country retirement, and those
+enjoyments which are ever associated with refined and favored life. We
+read here of pictures, books, medals, statues, curiosities of every
+kind, all of which adorned his various villas, as well as his
+magnificent palace on Mount Palatine, which cost him what would be equal
+in our money to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. To keep up this
+town house, and some fifteen villas in different parts of Italy, and to
+feast the greatest nobles, like Pompey and Caesar, would imply that his
+income was enormous, much greater than that of any modern professional
+man. And yet he seems to have lived, like Bacon and our Webster, beyond
+his income, and was in debt the greater part of his life,--another flaw
+in his character; for I do not wish to paint him without faults, but
+only as a good as well as a great man, for his times. His private
+character was as lofty as that of Chatham or Canning,--if we could
+forget his vanity, which after all is not so offensive as the
+intellectual pride of Burke and Pitt, and of sundry other great lights
+who might be mentioned, conscious of their gifts and attainments. There
+is something very different in the egotism of a silly and self-seeking
+aristocrat from that of a great benefactor who has something to be proud
+of, and with whose private experiences the greatest national deeds are
+connected. I speak of this fault because it has been handled too
+severely by modern critics. What were the faults of Cicero, compared
+with those of Theodosius or Constantine, to say nothing of his
+contemporaries, like Caesar, before whom so much incense has
+been burned?
+
+At the age of forty Cicero became Praetor, or Supreme Judge. This
+office, when it expired, entitled him to a provincial government,--the
+great ultimate ambition of a senator; since the administration of a
+province, even for a single year, usually secured an enormous fortune.
+But this tempting offer he resigned, since he felt he could not be
+spared from Rome in such a crisis of public affairs, when the fortunate
+generals were grasping power and the demagogues were almost preparing
+the way for despotism. Some might say he was a far-sighted and ambitious
+statesman, who could not afford to weaken his chances of being made
+Consul by absence from the capital.
+
+This great office, the consulship, the highest in the gift of the
+people,--which gave supreme executive control,--was rarely conferred,
+although elective, upon any but senators of ancient family and enormous
+wealth. It was as difficult for a "new man" to reach this dignity, under
+an aristocratic Constitution, as for a commoner a hundred years ago to
+become prime minister of England. Transcendent talents and services
+scarcely sufficed. Only generals who had won great military fame, or the
+highest of the nobles, stood much chance. For a lawyer to aim at the
+highest office in the State, without a great family to back him, would
+have been deemed as audacious as for such a man as Burke to aspire to a
+seat in the cabinet during the reign of George III. A lawyer at Rome,
+like a lawyer in London, might become a lord chancellor or praetor, but
+not easily a prime minister: he would be defeated by aristocratic
+influence and jealousies. Although the people had the right of election,
+they voted at the dictation of those who had money and power. Yet Cicero
+obtained the consulship, probably with the aid of senators, which he
+justly regarded as a great triumph. It was a very unusual thing. It was
+more marvellous than for a Jew to reign in Great Britain, or, like
+Mordecai, in the court of a Persian king.
+
+The most distinguished service of Cicero as consul was to ferret out the
+conspiracy of Catiline. Now, this traitor belonged to the very highest
+rank in a Senate of nobles; he was like an ancient duke in the British
+House of Peers. It was no easy thing for a plebeian consul to bring to
+justice so great a culprit. He was more formidable than Essex in the
+reign of Elizabeth, or Bassompierre in the time of Richelieu. He was a
+man of profligate life, but of marked ability and boundless ambition. He
+had a band of numerous and faithful followers, armed and desperate. He
+was also one of those oily and aristocratic demagogues who bewitch the
+people,--not, as in our times, by sophistries, but by flatteries. He was
+as debauched as Mirabeau, but without his patriotism, though like him he
+aimed to overturn the Constitution by allying himself with the
+democracy. The people, whom he despised, he gained by his money and
+promises; and he had powerful confederates of his own rank, so that he
+was on the point of deluging Rome with blood, his aim being nothing less
+than the extermination of the Senate and the magistrates by
+assassination, and a general division of the public treasure, with
+personal assumption of public power.
+
+But all his schemes were foiled by Cicero, who added unwearied activity
+to extraordinary penetration. For this great and signal service Cicero
+received the highest tribute the State could render. He was called the
+savior of his country; and he succeeded in staving off for a time the
+fall of his country's liberties. It was a mournful sight to him to see
+the ascendency which demagogues had already gained, since it betokened
+the approaching destruction of the Constitution, which, good or bad, was
+dear to him, and which as an aristocrat he sought to conserve.
+
+Cicero's evil star was not Catiline, but Clodius,--another aristocratic
+demagogue whose crimes he exposed, although he failed to bring him to
+justice. Clodius was shielded by his powerful connections; and he was,
+besides, a popular favorite, as well as a petted scion of one of the
+greatest families. Clodius showed his hostility to Cicero, and sought
+revenge by artfully causing the people to pass or revive a law that
+whoever had inflicted capital punishment on a citizen without a trial
+should be banished. This seemed to the people to be a protection to
+their liberties. Now Cicero, when consul, had executed some of the
+conspirators associated with Catiline, for which he was called the
+savior of his country. But by the law which was now passed or revived by
+the influence of Clodius, Cicero was himself a culprit, and it would
+seem that all the influence of the Senate and his friends could not
+prevent his exile. He appealed to his friend Pompey, but Pompey turned a
+deaf ear; and also to Caesar, but Caesar was then outside the walls of
+the city in command of an army. In fact, both these generals wished him
+out of the way, although they equally admired and feared him; for each
+of them was bent on being the supreme ruler of Rome.
+
+So it was permitted for the most illustrious patriot which Rome then
+held to go into exile. What a comment on the demoralization of the
+times! Here was the best, the most gifted, and the most accomplished man
+of the Republic,--a man who had rendered invaluable and acknowledged
+services, that man of consular dignity and one of the leaders of the
+Senate,--sent into inglorious banishment, on a mere technicality and for
+an act which saved the State. And the "magnanimous" Caesar and the
+"illustrious" Pompey allowed him to go! Where was salvation to a
+Republic which banished its savior, and for having saved it? The heart
+sickens over such a fact, although it occurred two thousand years ago.
+When the citizens of Rome saw that great man depart mournfully from
+among them, and to all appearance forever, for having rescued them from
+violence and slaughter, and by their own act,--they ought to have known
+that the days of the Republic were numbered. But this only a few
+far-seeing patriots felt. And not only was Cicero banished, but his
+palace was burned and his villas confiscated. He was not only disgraced,
+but ruined; he was an exile and a pauper. What a fall! What an unmerited
+treatment!
+
+Very few people conceive what a dreadful punishment it was in Greece and
+Rome to be banished; or, as the formula went, "to be interdicted from
+fire and water,"--the sacred fire of the hearth, the lustral water which
+served for sacrifices. The exile was deprived of these by being forced
+to extinguish the hearth-fire,--the elemental, fundamental religion of a
+Greek and Roman. "He could not, deprived of this, hold property; having
+no longer a worship, he had no longer a family. He ceased to be a
+husband and father; his sons were no longer in his power, his wife was
+no longer his wife, and when he died he had not the right to be buried
+in the tombs of his ancestors." [4]
+
+[Footnote 4: Coulanges: Ancient City.]
+
+Is it to be wondered at that even so good and great a man as Cicero
+should bitterly feel his disgrace and misfortunes? Is it surprising
+that, philosopher as he was, he should have given way to grief and
+despondency. He would have been more than human not to have lost his
+spirits and his hopes. How natural were grief and despair, in such
+complicated miseries, especially to a religious man! Chrysostom could
+support _his_ exile with dignity; for Christianity had abolished the
+superstitions of Greece and Rome as to household gods. Cicero could not:
+he was not great enough for such a martyrdom. It is true we should have
+esteemed him higher, had he accepted his fate with resignation: no man
+should yield to despair. Had he been as old as Socrates, and had he
+accomplished his mission, possibly he would have shown more equanimity.
+But his work was not yet done. He was cut off in his prime and in the
+midst of usefulness from his home, his religion, his family, his honor,
+and his influence; he was utterly ruined. I think the critics make too
+much of the grief and misery of Cicero in his banishment. We may be
+disappointed that Cicero was not equal to his circumstances; but we need
+not be hard on him. My surprise is, not that he was overwhelmed with
+grief, but that he did not attempt to drown his grief in books and
+literature. His sole relief was in pathetic and unmanly letters.
+
+The great injustice of this punishment naturally produced a reaction.
+Nor could the Romans afford to lose the services of their greatest
+orator. They also craved the excitement of his speeches, more thrilling
+and delightful than the performance of any actor. So he was recalled.
+Cicero ought to have anticipated this; it seems, however, he had that
+unfortunate temperament which favors alternate depression and
+exhilaration of spirits, without measure or reason.
+
+His return was a triumph,--a grand ovation, an unbounded tribute to his
+vanity. His palace was rebuilt at the expense of the State, and his
+property was restored. His popularity was regained. In fact, his
+influence was never lost; and, because it was so great, his enemies
+wished him out of the way. He was one of the few who retain influence
+after they have lost power.
+
+The excess of his joy on his restoration to home and friends and
+property and fame and position, was as great as the excess of his grief
+in his short exile. But this is a defect in temperament, in his mental
+constitution, rather than a flaw in his character. We could have wished
+more placidity and equanimity; but to condemn him because he was not
+great in everything is unjust.
+
+On his return to Rome Cicero resumed his practice in the courts with
+greater devotion than ever. He was now past fifty years of age, in the
+prime of his strength and in the height of his forensic fame. But,
+notwithstanding his success and honors, his life was saddened by the
+growing dissensions between Caesar and Pompey, the decline of public
+spirit, and the approaching fall of the institutions in which he
+gloried. It was clear that one or the other of these fortunate generals
+would soon become the master of the Roman world, and that liberty was
+about to perish. His eloquence now became sad; he sings the death-song
+of departing glories; he wails his Jeremiads over the demoralization
+which was sweeping away not merely liberty, but religion, and
+extinguishing faith in the world. To console himself he retired to one
+of his beautiful villas and wrote that immortal essay, "De Oratore,"
+which has come down to us entire. His literary genius now blazed equally
+with his public speeches in the Forum and in the Senate. Literature was
+his solace and amusement, not a source of profit, or probably of
+contemporary fame. He wrote treatises on the same principles that he
+talked with friends, or that Fra Angelico painted pictures. He renewed
+his attempts in poetry, but failed. His poetry is in the transcendent
+rhythm of his prose compositions, like that of Madame de Stael, and
+Macaulay, and Rousseau.
+
+But he was dragged from his literary and forensic life to accept the
+office of a governor of a province. It was forced upon him,--an honor to
+him without a charm. Had he been venal and unscrupulous, he would have
+seized it with avidity. He was too conscientious to enrich himself by
+public corruption, as other Senators did, and unless he could accumulate
+a fortune the command of a distant province was an honorable exile. He
+was fifty-six years of age when he became Proconsul of Cilicia, an
+Eastern province; and all historians have united in praising his
+proconsulate for its justice, its integrity, and its ability. He
+committed no extortions, and returned home, when his term of office
+expired, as poor as when he went. One of the highest praises which can
+be given to a public man who has chances of enriching himself is, that
+he remains poor. When a member of Congress, known not to be worth ten
+thousand dollars, returns to his home worth one hundred thousand
+dollars, the public have an instinct that he has, somehow or other, been
+untrue to himself and his country. When a great man returns home from
+Washington poorer than when he went, his influence is apt to survive his
+power; and this perpetuated influence is the highest glory of a public
+man,--the glory of Jefferson, of Hamilton, of Washington, like the voice
+of Gladstone during his retirement. Now Cicero had pre-eminently this
+influence as long as he lived; and it was ever exerted for the good of
+his country. Had his country been free, he would have died in honor. But
+his country was enslaved, and his voice was drowned, and he had to pay
+the penalty of speaking the truth about those unscrupulous men who
+usurped authority.
+
+On his return to Rome the state of public affairs was most alarming.
+Caesar and Pompey were in antagonism. He must choose between them, and
+he distrusted both. Caesar was the more able, accomplished, and
+magnanimous, but he was the more unscrupulous and dangerous. He had
+ventured to cross the Rubicon,--the first general who ever dared thus
+openly to assail his country's liberties. Pompey was pompous, overrated,
+and proud, and had been fortunate in the East. But then he sided with
+the Constitutional authorities,--that is, with the Senate,--so far as
+his ambition allowed. So Cicero took his side feebly, reluctantly, as
+the least of the evils he had to choose, but not without vacillation,
+which is one of the popular charges against him. "His distraction almost
+took the form of insanity." "His inconsistency was an incoherence."
+Never did a more wretched man than Cicero resort to Pompey's camp, where
+he remained until his cause was lost. He returned, after the battle of
+Pharsalia, a suppliant at the feet of Caesar, the conqueror. This, to
+me, is one of his weakest acts. It would have been more lofty and heroic
+to have perished in the camp of Pompey's sons.
+
+In the midst of these public misfortunes which saddened his soul, his
+private miseries began. He was now prematurely an old man, under sixty
+years of age, almost broken down with grief. His beloved daughter
+Tullia, with whom his life was bound up, died; and he was divorced from
+his wife Terentia,--a proceeding the cause of which remains a mystery.
+Neither in his most confidential letters, nor in his conversations with
+most intimate friends, does it appear that he ever unbosomed himself,
+although he was the frankest and most social of men. In his impressive
+silence he has set one of the noblest examples of a man afflicted with
+domestic infelicities. He buries his conjugal troubles in eternal
+silence; although he is forced to give vent to sorrows, so plaintive and
+bitter that both friend and foe were constrained to pity. He expects no
+sympathy, even at Rome, for the sundering of conjugal relations, and he
+communicates no secrets. In his grief and sadness he does, however, a
+most foolish thing: he marries a young lady one-third his age. She
+accepted him for his name and rank; he sought her for her beauty, her
+youth, and her fortune. This union of May with December was of course a
+failure. Both parties were soon disenchanted and disappointed. Neither
+party found happiness, only discontent and chagrin. The everlasting
+incongruities of such a relation--he sixty and she nineteen--soon led to
+another divorce. _He_ expected his young wife to mourn with him the loss
+of his daughter Tullia. _She_ expected that her society and charms
+would be a compensation for all that he had lost; yea, more, enough to
+make him the most fortunate and happy of mortals. In truth, he was too
+old a man to have married a young woman whatever were the inducements.
+It was the great folly of his life; an illustration of the fact that, as
+a general thing, the older a man grows the greater fool he becomes, so
+far as women are concerned; a folly that disgraced and humiliated the
+two wisest and greatest men who ever sat on the Jewish throne.
+
+In his accumulated sorrows Cicero now plunged for relief into literary
+labors. It was thus that his private sorrows were the means which
+Providence employed to transmit his precious thoughts and experiences to
+future ages, as the most valued inheritance he could bestow on
+posterity. What a precious legacy to the mind of the world was the book
+of "Ecclesiastes," yet by what bitter experiences was its wisdom earned!
+
+It was in the short period when Caesar rejoiced in the mighty power
+which he transmitted to the Roman Emperors that Cicero wrote, in
+comparative retirement, his history of "Roman Eloquence," his inquiry as
+to the "Greatest Good and Evil," his "Cato," his "Orator," his "Nature
+of the Gods," and his treatises on "Glory," on "Fate," on "Friendship,"
+on "Old Age," and his grandest work of all, the "Offices."--the best
+manual in ethics which has come down to us from heathen antiquity. In
+his studious retirement he reminds us of Bacon after his fall, when on
+his estate, surrounded with friends, and in the enjoyment of elegant
+leisure, he penned the most valued of his immortal compositions. And in
+those degenerate days at Rome, when liberty was crushed under foot
+forever, it is beautiful to see the greatest of Roman statesmen and
+lawyers consoling himself and instructing posterity by his exhaustive
+treatises on the fundamental principles of law, of morality, and of
+philosophy.
+
+The assassination of Caesar by Roman senators, which Cicero seems to
+have foreseen, and in which he rejoiced, at this time shocked and
+disturbed the world. For nearly two thousand years the verdict of the
+civilized world respecting this great conqueror has been unanimous. But
+Mr. Froude has attempted to reverse this verdict, as he has in reference
+to Henry VIII., and as Carlyle--another idolater of force--has attempted
+in the cases of Oliver Cromwell and Frederick II. This remarkable
+word-painter, in his Life of Caesar,--which is, however, interesting
+from first to last, as everything he writes is interesting,--has
+presented him as an object of unbounded admiration, as I have already
+noticed in my lecture on Caesar. Whether in his eagerness to say
+something new, or from an ill-concealed hostility to aristocratic and
+religious institutions, or from an admiration of imperialism, or disdain
+of the people in their efforts at self-government, this able special
+pleader seems to hail the Roman conqueror as a benefactor to the cause
+of civilization. But imperialism crushed all alike,--the people, no
+longer able to send their best men to the Senate through the higher
+offices perchance to represent their interests, and the nobles, shorn of
+the administration of the Empire. Soldiers, not civilians, henceforth
+were to rule the world,--a dreary thought to a great lawyer like Cicero,
+or a landed proprietor like Brutus. Even if such a terrible revolution
+as occurred in Rome under Caesar may have been ordered wisely by a
+Superintending Power for those degenerate times, and as a preservation
+of the peace of the world, that Christianity might take root and spread
+in countries where all religions were dead,--still, the prostration of
+what was dearest to the hearts of all true citizens by the sword was a
+crime; and men are not to be commended for crime, even if those crimes
+may be palliated. "It must need be that offences come, but woe to those
+by whom they come."
+
+Cicero was now sixty-three, prematurely old, discouraged, and
+heart-broken. And yet he braced himself up for one more grand
+effort,--for a life and death struggle with Antony, one of the ablest
+of Caesar's generals; a demagogue, eloquent and popular, but
+outrageously cruel and unscrupulous, and with unbridled passions. Had it
+not been for his infatuated love of Cleopatra, he probably would have
+succeeded to the imperial sceptre, for it was by the sword that he too
+sought to suppress the liberties of the Senate and people. Against him,
+as the enemy of his country, Cicero did not scruple to launch forth the
+most terrible of his invectives. In thirteen immortal philippics--some
+of which, however, were merely written and never delivered, after the
+fashion of Demosthenes, with whom as an orator and a patriot he can
+alone be compared--he denounced the unprincipled demagogue and general
+with every offensive epithet the language afforded,--unveiling his
+designs, exposing his forgeries, and proving his crimes. Nobler
+eloquence was never uttered, and wasted, than that with which Cicero
+pursued, in passionate vengeance, the most powerful and the most
+unscrupulous man in the Roman Empire. And Cicero must have anticipated
+the fate which impended over him if Antony were not decreed a public
+enemy. But the protests of the orator were in vain. He lived to utter
+them, as a witness of truth; and nothing was left to him but to die.
+
+Of course Antony, when he became Triumvir,--when he made a bargain that
+he never meant to keep with Octavius and Lepidus for a division of the
+Empire between them,--would not spare such an enemy as Cicero. The
+broken-hearted patriot fled mechanically, with a vacillating mind, when
+his proscription became known to him,--now more ready to die than live,
+since all hope in his country's liberties was utterly crushed. Perhaps
+he might have escaped to some remote corner of the Empire. But he did
+not wish for life, any more than did Socrates when summoned before his
+judges. Desponding, uncertain, pursued, he met his fate with the heroism
+of an ancient philosopher. He surrendered his wearied and exhausted body
+to the hand of the executioner, and his lofty soul to the keeping of
+that personal and supreme God in whom he believed as firmly as any man,
+perhaps, of Pagan antiquity. And surely of him, more than of any other
+Roman, could it be said,--as Sir Walter Scott said of Pitt, and as
+Gladstone quoted, and applied to Sir Robert Peel,--
+
+     "Now is the stately column broke,
+     The _beacon light_ is quenched in smoke;
+     The trumpet's silver voice is still,
+     The warder silent on the hill."
+
+With the death--so sad--of the most illustrious of the Romans whose fame
+was not earned on the battlefield, I should perhaps close my lecture.
+Yet it would be incomplete without a short notice of those services
+which--as statesman, orator, and essayist--he rendered to his country
+and to future ages and nations.
+
+In regard to his services as a statesman, they were rendered chiefly to
+his day and generation, for he elaborated no system of political wisdom
+like Burke, which bears (except casually and indirectly) on modern
+governments and institutions. It was his aim, as a statesman, to
+continue the Roman Constitution and keep the people from civil war. Nor
+does he seem to have held, like Rousseau, the _vox populi_ as the voice
+of God. He could find no language sufficiently strong to express his
+abhorrence of those who led the people for their own individual
+advancement. He was equally severe on corrupt governors and venal
+judges. He upheld morality and justice as the only guides in public
+affairs. He loved popularity, but he loved his country better. He hated
+anarchy as much as did Burke. Like Bright, he looked upon civil war as
+the greatest of national calamities. He advocated the most enlightened
+views, based on the principles of immutable justice. He wished to
+preserve his country equally from unscrupulous generals and unprincipled
+politicians.
+
+As for his orations, they also were chiefly designed for his own
+contemporaries. They are not particularly valuable to us, except as
+models of rhetorical composition and transcendent beauty and grace of
+style. They are not so luminous with fundamental principles as they are
+vivid with invective, sarcasm, wit, and telling exaggeration,--sometimes
+persuasive and working on the sensibilities, and at other times full of
+withering scorn. They are more like the pleadings of an advocate than an
+appeal to universal reason. He lays down no laws of political
+philosophy, nor does he soar into the region of abstract truth, evolving
+great deductions in morals. But as an orator he was transcendently
+effective, like Demosthenes, though not equal to the Greek in force. His
+sentences are perhaps too involved for our taste; yet he always swayed
+an audience, whether the people from the rostrum, or the judges at the
+bar, or the senators in the Curia. He seldom lost a case; no one could
+contend with him successfully. He called out the admiration of critics,
+and even of actors. He had a wonderful electrical influence; his very
+tones and gestures carried everything before him; his action was superb;
+and his whole frame quivered from real (or affected) emotion, like
+Edward Everett in his happiest efforts. He was vehement in gesture, like
+Brougham and Mirabeau. He was intensely earnest and impressive, like
+Savonarola. He had exceeding tact, and was master of the passions of his
+audience. There was an irresistible music in his tones of voice, like
+that of St. Bernard when he fanned crusades. He was withering in his
+denunciations, like Wendell Phillips, whom in person he somewhat
+resembled. He was a fascination like Pericles, and the people could not
+long spare him from the excitement he produced. It was their desire to
+hear him speak which had no small share in producing his recall from
+banishment. They crowded around him as the people did around Chrysostom
+in Antioch. He amused like an actor, and instructed like a sage. His
+sentences are not short, terse, epigrammatic, and direct, but elaborate
+and artificial. Yet with all his arts of eloquence his soul, fired with
+great sentiments, rose in its inspired fervor above even the melody of
+voice, the rhythm of language, and the vehemence of action. A listener,
+who was not a critic, might fancy it was gesture, voice, and language
+combined; but, after all, it was the _man_ communicating his soul to
+those who hung upon his lips, and securing conviction by his sincerity
+and appeals to conscience. He must have had a natural gift for oratory,
+aside from his learning and accomplishments and rhetorical arts,--a
+talent very rare and approaching to creative genius. But to his natural
+gifts--like Luther, or Henry Clay, born an orator--he added marvellous
+attainments. He had a most retentive memory. He was versed in the whole
+history of the world. He was always ready with apt illustrations, which
+gave interest and finish to his discourses. He was the most industrious
+and studious man of his age. His attainments were prodigious. He was
+master of all the knowledge then known, like Gladstone of our day. He
+was not so learned a man as Varro; but Varro's works have perished, as
+the great monuments of German scholars are perhaps destined to perish,
+for lack of style. Cicero's style embalmed his thoughts and made them
+imperishable. No writer is immortal who is not an artist; Cicero was a
+consummate artist, and studied the arrangement of sentences, like the
+historian Tacitus and the Grecian Thucydides.
+
+But greater than as an artist was he in the loftiness of his mind. He
+appealed to what is noblest in the soul. Transcendent eloquence ever
+"raises mortals to the skies" and never "pulls angels down." Love of
+country, love of home, love of friends, love of nature, love of law,
+love of God, is brought out in all his discourses, exalting the noblest
+sentiments which move the human soul. He was the first to give to the
+Latin language beauty and artistic finish. He added to its richness,
+copiousness, and strength; he gave it music. For style alone he would be
+valued as one of the immortal classics. All men of culture have admired
+it, from Augustine to Bossuet, and acknowledged their obligations to
+him. We accord to the great poets the formation of languages,--Homer,
+Dante, Chaucer, Shakspeare; but I doubt if either Virgil or Horace
+contributed to the formation of the Latin language more than Cicero.
+Certainly they have not been more studied and admired. In every
+succeeding age the Orations of Cicero have been one of the first books
+which have been used as textbooks in colleges. Is it not something to
+have been one of the acknowledged masters of human composition? What a
+great service did Cicero render to the education of the Teutonic races!
+Whatever the Latin language has done for the modern world, Cicero comes
+in for a large share of the glory. More is preserved of his writings
+than of any other writer of antiquity.
+
+But not for style alone--seen equally in his essays and in his
+orations--is he admirable. His most enduring claim on the gratitude of
+the world is the noble tribute he rendered to those truths which save
+the world. His testimony, considering he was a pagan, is remarkable in
+reference to what is sound in philosophy and morals. His learning, too,
+is seen to most advantage in his ethical and philosophical writings. It
+is true he did not originate, like Socrates and Plato; but he condensed
+and sifted the writings of the Greeks, and is the best expounder of
+their philosophy. Who has added substantially to what the Greeks worked
+out of their creative brain? I know that no Roman ever added to the
+domain of speculative thought, yet what Roman ever showed such a
+comprehension and appreciation of Greek philosophy as did Cicero? He was
+profoundly versed in all the learning the Grecians ever taught. Like
+Socrates, he had a contempt for physical science, because science in his
+day was based on imperfect inductions. There were not facts enough known
+of the material world to construct sound theories. Physical science at
+that time was the most uncertain of all knowledge, although there were
+great pretenders then, as now, who maintained it was the only certainty.
+But the speculations of scientists disgusted him, for he saw nothing in
+them upon which to base incontrovertible truth. They were mere dreams
+and baseless theories on the origin of the universe. They were even
+puerile; and they were then, as now, atheistic in their tendency. They
+mocked the consciousness of mankind. They annihilated faith and
+Providence. At best, they made all things subject to necessity, to an
+immutable fate, not to an intelligent and ever-present Creator. But
+Cicero, like Socrates, believed in God and in providential
+interference,--in striking contrast with Caesar, who believed nothing.
+He taught moral obligation, on the basis of accountability to God. He
+repudiated expediency as the guide in life, and fell back on the
+principles of eternal right. As an ethical writer he was profounder and
+more enlightened than Paley. He did not seek to overturn the popular
+religion, like Grecian Sophists, only (like Socrates) to overturn
+ignorance, before a sound foundation could be laid for any system of
+truth. Nor did he ridicule religion, as Lucian did in after-times, but
+soared to comprehend it, like the esoteric priests of Egypt in the time
+of Moses or Pythagoras. He cherished as lofty views of God and his moral
+government as any moralist of antiquity. And all these lofty views he
+taught in matchless language,--principles of government, principles of
+law, of ethics, of theology, giving consolation not only to the men of
+his day, but to Christian sages in after-times. And there is nothing
+puerile or dreamy or demoralizing in his teachings; they all are
+luminous for learning as well as genius. He rivalled Bacon in the
+variety and profundity of his attainments. He gloried in the certitudes
+which consciousness reveals, as well as in the facts which experience
+and history demonstrate. With these he consoled himself in trouble; on
+these he reposed in the hour of danger. Like Pascal he meditated on the
+highest truths which task the intellect of man, but, unlike him, did not
+disdain those weapons which _reason_ forged, and which no one used more
+triumphantly than Pascal himself. And these great meditations he
+transmitted for all ages to ponder, as among the most precious of the
+legacies of antiquity.
+
+Thus did he live, a shining light in a corrupt and godless age, in spite
+of all the faults which modern critics have enlarged upon in their
+ambitious desire for novelties, or in their thoughtless or malignant
+desire? to show up human frailties. He was a patriot, taking the side of
+his country's highest interests; a statesman, seeking to conserve the
+wisdom of his ancestors; an orator, exposing vices and defending the
+innocent; a philosopher, unfolding the wisdom of the Greeks; a moralist,
+laying down the principles of immutable justice; a sage, pondering the
+mysteries of life; ever active, studious, dignified; the charm and
+fascination of cultivated circles; as courteous and polished as the
+ornaments of modern society; revered by friends, feared by enemies,
+adored by all good people; a kind father, an indulgent husband, a
+generous friend; hospitable, witty, magnificent,--a most accomplished
+gentleman, one of the best men of all antiquity. What if he was vain and
+egotistical and vacillating, and occasionally weak? Can you expect
+perfection in him who "is born of a woman"? We palliate the backslidings
+of Christians; we excuse the crimes of a Constantine, a Theodosius, a
+Cromwell: shall we have no toleration for the frailties of a Pagan, in
+one of the worst periods of history? I have no patience with those
+critics who would hurl him from the pedestal on which he has stood for
+two thousand years. Contrast him with other illustrious men. How few
+Romans or Greeks were better than he! How few have rendered such exalted
+services! And even if he has not perpetuated a faultless character, he
+has yet bequeathed a noble example; and, more, has transmitted a legacy
+in the richness of which we forget the faults of the testator,--a legacy
+of imperishable thought, clothed in the language of imperishable art,--a
+legacy so valuable that it is the treasured inheritance of all civilized
+nations, and one which no nation can afford to lose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Plutarch's Life of Cicero, Appian, Dion Cassius, Villeius Paterculus,
+are the original authorities,--next to the writings of Cicero himself,
+especially his Letters and Orations. Middleton's Life is full, but
+one-sided. Forsyth takes the opposite side in his Life. The last work in
+English is that of Anthony Trollope. In Smith's Biographical Dictionary
+is an able article. Dr. Vaughan has written an interesting lecture.
+Merivale has elaborately treated this great man in his valuable History
+of the Romans. Colley Cibber's Character and Conduct of Cicero,
+Drumann's Roman History, Rollin's Ancient History, Biographic
+Universelle. Mr. Froude alludes to Cicero in his Life of Caesar, taking
+nearly the same view as Forsyth.
+
+
+
+
+CLEOPATRA.
+
+
+69-30 B.C.
+
+THE WOMAN OF PAGANISM.
+
+
+It is my object in this lecture to present the condition of woman under
+the influences of Paganism, before Christianity enfranchised and
+elevated her. As a type of the Pagan woman I select Cleopatra, partly
+because she was famous, and partly because she possessed traits and
+accomplishments which made her interesting in spite of the vices which
+degraded her. She was a queen, the heir of a long line of kings, and
+ruled over an ancient and highly civilized country. She was
+intellectual, accomplished, beautiful, and fascinating. She lived in one
+of the most interesting capitals of the ancient world, and by birth she
+was more Greek than she was African or Oriental. She lived, too, in a
+great age, when Rome had nearly conquered the world; when Roman senators
+and generals had more power than kings; when Grecian arts and literature
+were copied by the imperial Romans; when the rich and fortunate were
+luxurious and ostentatious beyond all precedent; when life had reached
+the highest point of material splendor, and yet when luxury had not
+destroyed military virtues or undermined the strength of the empire. The
+"eternal city" then numbered millions of people, and was the grandest
+capital ever seen on this earth, since everything was there
+concentrated,--the spoils of the world, riches immeasurable, literature
+and art, palaces and temples, power unlimited,--the proudest centre of
+civilization which then existed, and a civilization which in its
+material aspects has not since been surpassed. The civilized world was
+then most emphatically Pagan, in both spirit and forms. Religion as a
+controlling influence was dead. Only a very few among speculative
+philosophers believed in any god, except in a degrading sense,--as a
+blind inexorable fate, or an impersonation of the powers of Nature. The
+future state was a most perplexing uncertainty. Epicurean
+self-indulgence and material prosperity were regarded as the greatest
+good; and as doubt of the darkest kind hung over the future, the body
+was necessarily regarded as of more value than the soul. In fact, it was
+only the body which Paganism recognized as a reality; the soul, God, and
+immortality were virtually everywhere ignored.
+
+It was in this godless, yet brilliant, age that Cleopatra appears upon
+the stage, having been born sixty-nine years before Christ,--about a
+century before the new revolutionary religion was proclaimed in Judea.
+Her father was a Ptolemy, and she succeeded him on the throne of Egypt
+when quite young,--the last of a famous dynasty that had reigned nearly
+three hundred years. The Ptolemies, descended from one of Alexander's
+generals, reigned in great magnificence at Alexandria, which was the
+commercial centre of the world, whose ships whitened the
+Mediterranean,--that great inland lake, as it were, in the centre of the
+Roman Empire, around whose shores were countless cities and villas and
+works of art. Alexandria was a city of schools, of libraries and
+museums, of temples and of palaces, as well as a mart of commerce. Its
+famous library was the largest in the world, and was the pride of the
+age and of the empire. Learned men from all countries came to this
+capital to study science, philosophy, and art. It was virtually a
+Grecian city, and the language of the leading people was Greek. It was
+rivalled in provincial magnificence only by Antioch, the seat of the old
+Syrian civilization, also a Greek capital, so far as the governing
+classes could make it one. Greece, politically ruined, still sent forth
+those influences which made her civilization potent in every land.
+
+Cleopatra, the last of the line of Grecian sovereigns in Egypt, was
+essentially Greek in her features, her language, and her manners. There
+was nothing African about her, as we understand the term African, except
+that her complexion may have been darkened by the intermarriage of the
+Ptolemies; and I have often wondered why so learned and classical a man
+as Story should have given to this queen, in his famous statue, such
+thick lips and African features, which no more marked her than Indian
+features mark the family of the Braganzas on the throne of Brazil. She
+was not even Coptic, like Athanasius and Saint Augustine. On the ancient
+coins and medals her features are severely classical.
+
+Nor is it probable that any of the peculiarities of the ancient Egyptian
+kings marked the dynasty of the Ptolemies. No purely Egyptian customs
+lingered in the palaces of Alexandria. The old deities of Isis and
+Osiris gave place to the worship of Jupiter, Minerva, and Venus. The
+wonders of pristine Egypt were confined to Memphis and Thebes and the
+dilapidated cities of the Nile. The mysteries of the antique Egyptian
+temples were no more known to the learned and mercantile citizen of
+Alexandria than they are to us. The pyramids were as much a wonder then
+as now. The priests and jugglers alike mingled in the crowd of Jews,
+Syrians, Romans, Greeks, Parthians, Arabs, who congregated in this
+learned and mercantile city.
+
+So we have a right to presume that Cleopatra, when she first appeared
+upon the stage of history as a girl of fourteen, was simply a very
+beautiful and accomplished Greek princess, who could speak several
+languages with fluency, as precocious as Elizabeth of England, skilled
+in music, conversant with history, and surrounded with eminent masters.
+She was only twenty-one when she was an object of attraction to Caesar,
+then in the midst of his triumphs. How remarkable must have been her
+fascinations if at that age she could have diverted, even for a time,
+the great captain from his conquests, and chained him to her side! That
+refined, intellectual old veteran of fifty, with the whole world at his
+feet, loaded down with the cares of government, as temperate as he was
+ambitious, and bent on new conquests, would not have been chained and
+enthralled by a girl of twenty-one, however beautiful, had she not been
+as remarkable for intellect and culture as she was for beauty. Nor is it
+likely that Cleopatra would have devoted herself to this weather-beaten
+old general, had she not hoped to gain something from him besides
+caresses,--namely, the confirmation of her authority as queen. She also
+may have had some patriotic motives touching the political independence
+of her country. Left by her father's will at the age of eighteen joint
+heir of the Egyptian throne with her brother Ptolemy, she soon found
+herself expelled from the capital by him and the leading generals of the
+army, because they did not relish her precocious activity in
+government. Her gathered adherents had made but little advance towards
+regaining her rights when, in August, 48, Caesar landed in pursuit of
+Pompey, whom he had defeated at Pharsalia. Pompey's assassination left
+Caesar free, and he proceeded to Alexandria to establish himself for the
+winter. Here the wily and beautiful young exile sought him, and won his
+interest and his affection. After some months of revelry and luxury,
+Caesar left Egypt in 47 to chastise an Eastern rebel, and was in 46
+followed to Rome by Cleopatra, who remained there in splendid state
+until the assassination of Caesar drove her back to Egypt. Her whole
+subsequent life showed her to be as cunning and politic as she was
+luxurious and pleasure-seeking. Possibly she may have loved so
+interesting and brilliant a man as the great Caesar, aside from the
+admiration of his position; but he never became her slave, although it
+was believed, a hundred years after his death, that she was actually
+living in his house when he was assassinated, and was the mother of his
+son Caesarion. But Froude doubts this; and the probabilities are that he
+is correct, for, like Macaulay, he is not apt to be wrong in facts, but
+only in the way he puts them.
+
+Cleopatra was twenty-eight years of age when she first met Antony,--"a
+period of life," says Plutarch, "when woman's beauty is most splendid,
+and her intellect is in full maturity." We have no account of the style
+of her beauty, except that it was transcendent,--absolutely
+irresistible, with such a variety of expression as to be called
+infinite. As already remarked, from the long residence of her family in
+Egypt and intermarriages with foreigners, her complexion may have been
+darker than that of either Persians or Greeks. It probably resembled
+that of Queen Esther more than that of Aspasia, in that dark richness
+and voluptuousness which to some have such attractions; but in grace and
+vivacity she was purely Grecian,--not like a "blooming Eastern bride,"
+languid and passive and effeminate, but bright, witty, and intellectual.
+Shakspeare paints her as full of lively sallies, with the power of
+adapting herself to circumstances with tact and good nature, like a
+Madame Recamier or a Maintenon, rather than like a Montespan or a
+Pompadour, although her nature was passionate, her manner enticing, and
+her habits luxurious. She did not weary or satiate, like a mere
+sensual beauty.
+
+     "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
+      Her infinite variety."
+
+She certainly had the power of retaining the conquests she had
+won,--which rarely happens except with those who are gifted with
+intellectual radiance and freshness. She held her hold on Antony for
+eleven years, when he was burdened with great public cares and duties,
+and when he was forty-two years of age. Such a superior man as he was
+intellectually, and, after Caesar, the leading man of the empire,--a
+statesman as well as soldier,--would not have been enslaved so long by
+Cleopatra had she not possessed remarkable gifts and attainments, like
+those famous women who reigned in the courts of the Bourbons in the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and who, by their wit and social
+fascinations, gathered around their thrones the most distinguished men
+of France, and made them friends as well as admirers. The Pompadours of
+the world have only a brief reign, and at last become repulsive. But
+Cleopatra, like Maintenon, was always attractive, although she, could
+not lay claim to the virtues of the latter. She was as politic as the
+French beauty, and as full of expedients to please her lord. She may
+have revelled in the banquets she prepared for Antony, as Esther did in
+those she prepared for Xerxes; but with the same intent, to please him
+rather than herself, and win, from his weakness, those political favors
+which in his calmer hours he might have shrunk from granting. Cleopatra
+was a politician as well as a luxurious beauty, and it may have been her
+supreme aim to secure the independence of Egypt. She wished to beguile
+Antony as she had sought to beguile Caesar, since they were the masters
+of the world, and had it in their power to crush her sovereignty and
+reduce her realm to a mere province of the empire. Nor is there
+evidence that in the magnificent banquets she gave to the Roman general
+she ever lost her self-control. She drank, and made him drink, but
+retained her wits, "laughing him out of patience and laughing him into
+patience," ascendant over him by raillery, irony, and wit.
+
+And Antony, again, although fond of banquets and ostentation, like other
+Roman nobles, and utterly unscrupulous and unprincipled, as Roman
+libertines were, was also general, statesman, and orator. He grew up
+amid the dangers and toils and privations of Caesar's camp. He was as
+greedy of honors as was his imperial master. He was a sunburnt and
+experienced commander, obliged to be on his guard, and ready for
+emergencies. No such man feels that he can afford to indulge his
+appetites, except on rare occasions. One of the leading peculiarities of
+all great generals has been their temperance. It marked Caesar,
+Charlemagne, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederic the Great, Cromwell, and
+Napoleon. When Alexander gave himself up to banquets, his conquests
+ended. Even such a self-indulgent, pleasure-seeking man as Louis XIV.
+always maintained the decencies of society amid his dissipated
+courtiers. We feel that a man who could discourse so eloquently as
+Antony did over the dead body of Caesar was something more than a
+sensualist or a demagogue. He was also the finest-looking man in Rome,
+reminding the people, it is said, of the busts of Hercules. He was
+lavish, like Caesar, but, like him, sought popularity, and cared but
+little what it cost. It is probable that Cicero painted him, in his
+famous philippics, in darker colors than he deserved, because he aimed
+to be Caesar's successor, as he probably would have been but for his
+infatuation for Cleopatra. Caesar sent him to Rome as master of the
+horse,--a position next in power to that of dictator. When Caesar was
+assassinated, Antony was the most powerful man of the empire. He was
+greater than any existing king; he was almost supreme. And after
+Caesar's death, when he divided his sovereignty of the world with
+Octavius and Lepidus, he had the fairest chance of becoming imperator.
+He had great military experience, the broad Orient as his domain, and
+half the legions of Rome under his control.
+
+It was when this great man was Triumvir, sharing with only two others
+the empire of the world, and likely to overpower them, when he was in
+Asia consolidating and arranging the affairs of his vast department,
+that he met the woman who was the cause of all his calamities. He was
+then in Cilicia, and, with all the arrogance of a Roman general, had
+sent for the Queen of Egypt to appear before him and answer to an
+accusation of having rendered assistance to Cassius before the fatal
+battle of Philippi. He had already known and admired Cleopatra in Rome,
+and it is not improbable that she divined the secret of his judicial
+summons. His envoy, struck with her beauty and intelligence, advised her
+to appear in her best attire. Such a woman scarcely needed such a hint.
+So, making every preparation for her journey,--money, ornaments,
+gifts,--a kind of Queen of Sheba, a Zenobia in her pride and glory, a
+Queen Esther when she had invited the king and his minister to a
+banquet,--she came to the Cydnus, and ascended the river in a
+magnificent barge, such as had never been seen before, and prepared to
+meet her judge, not as a criminal, but as a conqueror, armed with those
+weapons that few mortals can resist.
+
+     "The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
+     Burn'd on the water; the poop was beaten gold;
+     Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
+     The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver,
+     Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
+     The water, which they beat, to follow faster,
+     As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
+     It beggar'd all description: she did lie
+     In her pavilion (cloth-of-gold of tissue)
+     O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see
+     The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
+     Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
+     With diverse-color'd fans....
+     Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
+     So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes.
+     ... At the helm
+     A seeming mermaid steers....
+     ... From the barge
+     A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
+     Of the adjacent wharves. The city cast
+     Her people out upon her; and Antony,
+     Enthroned i' the market-place, did sit alone,
+     Whistling to th' air; which, but for vacancy,
+     Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
+     And made a gap in nature."
+
+On the arrival of this siren queen, Antony had invited her to
+supper,--the dinner of the Romans,--but she, with woman's instinct, had
+declined, till he should come to her; and he, with the urbanity of a
+polished noble,--for such he probably was,--complied, and found a
+banquet which astonished even him, accustomed as he was to senatorial
+magnificence, and which, with all the treasures of the East, he could
+not rival. From that fatal hour he was enslaved. She conquered him, not
+merely by her display and her dazzling beauty, but by her wit. Her very
+tones were music. So accomplished was she in languages, that without
+interpreters she conversed not only with Greeks and Latins, but with
+Ethiopians, Jews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes, and Parthians. So dazzled
+and bewitched was Antony, that, instead of continuing the duties of his
+great position, he returned with Cleopatra to Alexandria, there to keep
+holiday and squander riches, and, still worse, his precious time, to the
+shame and scandal of Rome, inglorious and without excuse,--a Samson at
+the feet of Delilah, or a Hercules throwing away his club to seize the
+distaff of Omphale, confessing to the potency of that mysterious charm
+which the sage at the court of an Eastern prince pronounced the
+strongest power on earth. Never was a strong man more enthralled than
+was Antony by this bewitching woman, who exhausted every art to please
+him. She played at dice with him, drank with him, hunted with him,
+rambled with him, jested with him, angled with him, flattering and
+reproving him by turn, always having some new device of pleasure to
+gratify his senses or stimulate his curiosity. Thus passed the winter of
+41-40, and in the spring he was recalled to Borne by political
+dissensions there.
+
+At this stage, however, it would seem that ambition was paramount with
+him, not love; for his wife Fulvia having died, he did not marry
+Cleopatra, but Octavia, sister of Octavius, his fellow-triumvir and
+general rival. It was evidently from political considerations that he
+married Octavia, who was a stately and noble woman, but tedious in her
+dignity, and unattractive in her person. And what a commentary on Roman
+rank! The sister of a Roman grandee seemed to the ambitious general a
+greater match than the Queen of Egypt. How this must have piqued the
+proud daughter of the Ptolemies,--that she, a queen, with all her
+charms, was not the equal in the eyes of Antony to the sister of
+Caesar's heir! But she knew her power, and stifled her resentment, and
+waited for her time. She, too, had a political end to gain, and was too
+politic to give way to anger and reproaches. She was anything but the
+impulsive woman that some suppose,--but a great actress and artist, as
+some women are when they would conquer, even in their loves, which, if
+they do not feign, at least they know how to make appear greater than
+they are. For about three years Antony cut loose from Cleopatra, and
+pursued his military career in the East, as the rival of Octavius might,
+having in view the sovereignty that Caesar had bequeathed to the
+strongest man.
+
+But his passion for Cleopatra could not long be suppressed, neither from
+reasons of state nor from the respect he must have felt for the
+admirable conduct of Octavia, who was devoted to him, and who was one of
+the most magnanimous and reproachless women of antiquity. And surely he
+must have had some great qualities to call out the love of the noblest
+and proudest woman of the age, in spite of his many vices and his
+abandonment to a mad passion, forgetful alike both of fame and duty. He
+had not been two years in Athens, the headquarters of his Eastern
+Department, before he was called upon to chastise the Parthians, who had
+thrown off the Roman yoke and invaded other Roman provinces. But hardly
+had he left Octavia, and set foot again in Asia, before he sent for his
+Egyptian mistress, and loaded her with presents; not gold, and silver,
+and precious stones, and silks, and curious works of art merely, but
+whole provinces even,--Phoenicia, Syria, Cilicia, and a part of Judea
+and Arabia,--provinces which belonged not to him, but to the Roman
+Empire. How indignant must have been the Roman people when they heard of
+such lavish presents, and presents which he had no right to give! And
+when the artful Cleopatra feigned illness on the approach of Octavia,
+pretending to be dying of love, and wasting her body by fasting and
+weeping by turns, and perhaps tearing her hair in a seeming paroxysm of
+grief,--for an actress can do even this,--Antony was totally disarmed,
+and gave up his Parthian expedition altogether, which was treason to the
+State, and returned to Alexandria more submissive than ever. This
+abandonment of duty and official trust disgusted and incensed the
+Romans, so that his cause was weakened. Octavius became stronger every
+day, and now resolved on reigning alone. This meant another civil war.
+How strong the party of Antony must have been to keep together and
+sustain him amid such scandals, treasons, and disgrace!
+
+Antony, perceiving a desperate contest before him, ending in his
+supremacy or ruin, put forth all his energies, assisted by the
+contributions of Cleopatra, who furnished two hundred ships and twenty
+thousand talents,--about twenty million dollars. He had five hundred
+war-vessels, beside galleys, one hundred thousand foot and twelve
+thousand horse,--one of the largest armies that any Roman general had
+ever commanded,--and he was attended by vassal kings from the East. The
+forces of Octavius were not so large, though better disciplined; nor was
+he a match for Antony in military experience. Antony with his superior
+forces wished to fight upon the land, but against his better judgment
+was overruled by Cleopatra, who, having reinforced him with sixty
+galleys, urged him to contend upon the sea. The rivals met at Actium,
+where was fought one of the great decisive battles of the world. For a
+while the fortunes of the day were doubtful, when Cleopatra, from some
+unexplained motive, or from panic, or possibly from a calculating
+policy, was seen sailing away with her ships for Egypt. And what was
+still more extraordinary, Antony abandoned his fleet and followed her.
+Had he been defeated on the sea, he still had superior forces on the
+land, and was a match for Octavius. His infatuation ended in a weakness
+difficult to comprehend in a successful Roman general. And never was
+infatuation followed by more tragic consequences. Was this madness sent
+upon him by that awful Power who controls the fate of war and the
+destinies of nations? Who sent madness upon Nebuchadnezzar? Who blinded
+Napoleon at the very summit of his greatness? May not that memorable
+defeat have been ordered by Providence to give consolidation and peace
+and prosperity to the Roman Empire, so long groaning under the
+complicated miseries of anarchy and civil war? If an imperial government
+was necessary for the existing political and social condition of the
+Roman world,--and this is maintained by most historians,--how fortunate
+it was that the empire fell into the hands of a man whose subsequent
+policy was peace, the development of resources of nations, and a
+vigorous administration of government!
+
+It is generally conceded that the reign of Octavius--or, as he is more
+generally known, Augustus Caesar--was able, enlightened, and efficient.
+He laid down the policy which succeeding emperors pursued, and which
+resulted in the peace and prosperity of the Roman world until vices
+prepared the way for violence. Augustus was a great organizer, and the
+machinery of government which he and his ministers perfected kept the
+empire together until it was overrun by the New Germanic races. Had
+Antony conquered at Actium, the destinies of the empire might have been
+far different. But for two hundred years the world never saw a more
+efficient central power than that exercised by the Roman emperors or by
+their ministers. Imperialism at last proved fatal to genius and the
+higher interests of mankind; but imperialism was the creation of Julius
+Caesar, as a real or supposed necessity; it was efficiently and
+beneficently continued by his grand-nephew Augustus; and its
+consolidated strength became an established institution which the
+civilized world quietly accepted.
+
+The battle of Actium virtually settled the civil war and the fortunes of
+Antony, although he afterwards fought bravely and energetically; but all
+to no purpose. And then, at last, his eyes were opened, and Shakspeare
+makes him bitterly exclaim,--
+
+         "All is lost!
+     This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me.
+         ... Betray'd I am:
+     O this false soul of Egypt!"
+
+And with his ruin the ruin of his paramour was also settled; yet her
+resources were not utterly exhausted. She retired into a castle or
+mausoleum she had prepared for herself in case of necessity, with her
+most valuable treasures, and sent messengers to Antony, who reported to
+him that she was dead,--that she had killed herself in despair. He
+believed it all. His wrath now vanished in his grief. He could not live,
+or did not wish to live, without her; and he fell upon his own sword.
+The wound was mortal, but death did not immediately follow. He lived to
+learn that Cleopatra had again deceived him,--that she was still alive.
+Even amid the agonies of the shadow of death, and in view of this last
+fatal lie of hers, he did not upbraid her, but ordered his servants to
+bear him to her retreat. Covered with blood, the dying general was
+drawn up by ropes and through a window--the only entrance to the queen's
+retreat that was left unbarred--into her presence, and soon expired.
+Shakspeare has Antony greet Cleopatra with the words, "I am dying,
+Egypt, dying!" This suggestive theme has been enlarged in a modern song
+of pathetic eloquence:--
+
+     I am dying, Egypt, dying,
+       Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast,
+     And the dark Plutonian shadows
+       Gather on the evening blast;
+     Let thine arms, O Queen, enfold me,
+       Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear,
+     Listen to the great heart-secrets
+       _Thou_, and thou _alone_, must hear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Should the base plebeian rabble
+       Dare assail my name at Rome,
+     Where my noble spouse Octavia
+       Weeps within her widow'd home,
+     Seek her; say the gods bear witness--
+       Altars, augurs, circling wings--
+     That her blood, with mine commingled,
+       Yet shall mount the throne of kings.
+
+     As for thee, star-ey'd Egyptian!
+       Glorious sorceress of the Nile!
+     Light the path to Stygian horrors
+       With the splendors of thy smile
+     I can scorn the Senate's triumphs,
+       Triumphing in love like thine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Ah! no more amid the battle
+       Shall my heart exulting swell:
+     Isis and Osiris guard thee!
+       Cleopatra--Rome--farewell!
+
+Thus perished the great Triumvir, dying like a Roman, whose blinded but
+persistent love, whatever were its elements, ever shall make his name
+memorable. All the ages will point to him as a man who gave the world
+away for the caresses of a woman, and a woman who deceived and
+ruined him.
+
+As for her,--this selfish, heartless sorceress, gifted and beautiful as
+she was,--what does she do when she sees her lover dead,--dying for her?
+Does she share his fate? Not she. What selfish woman ever killed
+herself for love?
+
+     "Some natural tears she shed, but wiped them soon."
+
+She may have torn her clothes, and beaten her breast, and disfigured her
+face, and given vent to mourning and lamentations. But she does not seek
+death, nor surrender herself to grief, nor court despair. She renews her
+strength. She reserves her arts for another victim. She hopes to win
+Octavius as she had won Julius and Antony; for she was only thirty-nine,
+and still a queen. And for what? That she might retain her own
+sovereignty, or the independence of Egypt,--still the most fertile of
+countries, rich, splendid, and with grand traditions which went back
+thousands of years; the oldest, and once the most powerful of
+monarchies. _Her_ love was ever subservient to her interests. Antony
+gave up ambition for love,--whatever that love was. It took possession
+of his whole being, not pure and tender, but powerful, strange;
+doubtless a mad infatuation, and perhaps something more, since it never
+passed away,--admiration allied with desire, the worship of dazzling
+gifts, though not of moral virtues. Would such a love have been
+permanent? Probably not, since the object of it did not shine in the
+beauty of the soul, but rather in the graces and adornments of the body,
+intensified indeed by the lustre of bewitching social qualities and the
+brightness of a cultivated intellect. It is hard to analyze a passionate
+love between highly gifted people who have an intense development of
+both the higher and the lower natures, and still more difficult when the
+idol is a Venus Polyhymnia rather than a Venus Urania. But the love of
+Antony, whether unwise, or mysterious, or unfortunate, was not feigned
+or forced: it was real, and it was irresistible; he could not help it.
+He was enslaved, bound hand and foot. His reason may have rallied to his
+support, but his will was fettered. He may have had at times dark and
+gloomy suspicions,--that he was played with, that he was cheated, that
+he would be deserted, that Cleopatra was false and treacherous. And yet
+she reigned over him; he could not live without her. She was all in all
+to him, so long as the infatuation lasted; and it had lasted fourteen
+years, with increasing force, in spite of duty and pressing labors, the
+calls of ambition and the lust of power. In this consuming and abandoned
+passion, for fourteen years,--so strange and inglorious, and for a woman
+so unworthy, even if he were no better than she,--we see one of the
+great mysteries of our complex nature, not uncommon, but insoluble.
+
+I have no respect for Antony, and but little admiration. I speak of such
+mad infatuation as a humiliating exhibition of human weakness. Any one
+under its fearful spell is an object of pity. But I have more sympathy
+for him than for Cleopatra, although she was doubtless a very gifted
+woman. He was her victim; she was not his. If extravagant and reckless
+and sensual, he was frank, generous, eloquent, brave, and true to her.
+She was artful, designing, and selfish, and used him for her own ends,
+although we do not know that she was perfidious and false to him. But
+for her he would have ruled the world. He showed himself capable of an
+enormous sacrifice. She made no sacrifices for him. She could even have
+transferred her affections, since she afterwards sought to play her
+blandishments upon his rival. Conceive of Antony, if you can, as loving
+any one else than her who led him on to ruin. In the very degradation
+of love we see its sacredness. In his fidelity we find some palliation.
+Nor does it seem that Octavia, the slighted wife of Antony, gave way to
+vengeance. Her sense of injury was overshadowed by her pity. This lofty
+and dignified matron even took his six surviving children, three of whom
+were Cleopatra's, and brought them up in her own house as her own. Can
+Paganism show a greater magnanimity?
+
+The fate of Cleopatra was tragic also. She too destroyed herself, not
+probably by the bite of asps, as is the popular opinion, but by some
+potent and subtile poison that she ever carried with her, and which had
+the effect of benumbing the body and making her insensible to pain. Yet
+she does not kill herself because she cannot survive the death of
+Antony, but because she is too proud to be carried to Rome to grace the
+triumph of the new Caesar. She will not be led a captive princess up the
+Capitoline Hill. She has an overbearing pride. "Know, sir," says she to
+Proculeius, "that I
+
+     "Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court,
+     Nor once be chastis'd with the sober eye
+     Of dull Octavia....
+      ... Rather a ditch in Egypt
+     Be gentle grave to me!"
+
+But whether pride or whether shame was the more powerful motive in
+committing suicide, I do not read that she was a victim of remorse. She
+had no moral sense. Nor did she give way to sentimental grief on the
+death of Antony. Her grief was blended with disappointment and rage. Nor
+did she hide her head, but wore a face of brass. She used all her arts
+to win Octavius. Her resources did not fail her; but she expended them
+on one of the coldest, most politic, and most astute men that ever
+lived. And the disappointment that followed her defeat--that she could
+not enslave another conqueror--was greater than the grief for Antony.
+Nor during her whole career do we see any signs of that sorrow and
+humility which, it would seem, should mark a woman who has made so great
+and fatal a mistake,--cut off hopelessly from the respect of the world
+and the peace of her own soul. We see grief, rage, despair, in her
+miserable end, as we see pride and shamefacedness in her gilded life,
+but not remorse or shame. And when she dies by her own hand, it is not
+in madness, but to escape humiliation. Suicide was one of the worst
+features of Pagan antiquity. It was a base and cowardly reluctance to
+meet the evils of life, as much as indifference to the future and a
+blunted moral sense.
+
+So much for the woman herself, her selfish spirit, her vile career; but
+as Cleopatra is one of the best known and most striking examples of a
+Pagan woman, with qualities and in circumstances peculiarly
+characteristic of Paganism, I must make a few remarks on these points.
+
+One of the most noticeable of these is that immorality seems to have
+been no bar to social position. Some of those who were most attractive
+and sought after were notoriously immoral. Aspasia, whom Socrates and
+Pericles equally admired, and whose house was the resort of poets,
+philosophers, statesmen, and artists, and who is said to have been one
+of the most cultivated women of antiquity, bore a sullied name. Sappho,
+who was ever exalted by Grecian poets for the sweetness of her verses,
+attempted to reconcile a life of pleasure with a life of letters, and
+threw herself into the sea because of a disappointed passion. Lais, a
+professional courtesan, was the associate of kings and sages as well as
+the idol of poets and priests. Agrippina, whose very name is infamy, was
+the admiration of courtiers and statesmen. Lucilla, who armed her
+assassins against her own brother, seems to have ruled the court of
+Marcus Aurelius.
+
+And all these women, and more who could be mentioned, were--like
+Cleopatra--cultivated, intellectual, and brilliant. They seem to have
+reigned for their social fascinations as much as by their physical
+beauty. Hence, that class of women who with us are shunned and excluded
+from society were not only flattered and honored, but the class itself
+seems to have been recruited by those who were the most attractive for
+their intellectual gifts as well as for physical beauty. No woman, if
+bright, witty, and beautiful, was avoided because she was immoral. It
+was the immoral women who often aspired to the highest culture. They
+sought to reign by making their homes attractive to distinguished men.
+Their houses seem to have been what the _salons_ of noble and
+fascinating duchesses were in France in the last two centuries. The
+homes of virtuous and domestic women were dull and wearisome. In fact,
+the modest wives and daughters of most men were confined to monotonous
+domestic duties; they were household slaves; they saw but little of what
+we now call society. I do not say that virtue was not held in honor. I
+know of no age, however corrupt, when it was not prized by husbands and
+fathers. I know of no age when virtuous women did not shine at home, and
+exert a healthful influence upon men, and secure the proud regard of
+their husbands. But these were not the women whose society was most
+sought. The drudgeries and slaveries of domestic life among the ancients
+made women unattractive to the world. The women who were most attractive
+were those who gave or attended sumptuous banquets, and indulged in
+pleasures that were demoralizing. Not domestic women, but bright women,
+carried away those prizes which turned the brain. Those who shone were
+those that attached themselves to men through their senses, and
+possibly through their intellects, and who were themselves strong in
+proportion as men were weak. For a woman to appear in public assemblies
+with braided and decorated hair and ostentatious dress, and especially
+if she displayed any gifts of eloquence or culture, was to proclaim
+herself one of the immoral, leisurely, educated, dissolute class. This
+gives point to Saint Paul's strict injunctions to the women of Corinth
+to dress soberly, to keep silence in the assemblies, etc. The modest
+woman was to "be in subjection." Those Pagan converts to the "New Way"
+were to avoid even the appearance of evil.
+
+Thus under Paganism the general influence of women was to pull men down
+rather than to elevate them, especially those who were attractive in
+society. Virtuous and domestic women were not sufficiently educated to
+have much influence except in a narrow circle. Even they, in a social
+point of view, were slaves. They could be given in marriage without
+their consent; they were restricted in their intercourse with men; they
+were confined to their homes; they had but few privileges; they had no
+books; they led a life of terror from the caprices of their lords and
+masters, and hence inspired no veneration. The wives and daughters of
+the rich tyrannized over their servants, decked themselves with costly
+ornaments, and were merely gilded toys, whose society was vapid and
+uninteresting. The wives and daughters of the poor were drudges and
+menials, without attraction or influence; noisy, quarrelsome, garrulous
+women, who said the least when they talked the most.
+
+Hence under Paganism home had none of those attractions which, in
+Christian countries, invest it with such charms. The home of the poor
+was squalid and repulsive; the home of the rich was gaudy and tinselled
+enough, but was dull and uninspiring. What is home when women are
+ignorant, stupid, and slavish? What glitter or artistic splendor can
+make home attractive when women are mere butterflies or slaves with
+gilded fetters? Deprive women of education, and especially of that
+respect which Christian chivalry inspires, and they cannot rise to be
+the equal companions of men. They are simply their victims or their
+slaves. What is a home where women are treated as inferiors? Paganism
+never recognized their equality with men; and if they ever ruled men, it
+was by appealing to their lower qualities, or resorting to arts and
+devices which are subversive of all dignity of character. When their
+personal beauty fled, their power also departed. A faded or homely
+woman, without intelligence or wit, was a forlorn object in a Pagan
+home,--to be avoided, derided, despised,--a melancholy object of pity or
+neglect, so far as companionship goes. She may have been valued as a
+cook or drudge, but she was only a menial. Of all those sins of omission
+of which Paganism is accused, the worst was that it gave to women no
+mental resources to assist them in poverty, or neglect, or isolation,
+when beauty or fortune deserted them. No home can be attractive where
+women have no resources; and women can have no resources outside of
+domestic duties, unless educated to some art or something calculated to
+draw out their energies and higher faculties by which they win the
+respect and admiration, not of men only, but of their own sex.
+
+It was this lack of education which Paganism withheld from women which
+not only destroyed the radiance of home, but which really made women
+inferior to men. All writers, poets, and satirists alike speak of the
+inferiority of women to men,--not physically only, but even
+intellectually; and some authors made them more vicious than men in
+natural inclination. And when the mind was both neglected and
+undervalued, how could respect and admiration be kindled, or continue
+after sensual charms had passed away? Paganism taught the inequality of
+the sexes, and produced it; and when this inequality is taught, or
+believed in, or insisted upon, then farewell to the glory of homes, to
+all unbought charms, to the graces of domestic life, to everything that
+gilds our brief existence with the radiance of imperishable joy.
+
+Nor did Paganism offer any consolations to the down-trodden, injured,
+neglected, uninteresting woman of antiquity. She could not rise above
+the condition in which she was born. No sympathetic priest directed her
+thoughts to another and higher and endless life. Nobody wiped away her
+tears; nobody gave encouragement to those visions of beauty and serenity
+for which the burdened spirit will, under any oppressions, sometimes
+aspire to enjoy. No one told her of immortality and a God of
+forgiveness, who binds up the bleeding heart and promises a future peace
+and bliss. Paganism was merciful only in this,--that it did not open
+wounds it could not heal; that it did not hold out hopes and promises it
+could not fulfil; that it did not remind the afflicted of miseries from
+which they could not rise; that it did not let in a vision of glories
+which could never be enjoyed; that it did not provoke the soul to
+indulge in a bitterness in view of evils for which there was no remedy;
+that it did not educate the mind for enjoyments which could never be
+reached; that it did not kindle a discontent with a condition from which
+there is no escape. If one cannot rise above debasement or misery, there
+is no use in pointing it out. If the Pagan woman was not seemingly aware
+of the degradation which kept her down, and from which it was impossible
+to rise, Paganism did not add stings to her misery by presenting it as
+an accident which it was easy to surmount. There would be no
+contentment or submission among animals if they were endowed with the
+reason of men. Give to a healthy, but ignorant, coarse, uncultivated
+country girl, surrounded only with pigs and chickens, almost without
+neighbors, a glimpse of the glories of cities, the wonders of art, the
+charms of social life, the triumphs of mind, the capacities of the soul,
+and would she be any happier, if obliged to remain for life in her
+rustic obscurity and labor, and with no possible chance of improving her
+condition? Such was woman under Paganism. She could rise only so far as
+men lifted her up; and they lifted her up only further to consummate her
+degradation.
+
+But there was another thing which kept women in degradation. Paganism
+did not recognize the immaterial and immortal soul: it only had regard
+to the wants of the body. Of course there were exceptions. There were
+sages and philosophers among the men who speculated on the grandest
+subjects which can elevate the mind to the regions of immortal
+truth,--like Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius,--even as there
+were women who rose above all the vile temptations which surrounded
+them, and were poets, heroines, and benefactors,--like Telessa, who
+saved Argos by her courage; and Volumnia, who screened Rome from the
+vengeance of her angry son; and Lucretia, who destroyed herself rather
+than survive the dishonor of her house. There are some people who rise
+and triumph over every kind of oppression and injury. Under Paganism
+there was the possibility of the emancipation of the soul, but not the
+probability. Its genius was directed to the welfare of the body,--to
+utilitarian ends of life, to ornaments and riches, to luxury and
+voluptuousness, to the pleasures which are brief, to the charms of
+physical beauty and grace. It could stimulate ambition and inculcate
+patriotism and sing of love, if it coupled the praises of Venus with the
+praises of wine. But everything it praised or honored had reference to
+this life and to the mortal body. It may have recognized the mind, but
+not the soul, which is greater than the mind. It had no aspirations for
+future happiness; it had no fears of future misery. Hence the frequency
+of suicide under disappointment, or ennui, or satiated desire, or fear
+of poverty, or disgrace, or pain.
+
+And thus, as Paganism did not take cognizance of the soul in its future
+existence, it disregarded man's highest aspirations. It did not
+cultivate his graces; it set but a slight value on moral beauty; it
+thought little of affections; it spurned gentleness and passive virtues;
+it saw no lustre in the tender eye; it heard no music in the tones of
+sympathy; it was hard and cold. That which constitutes the richest
+beatitudes of love it could not see, and did not care for. Ethereal
+blessedness it despised. That which raises woman highest, it was
+indifferent to. The cold atmosphere of Paganism froze her soul, and made
+her callous to wrongs and sufferings. It destroyed enthusiasm and poetic
+ardor and the graces which shine in misfortune. Woman was not kindled by
+lofty sentiments, since no one believed in them. The harmonies of home
+had no poetry and no inspiration, and they disappeared. The face of
+woman was not lighted by supernatural smiles. Her caresses had no
+spiritual fervor, and her benedictions were unmeaning platitudes. Take
+away the soul of woman, and what is she? Rob her of her divine
+enthusiasm, and how vapid and commonplace she becomes! Destroy her
+yearnings to be a spiritual solace, and how limited is her sphere! Take
+away the holy dignity of the soul, and how impossible is a lofty
+friendship! Without the amenities of the soul there can be no real
+society. Crush the soul of a woman, and you extinguish her life, and
+shed darkness on all who surround her. She cannot rally from pain, or
+labor, or misfortune, if her higher nature is ignored. Paganism ignored
+what is grandest and truest in a woman, and she withered like a stricken
+tree. She succumbed before the cold blasts that froze her noblest
+impulses, and sunk sullenly into obscurity. Oh, what a fool a man is to
+make woman a slave! He forgets that though he may succeed in keeping her
+down, chained and fettered by drudgeries, she will be revenged; that
+though powerless, she will instinctively learn to hate him; and if she
+cannot defy him she will scorn him,--for not even a brute animal will
+patiently submit to cruelty, still less a human soul become reconciled
+to injustice. And what is the possession of a human body without the
+sympathy of a living soul?
+
+And hence women, under Paganism,--having no hopes of future joy, no
+recognition of their diviner attributes, no true scope for energies, no
+field of usefulness but in a dreary home, no ennobling friendships, no
+high encouragements, no education, no lofty companionship; utterly
+unappreciated in what most distinguishes them, and valued only as
+household slaves or victims of guilty pleasure; adorned and bedecked
+with trinkets, all to show off the graces of the body alone, and with
+nothing to show their proud equality with men in influence, if not in
+power, in mind as well as heart,--took no interest in what truly
+elevates society. What schools did they teach or even visit? What
+hospitals did they enrich? What miseries did they relieve? What
+charities did they contribute to? What churches did they attend? What
+social gatherings did they enliven? What missions of benevolence did
+they embark in? What were these to women who did not know what was the
+most precious thing they had, or when this precious thing was allowed to
+run to waste? What was there for a woman to do with an unrecognized
+soul but gird herself with ornaments, and curiously braid her hair, and
+ransack shops for new cosmetics, and hunt for new perfumes, and recline
+on luxurious couches, and issue orders to attendant slaves, and join in
+seductive dances, and indulge in frivolous gossip, and entice by the
+display of sensual charms? Her highest aspiration was to adorn a
+perishable body, and vanity became the spring of life.
+
+And the men,--without the true sanctities and beatitudes of married
+life, without the tender companionship which cultivated women give,
+without the hallowed friendships which the soul alone can keep alive,
+despising women who were either toys or slaves,--fled from their dull,
+monotonous, and dreary homes to the circus and the theatre and the
+banqueting hall for excitement or self-forgetfulness. They did not seek
+society, for there can be no high society where women do not preside and
+inspire and guide. Society is a Christian institution. It was born among
+our German ancestors, amid the inspiring glories of chivalry. It was
+made for women as well as men of social cravings and aspirations, which
+have their seat in what Paganism ignored. Society, under Paganism, was
+confined to men, at banquets or symposia, where women seldom entered,
+unless for the amusement of men,--never for their improvement, and still
+less for their restraint.
+
+It was not until Christianity permeated the old Pagan civilization and
+destroyed its idols, that the noble Paulas and Marcellas and Fabiolas
+arose to dignify human friendships, and give fascination to reunions of
+cultivated women and gifted men; that the seeds of society were sown. It
+was not until the natural veneration which the Gothic nations seem to
+have had for women, even in their native forests, had ripened into
+devotion and gallantry under the teachings of Christian priests, that
+the true position of women was understood. And after their equality was
+recognized in the feudal castles of the Middle Ages, the _salons_ of the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries established their claims as the
+inspiring geniuses of what we call society. Then, and not till then, did
+physical beauty pale before the brilliancy of the mind and the radiance
+of the soul,--at last recognized as the highest charm of woman. The
+leaders of society became, not the ornamented and painted _heterae_
+which had attracted Grecian generals and statesmen and men of letters,
+but the witty and the genial and the dignified matrons who were capable
+of instructing and inspiring men superior to themselves, with eyes
+beaming with intellectual radiance, and features changing with perpetual
+variety. Modern society, created by Christianity,--since only
+Christianity recognizes what is most truly attractive and ennobling
+among women--is a great advance over the banquets of imperial Romans
+and the symposia of gifted Greeks.
+
+But even this does not satisfy woman in her loftiest aspirations. The
+soul which animates and inspires her is boundless. Its wants cannot be
+fully met even in an assemblage of wits and beauties. The soul of Madame
+de Stael pined amid all her social triumphs. The soul craves
+friendships, intellectual banquetings, and religious aspirations. And
+unless the emancipated soul of woman can have these wants gratified, she
+droops even amid the glories of society. She is killed, not as a hero
+perishes on a battle-field; but she dies, as Madame de Maintenon said
+that she died, amid the imposing splendors of Versailles. It is only the
+teachings and influences of that divine religion which made Bethany the
+centre of true social banquetings to the wandering and isolated Man of
+Sorrows, which can keep the soul alive amid the cares, the burdens, and
+the duties which bend down every son and daughter of Adam, however
+gilded may be the outward life. How grateful, then, should women be to
+that influence which has snatched them from the pollutions and heartless
+slaveries of Paganism, and given dignity to their higher nature! It is
+to them that it has brought the greatest boon, and made them triumphant
+over the evils of life. And how thoughtless, how misguided, how
+ungrateful is that woman who would exchange the priceless blessings
+which Christianity has brought to her for those ornaments, those
+excitements, and those pleasures which ancient Paganism gave as the only
+solace fox the loss and degradation of her immortal soul!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Plutarch's Lives; Froude's Caesar; Shakspeare's Antony and Cleopatra;
+Plato's Dialogues; Horace, Martial, and Juvenal, especially among the
+poets; Lord's Old Roman World; Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars; Dion
+Cassius; Rollin's Ancient History; Merivale's History of the Romans;
+Biographic Universelle; Rees's Encyclopedia has a good article.
+
+
+
+
+PAGAN SOCIETY.
+
+
+GLORY AND SHAME.
+
+50 B.C.
+
+
+We have now surveyed what was most glorious in the States of antiquity.
+We have seen a civilization which in many respects rivals all that
+modern nations have to show. In art, in literature, in philosophy, in
+laws, in the mechanism of government, in the cultivated face of Nature,
+in military strength, in aesthetic culture, the Greeks and Romans were
+our equals. And this high civilization was reached by the native and
+unaided strength of man; by the power of will, by courage, by
+perseverance, by genius, by fortunate circumstances. We are filled with
+admiration by all these trophies of genius, and cannot but feel that
+only superior races could have accomplished such mighty triumphs.
+
+Yet all this splendid exterior was deceptive; for the deeper we
+penetrate the social condition of the people, the more we feel disgust
+and pity supplanting all feelings of admiration and wonder. The Roman
+empire especially, which had gathered into its strong embrace the whole
+world, and was the natural inheritor of all the achievements of all the
+nations, in its shame and degradation suggests melancholy feelings in
+reference to the destiny of man, so far as his happiness and welfare
+depend upon his own unaided efforts.
+
+It is a sad picture of oppression, injustice, crime, and wretchedness
+which I have now to present. Glory is succeeded by shame, strength by
+weakness, and virtue by vice. The condition of the mass is deplorable,
+and even the great and fortunate shine in a false and fictitious light.
+We see laws, theoretically good, practically perverted, and selfishness
+and egotism the mainsprings of life; we see energies misdirected, and
+art corrupted. All noble aspirations have fled, and the good and the
+wise retire from active life in despair and misanthropy. Poets flatter
+the tyrants who trample on human rights, while sensuality and luxurious
+pleasure absorb the depraved thoughts of a perverse generation.
+
+The first thing which arrests our attention as we survey the civilized
+countries of the old world, is the imperial despotism of Rome. The
+empire indeed enjoyed quietude, and society was no longer rent by
+factions and parties. Demagogues no longer disturbed the public peace,
+nor were the provinces ransacked and devastated to provide for the
+means of carrying on war. So long as men did not oppose the government
+they were safe from molestation, and were left to pursue their business
+and pleasure in their own way. Imperial cruelty was not often visited on
+the humble classes. It was the policy of the emperors to amuse and
+flatter the people, while depriving them of political rights. Hence
+social life was free. All were at liberty to seek their pleasures and
+gains; all were proud of their metropolis, with its gilded glories and
+its fascinating pleasures. Outrages, extortions, and disturbances were
+punished. Order reigned, and all classes felt secure; they could sleep
+without fear of robbery or assassination. In short, all the arguments
+which can be adduced in favor of despotism in contrast with civil war
+and violence, show that it was beneficial in its immediate effects.
+
+Nevertheless, it was a most lamentable change from that condition of
+things which existed before the civil wars. Roman liberties were
+prostrated forever; noble sentiments and aspirations were rebuked. Under
+the Emperors we read of no more great orators like Cicero, battling for
+human rights and defending the public weal. Eloquence was suppressed.
+Nor was there liberty of speech even in the Senate. It was treason to
+find fault with any public acts. From the Pillars of Hercules to the
+Caspian Sea one stern will ruled all classes and orders. No one could
+fly from the agents and ministers of the Emperor; he controlled the
+army, the Senate, the judiciary, the internal administration of the
+empire, and the religious worship of the people; all offices, honors,
+and emoluments emanated from him. All influences conspired to elevate
+the man whom no one could hope successfully to rival. Revolt was
+madness, and treason absurdity. Nor did the Emperors attempt to check
+the gigantic social evils of the empire. They did not seek to prevent
+irreligion, luxury, slavery, and usury, the encroachments of the rich
+upon the poor, the tyranny of foolish fashions, demoralizing sports and
+pleasures, money-making, and all the follies which lax principles of
+morality allowed; they fed the rabble with corn, oil, and wine, and thus
+encouraged idleness and dissipation. The world never saw a more rapid
+retrogression in human rights, or a greater prostration of liberties.
+Taxes were imposed according to the pleasure or necessities of the
+government. Provincial governors became still more rapacious and cruel;
+judges hesitated to decide against the government. Patriotism, in its
+most enlarged sense, became an impossibility; all lofty spirits were
+crushed. Corruption in all forms of administration fearfully increased,
+for there was no safeguard against it.
+
+Theoretically, absolutism may be the best government, if rulers are
+wise and just; but practically, as men are, despotisms are generally
+cruel and revengeful. Despotism implies slavery, and slavery is the
+worst condition of mankind.
+
+It cannot be questioned that many virtuous princes reigned at Rome, who
+would have ornamented any age or country. Titus, Hadrian, Marcus
+Aurelius, Antoninus Pius, Alexander Severus, Tacitus, Probus, Carus,
+Constantine, Theodosius, were all men of remarkable virtues as well as
+talents. They did what they could to promote public prosperity. Marcus
+Aurelius was one of the purest and noblest characters of antiquity.
+Theodosius for genius and virtue ranks with the most illustrious
+sovereigns that ever wore a crown,--with Charlemagne, with Alfred, with
+William III., with Gustavus Adolphus.
+
+But it matters not whether the Emperors were good or bad, if the regime
+to which they consecrated their energies was exerted to crush the
+liberties of mankind. The imperial despotism, whether brilliant or
+disgraceful, was a mournful retrograde step in civilization; it implied
+the extinction of patriotism and the general degradation of the people,
+and would have been impossible in the days of Cato, Scipio, or Metellus.
+
+If we turn from the Emperors to the class which before the dictatorship
+of Julius Caesar had the ascendency in the State, and for several
+centuries the supreme power, we shall find but little that is
+flattering to a nation or to humanity. Under the Emperors the
+aristocracy had degenerated in morals as well as influence. They still
+retained their enormous fortunes, originally acquired as governors of
+provinces, and continually increased by fortunate marriages and
+speculations. Indeed, nothing was more marked and melancholy at Rome
+than the vast disproportion in fortunes. In the better days of the
+republic, property was more equally divided; the citizens were not
+ambitious for more land than they could conveniently cultivate. But the
+lands, obtained by conquest, gradually fell into the possession of
+powerful families. The classes of society widened as great fortunes were
+accumulated; pride of wealth kept pace with pride of ancestry; and when
+plebeian families had obtained great estates, they were amalgamated with
+the old aristocracy. The equestrian order, founded substantially on
+wealth, grew daily in importance. Knights ultimately rivalled senatorial
+families. Even freedmen in an age of commercial speculation became
+powerful for their riches. The pursuit of money became a passion, and
+the rich assumed all the importance and consideration which had once
+been bestowed upon those who had rendered great public services.
+
+As the wealth of the world flowed naturally to the capital, Rome became
+a city of princes, whose fortunes were almost incredible. It took
+eighty thousand dollars a year to support the ordinary senatorial
+dignity. Some senators owned whole provinces. Trimalchio, a rich
+freedman whom Petronius ridiculed, could afford to lose thirty millions
+of sesterces in a single voyage without sensibly diminishing his
+fortune. Pallas, a freedman of the Emperor Claudius, possessed a fortune
+of three hundred millions of sesterces. Seneca, the philosopher, amassed
+an enormous fortune.
+
+As the Romans were a sensual, ostentatious, and luxurious people, they
+accordingly wasted their fortunes by an extravagance in their living
+which has had no parallel. The pleasures of the table and the cares of
+the kitchen were the most serious avocation of the aristocracy in the
+days of the greatest corruption. They had around them regular courts of
+parasites and flatterers, and they employed even persons of high rank as
+their chamberlains and stewards. Carving was taught in celebrated
+schools, and the masters of this sublime art were held in higher
+estimation than philosophers or poets. Says Juvenal,--
+
+     "To such perfection now is carving brought,
+      That different gestures by our curious men
+      Are used for different dishes, hare or hen."
+
+Their entertainments were accompanied with everything which could
+flatter vanity or excite the passions; musicians, male and female
+dancers, players of farce and pantomime, jesters, buffoons, and
+gladiators exhibited, while the guests reclined at table after the
+fashion of the Orientals. The tables were made of Thuja-root, with claws
+of ivory or Delian bronze. Even Cicero, in an economical age, paid six
+hundred and fifty pounds for his banqueting-table. Gluttony was carried
+to such a point that the sea and earth scarcely sufficed to set off
+their tables; they ate as delicacies water-rats and white worms. Fish
+were the chief object of the Roman epicures, of which the _mullus_, the
+_rhombus_, and the _asellus_ were the most valued; it is recorded that a
+mullus (sea barbel), weighing but eight pounds, sold for eight thousand
+sesterces. Oysters from the Lucrine Lake were in great demand; snails
+were fattened in ponds for cooking, while the villas of the rich had
+their piscinae filled with fresh or salt-water fish. Peacocks and
+pheasants were the most highly esteemed among poultry, although the
+absurdity prevailed of eating singing-birds. Of quadrupeds, the greatest
+favorite was the wild boar,--the chief dish of a grand _coena_,--coming
+whole upon the table; and the practised gourmand pretended to
+distinguish by the taste from what part of Italy it came. Dishes, the
+very names of which excite disgust, were used at fashionable banquets,
+and held in high esteem. Martial devotes two entire books of his
+"Epigrams" to the various dishes and ornaments of a Roman banquet.
+
+The extravagance of that period almost surpasses belief. Cicero and
+Pompey one day surprised Lucullus at one of his ordinary banquets, when
+he expected no guests, and even that cost fifty thousand
+drachmas,--about four thousand dollars; his table-couches were of
+purple, and his vessels glittered with jewels. The halls of Heliogabalus
+were hung with cloth of gold, enriched with jewels; his table and plate
+were of pure gold; his couches were of massive silver, and his
+mattresses, covered with carpets of cloth of gold, were stuffed with
+down found only under the wings of partridges. His suppers never cost
+less than one hundred thousand sesterces. Crassus paid one hundred
+thousand sesterces for a golden cup. Banqueting-rooms were strewed with
+lilies and roses. Apicius, in the time of Trajan, spent one hundred
+millions of sesterces in debauchery and gluttony; having only ten
+millions left, he ended his life with poison, thinking he might die of
+hunger. Things were valued for their cost and rarity rather than their
+real value. Enormous prices were paid for carp, the favorite dish of the
+Romans as of the Chinese. Drusillus, a freedman of Claudius, caused a
+dish to be made of five hundred pounds weight of silver. Vitellius had
+one made of such prodigious size that he was obliged to build a furnace
+on purpose for it; and at a feast which he gave in honor of this dish,
+it was filled with the livers of the scarrus (fish), the brains of
+peacocks, the tongues of parrots, and the roes of lampreys caught in the
+Carpathian Sea.
+
+The nobles squandered money equally on their banquets, their stables,
+and their dress; and it was to their crimes, says Juvenal, that they
+were indebted for their gardens, their palaces, their tables, and their
+fine old plate.
+
+Unbounded pride, insolence, inhumanity, selfishness, and scorn marked
+this noble class. Of course there were exceptions, but the historians
+and satirists give the saddest pictures of their cold-hearted depravity.
+The sole result of friendship with a great man was a meal, at which
+flattery and sycophancy were expected; but the best wine was drunk by
+the host, instead of by the guest. Provinces were ransacked for fish and
+fowl and game for the tables of the great, and sensualism was thought to
+be no reproach. They violated the laws of chastity and decorum; they
+scourged to death their slaves; they degraded their wives and sisters;
+they patronized the most demoralizing sports; they enriched themselves
+by usury and monopolies; they practised no generosity, except at their
+banquets, when ostentation balanced their avarice; they measured
+everything by the money-standard; they had no taste for literature, but
+they rewarded sculptors and painters who prostituted art to their vanity
+or passions; they had no reverence for religion, and ridiculed the gods.
+Their distinguishing vices were meanness and servility, the pursuit of
+money by every artifice, the absence of honor, and unblushing
+sensuality.
+
+Gibbon has eloquently abridged the remarks of Ammianus Marcellinus
+respecting these people:--
+
+"They contend with each other in the empty vanity of titles and
+surnames. They affect to multiply their likenesses in statues of bronze
+or marble; nor are they satisfied unless these statues are covered with
+plates of gold. They boast of the rent-rolls of their estates; they
+measure their rank and consequence by the loftiness of their chariots
+and the weighty magnificence of their dress; their long robes of silk
+and purple float in the wind, and as they are agitated by art or
+accident they discover the under garments, the rich tunics embroidered
+with the figures of various animals. Followed by a train of fifty
+servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move along the streets as if
+they travelled with post-horses; and the example of the senators is
+boldly imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose covered carriages are
+continually driving round the immense space of the city and suburbs.
+Whenever they condescend to enter the public baths, they assume, on
+their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and maintain a
+haughty demeanor, which perhaps might have been excused in the great
+Marcellus after the conquest of Syracuse. Sometimes these heroes
+undertake more arduous achievements: they visit their estates in Italy,
+and procure themselves, by servile hands, the amusements of the chase.
+And if at any time, especially on a hot day, they have the courage to
+sail in their gilded galleys from the Lucrine Lake to their elegant
+villas on the sea-coast of Puteoli and Cargeta, they compare these
+expeditions to the marches of Caesar and Alexander; yet should a fly
+presume to settle on the silken folds of their gilded umbrellas, should
+a sunbeam penetrate through some unguarded chink, they deplore their
+intolerable hardships, and lament, in affected language, that they were
+not born in the regions of eternal darkness. In the exercise of domestic
+jurisdiction they express an exquisite sensibility for any personal
+injury, and a contemptuous indifference for the rest of mankind. When
+they have called for warm water, should a slave be tardy in his
+obedience, he is chastised with a hundred lashes; should he commit a
+wilful murder, his master will mildly observe that he is a worthless
+fellow, and shall be punished if he repeat the offence. If a foreigner
+of no contemptible rank be introduced to these senators, he is welcomed
+with such warm professions that he retires charmed with their
+affability; but when he repeats his visit, he is surprised and mortified
+to find that his name, his person, and his country are forgotten. The
+modest, the sober, and the learned are rarely invited to their sumptuous
+banquets, only the most worthless of mankind,--parasites who applaud
+every look and gesture, who gaze with rapture on marble columns and
+variegated pavements, and strenuously praise the pomp and elegance
+which he is taught to consider as a part of his personal merit. At the
+Roman table the birds, the squirrels, the fish, which appear of uncommon
+size, are contemplated with curious attention, and notaries are summoned
+to attest, by authentic record, their real weight. Another method of
+introduction into the houses of the great is skill in games, which is a
+sure road to wealth and reputation. A master of this sublime art, if
+placed at a supper below a magistrate, displays in his countenance a
+surprise and indignation which Cato might be supposed to feel when
+refused the praetorship. The acquisition of knowledge seldom engages the
+attention of the nobles, who abhor the fatigue and disdain the
+advantages of study; and the only books they peruse are the 'Satires of
+Juvenal,' or the fabulous histories of Marius Maximus. The libraries
+they have inherited from their fathers are secluded, like dreary
+sepulchres, from the light of day; but the costly instruments of the
+theatre--flutes and hydraulic organs--are constructed for their use. In
+their palaces sound is preferred to sense, and the care of the body to
+that of the mind. The suspicion of a malady is of sufficient weight to
+excuse the visits of the most intimate friends. The prospect of gain
+will urge a rich and gouty senator as far as Spoleta; every sentiment of
+arrogance and dignity is suppressed in the hope of an inheritance or
+legacy, and a wealthy, childless citizen is the most powerful of the
+Romans. The distress which follows and chastises extravagant luxury
+often reduces the great to use the most humiliating expedients. When
+they wish to borrow, they employ the base and supplicating style of the
+slaves in the comedy; but when they are called upon to pay, they assume
+the royal and tragic declamations of the grandsons of Hercules. If the
+demand is repeated, they readily procure some trusty sycophant to
+maintain a charge of poison or magic against the insolent creditor, who
+is seldom released from prison until he has signed a discharge of the
+whole debt. And these vices are mixed with a puerile superstition which
+disgraces their understanding. They listen with confidence to the
+productions of haruspices, who pretend to read in the entrails of
+victims the signs of future greatness and prosperity; and this
+superstition is observed among those very sceptics who impiously deny or
+doubt the existence of a celestial power."
+
+Such, in the latter days of the empire, was the leading class at Rome,
+and probably also in the cities which aped the fashions of the capital.
+Frivolity and luxury loosened all the ties of society. They were bound
+up in themselves, and had no care for the people except as they might
+extract more money from them.
+
+As for the miserable class whom the patricians oppressed, their
+condition became worse every day from the accession of the Emperors. The
+plebeians had ever disdained those arts which now occupied the middle
+classes; these were intrusted to slaves. Originally, they employed
+themselves upon the lands which had been obtained by conquest; but these
+lands were gradually absorbed or usurped by the large proprietors. The
+small farmers, oppressed with debt and usury, parted with their lands to
+their wealthy creditors. Even in the time of Cicero, it was computed
+that there were only about two thousand citizens possessed of
+independent property. These two thousand persons owned the world; the
+rest were dependent and powerless, and would have perished but for
+largesses. Monthly distributions of corn were converted into daily
+allowance for bread. The people were amused with games and festivals,
+fed like slaves, and of course lost at last even the semblance of
+manliness and independence. They loitered in the public streets, and
+dissipated in gaming their miserable pittance; they spent the hours of
+the night in the lowest resorts of crime and misery; they expired in
+wretched apartments without attracting the attention of government;
+pestilence, famine, and squalid misery thinned their ranks, and they
+would have been annihilated but for constant accession to their numbers
+from the provinces.
+
+In the busy streets of Rome might be seen adventurers from all parts of
+the world, disgraced by all the various vices of their respective
+countries. They had no education, and but small religious advantages;
+they were held in terror by both priests and nobles,--the priest
+terrifying them with Egyptian sorceries, the nobles crushing them by
+iron weight; like lazzaroni, they lived in the streets, or were crowded
+into filthy tenements; a gladiatorial show delighted them, but the
+circus was their peculiar joy,--here they sought to drown the
+consciousness of their squalid degradation; they were sold into slavery
+for trifling debts; they had no homes. The poor man had no ambition or
+hope; his wife was a slave; his children were precocious demons, whose
+prattle was the cry for bread, whose laughter was the howl of
+pandemonium, whose sports were the tricks of premature iniquity, whose
+beauty was the squalor of disease and filth; he fled from a wife in whom
+he had no trust, from children in whom he had no hope, from brothers for
+whom he felt no sympathy, from parents for whom he felt no reverence;
+the circus was his home, the fights of wild beasts were his consolation;
+the future was a blank, death was the release from suffering. There were
+no hospitals for the sick and the old, except one on an island in the
+Tiber; the old and helpless were left to die, unpitied and unconsoled.
+Suicide was so common that it attracted no attention.
+
+Superstition culminated at Rome, for there were seen the priests and
+devotees of all the countries that it governed,--"the dark-skinned
+daughters of Isis, with drum and timbrel and wanton mien; devotees of
+the Persian Mithras; emasculated Asiatics; priests of Cybele, with their
+wild dances and discordant cries; worshippers of the great goddess
+Diana; barbarian captives with the rites of Teuton priests; Syrians,
+Jews, Chaldaean astrologers, and Thessalian sorcerers.... The crowds
+which flocked to Rome from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean
+brought with them practices extremely demoralizing. The awful rites of
+initiation, the tricks of magicians, the pretended virtues of amulets
+and charms, the riddles of emblematical idolatry with which the
+superstition of the East abounded, amused the languid voluptuaries who
+had neither the energy for a moral belief nor the boldness requisite for
+logical scepticism."
+
+We cannot pass by, in this enumeration of the different classes of Roman
+society, the number and condition of slaves. A large part of the
+population belonged to this servile class. Originally brought in by
+foreign conquest, it was increased by those who could not pay their
+debts. The single campaign of Regulus introduced as many captives as
+made up a fifth part of the whole population. Four hundred were
+maintained in a single palace, at a comparatively early period; a
+freedman in the time of Augustus left behind him forty-one hundred and
+sixteen; Horace regarded two hundred as the suitable establishment for a
+gentleman; some senators owned twenty thousand. Gibbon estimates the
+number of slaves at about sixty millions,--one-half of the whole
+population. One hundred thousand captives were taken in the Jewish war,
+who were sold as slaves, and sold as cheap as horses. William Blair
+supposes that there were three slaves to one freeman, from the conquest
+of Greece to the reign of Alexander Severus. Slaves often cost two
+hundred thousand sesterces, yet everybody was eager to possess a slave.
+At one time the slave's life was at the absolute control of his master;
+he could be treated at all times with brutal severity. Fettered and
+branded, he toiled to cultivate the lands of an imperious master, and at
+night was shut up in a subterranean cell. The laws hardly recognized his
+claim to be considered a moral agent,--he was _secundum hominum genus_;
+he could acquire no rights, social or political,--he was incapable of
+inheriting property, or making a will, or contracting a legal marriage;
+his value was estimated like that of a brute; he was a thing and not a
+person, "a piece of furniture possessed of life;" he was his master's
+property, to be scourged, or tortured, or crucified. If a wealthy
+proprietor died under circumstances which excited suspicion of foul
+play, his whole household was put to torture. It is recorded that on the
+murder of a man of consular dignity by a slave, every slave in his
+possession was condemned to death. Slaves swelled the useless rabbles of
+the cities, and devoured the revenues of the State. All manual labor
+was done by slaves, in towns as well as the country; they were used in
+the navy to propel the galleys. Even the mechanical arts were cultivated
+by the slaves. Nay more, slaves were schoolmasters, secretaries, actors,
+musicians, and physicians, for in intelligence they were often on an
+equality with their masters. Slaves were procured from Greece and Asia
+Minor and Syria, as well as from Gaul and the African deserts; they were
+white as well as black. All captives in war were made slaves, also
+unfortunate debtors; sometimes they could regain their freedom, but
+generally their condition became more and more deplorable. What a state
+of society when a refined and cultivated Greek could be made to obey the
+most offensive orders of a capricious and sensual Roman, without
+remuneration, without thanks, without favor, without redress! What was
+to be expected of a class who had no object to live for? They became the
+most degraded of mortals, ready for pillage, and justly to be feared in
+the hour of danger.
+
+Slavery undoubtedly proved the most destructive canker of the Roman
+State. It was this social evil, more than political misrule, which
+undermined the empire. Slavery proved at Rome a monstrous curse,
+destroying all manliness of character, creating contempt of honest
+labor, making men timorous yet cruel, idle, frivolous, weak, dependent,
+powerless. The empire might have lasted centuries longer but for this
+incubus, the standing disgrace of the Pagan world. Paganism never
+recognized what is most noble and glorious in man; never recognized his
+equality, his common brotherhood, his natural rights. It had no
+compunction, no remorse in depriving human beings of their highest
+privileges; its whole tendency was to degrade the soul, and to cause
+forgetfulness of immortality. Slavery thrives best when the generous
+instincts are suppressed, when egotism, sensuality, and pride are the
+dominant springs of human action.
+
+The same influences which tended to rob man of the rights which God has
+given him, and produce cruelty and heartlessness in the general
+intercourse of life, also tended to degrade the female sex. In the
+earlier age of the republic, when the people were poor, and life was
+simple and primitive, and heroism and patriotism were characteristic,
+woman was comparatively virtuous and respected; she asserted her natural
+equality, and led a life of domestic tranquillity, employed upon the
+training of her children, and inspiring her husband to noble deeds. But
+under the Emperors these virtues had fled. Woman was miserably educated,
+being taught by a slave, or some Greek chambermaid, accustomed to ribald
+conversation, and fed with idle tales and silly superstitions; she was
+regarded as more vicious in natural inclination than man, and was
+chiefly valued for household labors; she was reduced to dependence; she
+saw but little of her brothers or relatives; she was confined to her
+home as if it were a prison; she was guarded by eunuchs and female
+slaves; she was given in marriage without her consent; she could be
+easily divorced; she was valued only as a domestic servant, or as an
+animal to prevent the extinction of families; she was regarded as the
+inferior of her husband, to whom she was a victim, a toy, or a slave.
+Love after marriage was not frequent, since woman did not shine in the
+virtues by which love is kept alive. She became timorous or frivolous,
+without dignity or public esteem; her happiness was in extravagant
+attire, in elaborate hair-dressings, in rings and bracelets, in a
+retinue of servants, in gilded apartments, in luxurious couches, in
+voluptuous dances, in exciting banquets, in demoralizing spectacles, in
+frivolous gossip, in inglorious idleness. If virtuous, it was not so
+much from principle as from fear. Hence she resorted to all sorts of
+arts to deceive her husband; her genius was sharpened by perpetual
+devices, and cunning was her great resource. She cultivated no lofty
+friendships; she engaged in no philanthropic mission; she cherished no
+ennobling sentiments; she kindled no chivalrous admiration. Her
+amusements were frivolous, her taste vitiated, her education neglected,
+her rights violated, her sympathy despised, her aspirations scorned.
+And here I do not allude to great and infamous examples that history has
+handed down in the sober pages of Suetonius and Tacitus, or that
+unblushing depravity which stands out in the bitter satires of those
+times; I speak not of the adultery, the poisoning, the infanticide, the
+debauchery, the cruelty of which history accuses the Messalinas and
+Agrippinas of imperial Rome; I allude not to the orgies of the Palatine
+Hill, or the abominations which are inferred from the paintings of
+Pompeii,--I mean the general frivolity and extravagance and
+demoralization of the women of the Roman empire. Marriage was considered
+inexpedient unless large dowries were brought to the husband. Numerous
+were the efforts of Emperors to promote honorable marriages, but the
+relation was shunned. Courtesans usurped the privileges of wives, and
+with unblushing effrontery. A man was derided who contemplated
+matrimony, for there was but little confidence in female virtue or
+capacity, and woman lost all her fascination when age had destroyed her
+beauty; even her very virtues were distasteful to her self-indulgent
+husband. When, as sometimes happened, the wife gained the ascendency by
+her charms, she was tyrannical; her relatives incited her to despoil her
+husband; she lived amid incessant broils; she had no care for the
+future, and exceeded man in prodigality. "The government of her house is
+no more merciful," says Juvenal, "than the court of a Sicilian tyrant."
+In order to render herself attractive, she exhausted all the arts of
+cosmetics and elaborate hair-dressing; she delighted in magical
+incantations and love-potions. In the bitter satire of Juvenal we get an
+impression most melancholy and loathsome:--
+
+     "'T were long to tell what philters they provide,
+     What drugs to set a son-in-law aside,--
+     Women, in judgment weak, in feeling strong,
+     By every gust of passion borne along.
+     To a fond spouse a wife no mercy shows;
+     Though warmed with equal fires, she mocks his woes,
+     And triumphs in his spoils; her wayward will
+     Defeats his bliss and turns his good to ill.
+     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 class, 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
+mass 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 institution. 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. Titus 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 Titus, 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 passion. All
+classes alike pursued them with restless eagerness. Amusements 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 Titus, 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 passion for gambling in every
+shape, we can form some idea of the effect of these amusements 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 classes 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 classes 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 appetite; 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 Titus, Caracalla, and
+Diocletian in Rome show that they were decorated with prodigal
+magnificence, and with everything that could excite the
+passions,--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 factitious 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 godless 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
+accumulation 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
+pass 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
+certitudes 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 appetite and the _ennui_ of
+realized expectation,--all of the earth, earthy; making a wreck of the
+divine image which was made for God 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
+passion 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 passion
+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 passed away. The
+barbarians were advancing to conquer and desolate; there was no power to
+resist them but enervated and timid legions, with the accumulated 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 accumulation 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 nobler
+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 chastisement
+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 gods 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. Ammianus 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.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #10484 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10484)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Beacon Lights of History, Volume III, by John
+Lord
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Beacon Lights of History, Volume III
+
+Author: John Lord
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2003  [eBook #10484]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME
+III***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+LORD'S LECTURES
+
+BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME III
+
+ANCIENT ACHIEVEMENTS.
+
+BY JOHN LORD, LL.D.,
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE OLD ROMAN WORLD," "MODERN EUROPE,"
+ETC., ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+GOVERNMENTS AND LAWS.
+
+GREEK AND ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.
+
+Governments and laws
+Oriental laws
+Priestly jurisprudence
+The laws of Lycurgus
+The laws of Solon
+Cleisthenes
+The Ecclesia at Athens
+Struggle between patricians and plebeians at Rome
+Tribunes of the people
+Roman citizens
+The Roman senate
+The Roman constitution
+Imperial power
+The Twelve Tables
+Roman lawyers
+Jurisprudence under emperors
+Labeo
+Capito
+Gaius
+Paulus
+Ulpian
+Justinian
+Tribonian
+Code, Pandects, and Institutes
+Roman citizenship
+Laws pertaining to marriage
+Extent of paternal power
+Transfer of property
+Contracts
+The courts
+Crimes
+Fines
+Penal statutes
+Personal rights
+Slavery
+Security of property
+Authorities
+
+
+THE FINE ARTS.
+
+ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, PAINTING.
+
+Early architecture
+Egyptian monuments
+The Temple of Karnak
+The pyramids
+Babylonian architecture
+Indian architecture
+Greek architecture
+The Doric order
+The Parthenon
+The Ionic order
+The Corinthian order
+Roman architecture
+The arch
+Vitruvius
+Greek sculpture
+Phidias
+Statue of Zeus
+Praxiteles
+Scopas
+Lysippus
+Roman sculpture
+Greek painters
+Polygnotus
+Apollodorus
+Zeuxis
+Parrhasius
+Apelles
+The decline of art
+Authorities
+
+
+ANCIENT SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.
+
+ASTRONOMY, GEOGRAPHY, ETC.
+
+Ancient astronomy
+Chaldaean astronomers
+Egyptian astronomy
+The Greek astronomers
+Thales
+Anaximenes
+Aristarchus
+Archimedes
+Hipparchus
+Ptolemy
+The Roman astronomers
+Geometry
+Euclid
+Empirical science
+Hippocrates
+Galen
+Physical science
+Geography
+Pliny
+Eratosthenes
+Authorities
+
+
+MATERIAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS.
+
+MECHANICAL AND USEFUL ARTS.
+
+Mechanical arts
+Material life in Egypt
+Domestic utensils
+Houses and furniture
+Entertainments
+Glass manufacture
+Linen fabrics
+Paper manufacture
+Leather and tanners
+Carpenters and boat-builders
+Agriculture
+Field sports
+Ornaments of dress
+Greek arts
+Roman luxuries
+Material wonders
+Great cities
+Commerce
+Roman roads
+Ancient Rome
+Architectural wonders
+Roman monuments
+Roman spectacles
+Gladiatorial shows
+Roman triumphs
+Authorities
+
+
+THE MILITARY ART.
+
+WEAPONS, ENGINES, DISCIPLINE.
+
+The tendency to violence and war
+Early wars
+Progress in the art of war
+Sesostris
+Egyptian armies
+Military weapons
+Chariots of war
+Persian armies, Cyrus
+Greek warfare
+Spartan phalanx
+Alexander the Great
+Roman armies
+Hardships of Roman soldiers
+Military discipline
+The Roman legion
+Importance of the infantry
+The cavalry
+Military engines
+Ancient fortifications
+Military officers
+The praetorian cohort
+Roman camps
+Consolidation of Roman power
+Authorities
+
+
+CICERO.
+
+ROMAN LITERATURE.
+
+Condition of Roman society when Cicero was born
+His education and precocity
+He adopts the profession of the law
+His popularity as an orator
+Elected Quaestor; his Aedileship
+Prosecution of Verres
+His letters to Atticus; his vanity
+His Praetorship; declines a province
+His Consulship; conspiracy of Catiline
+Banishment of Cicero: his weakness; his recall
+His law practice; his eloquence
+His provincial government
+His return to Rome
+His fears in view of the rivalry between Caesar and Pompey
+Sides with Pompey
+Death of Tullia and divorce of Terentia
+Second marriage of Cicero
+Literary labors: his philosophical writings
+His detestation of Imperialism
+His philippics against Antony
+His proscription, flight, and death
+His great services
+Character of his eloquence
+His artistic excellence of style
+His learning and attainments; his character
+His immortal legacy
+Authorities
+
+
+CLEOPATRA.
+
+THE WOMAN OF PAGANISM.
+
+Why Cleopatra represents the woman of Paganism
+Glory of Ancient Rome
+Paganism recognizes the body rather than the soul
+Ancestors of Cleopatra
+The wonders of Alexandria
+Cleopatra of Greek origin
+The mysteries of Ancient Egypt
+Early beauty and accomplishments of Cleopatra
+Her attractions to Caesar
+Her residence in Rome
+Her first acquaintance with Antony
+The style of her beauty
+Her character
+Character of Antony
+Antony and Cleopatra in Cilicia
+Magnificence of Cleopatra
+Infatuation of Antony
+Motives of Cleopatra
+Antony's gifts to Cleopatra
+Indignation of the Romans
+Antony gives up his Parthian expedition
+Returns to Alexandria
+Contest with Octavius
+Battle of Actium
+Wisdom of Octavius
+Death of Antony
+Subsequent conduct of Cleopatra
+Nature of her love for Antony
+Immense sacrifices of Antony
+Tragic fate of Cleopatra
+Frequency of suicide at Rome
+Immorality no bar to social position in Greece and Rome
+Dulness of home in Pagan antiquity
+Drudgeries of women
+Influence of women on men
+Paganism never recognized the equality of women with men
+It denied to them education
+Consequent degradation of women
+Paganism without religious consolation
+Did not recognize the value of the soul
+And thus took no cognizance of the higher aspirations of man
+The revenge of woman under degradation
+Women, under Paganism, took no interest in what elevates society
+Men, therefore, fled to public amusements
+No true society under Paganism
+Society only created by Christianity
+
+
+PAGAN SOCIETY.
+
+GLORY AND SHAME.
+
+Glories of the ancient civilization
+A splendid external deception
+Moral evils
+Imperial despotism
+Prostration of liberties
+Some good emperors
+Disproportionate fortunes
+Luxurious living
+General extravagance
+Pride and insolence of the aristocracy
+Gibbon's description of the nobles
+The plebeian class
+Hopelessness and disgrace of poverty
+Popular superstitions
+The slaves
+The curse of slavery
+Degradation of the female sex
+Bitter satires of Juvenal
+Games and festivals
+Gladiatorial shows
+General abandonment to pleasure
+The baths
+General craze for money-making
+Universal corruption
+Saint Paul's estimate of Roman vices
+Decline and ruin a logical necessity
+The Sibylline prophecy
+Authorities
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+VOLUME III.
+
+Cleopatra Tests the Poison which She Intends for Her
+Own Destruction on Her Slaves.... _Frontispiece_
+_After the painting by Alexander Cabanel_.
+
+Justinian Orders the Compilation of the Pandects
+_After the painting by Benjamin Constant_.
+
+The Temple of Karnak
+_After a photograph_.
+
+The Laocoön
+_After the photograph from the statue in the Vatican, Rome_.
+
+The Death of Archimedes
+_After the painting by E. Vimont_.
+
+Race of Roman Chariots
+_After the painting by V. Checa_.
+
+Sale of Slaves in a Roman Camp
+_After the painting by R. Coghe_.
+
+Marcus Tullius Cicero
+_From the bust in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence_.
+
+Cleopatra Obtains an Interview with Caesar
+_After the painting by J.L. Gerome_.
+
+Death of Cleopatra
+_After the painting by John Collier_.
+
+A Roman Bacchanal
+_After the painting by W. Kotarbinski_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+GOVERNMENTS AND LAWS.
+
+
+GREEK AND ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.
+
+624 B.C.-550 A.D.
+
+
+There is not much in ancient governments and laws to interest us, except
+such as were in harmony with natural justice, and were designed for the
+welfare of all classes in the State. A jurisprudence founded on the
+edicts of absolute kings, or on the regulations of a priestly caste, is
+necessarily partial, and may be unenlightened. But those laws which are
+gradually enacted for the interests of the whole body of the
+people,--for the rich and poor, the powerful and feeble alike,--have
+generally been the result of great and diverse experiences, running
+through centuries, the work of wise men under constitutional forms of
+government. The jurisprudence of nations based on equity is a growth or
+development according to public wants and necessities, especially in
+countries having popular liberty and rights, as in England and the
+United States.
+
+We do not find in the history of ancient nations such a jurisprudence,
+except in the free States of Greece and among the Romans, who had a
+natural genius or aptitude for government, and where the people had a
+powerful influence in legislation, until even the name of liberty was
+not invoked.
+
+Among the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians the only laws were the
+edicts of kings or the regulations of priests, mostly made with a view
+of cementing their own power, except those that were dictated by
+benevolence or the pressing needs of the people, who were ground down
+and oppressed, and protected only as slaves were once protected in the
+Southern States of America. Wise and good monarchs doubtless issued
+decrees for the benefit of all classes, such as conscience or knowledge
+dictated, whenever they felt their great responsibilities, as in some of
+the absolute monarchies of Europe; but they never issued their decrees
+at the suggestions or demands of those classes for whom the laws were
+made. The voice of the people was ignored, except so far as it moved the
+pity or appealed to the hearts and consciences of their rulers; the
+people had, and claimed, no _rights_. The only men to whom rulers
+listened, or by whom they were controlled, were those whom they chose as
+counsellors and ministers, who were supposed to advise with a view to
+the sovereign's benefit, and that of the empire generally.
+
+The same may be said in general of other Oriental monarchies,
+especially when embarked in aggressive wars, where the will of the
+monarch was supreme and unresisted, as in Persia. In India and China the
+government was not so absolute, since it was checked by feudatory
+princes, almost independent like the feudal barons and dukes of
+mediaeval Europe.
+
+Nor was there probably among Oriental nations any elaborate codification
+of the decrees and laws as in Greece and Rome, except by the priests for
+their ritual service, like that which marked the jurisprudence of the
+Israelites. There were laws against murder, theft, adultery, and other
+offences, since society cannot exist anywhere without such laws; but
+there was no complicated jurisprudence produced by the friction of
+competing classes striving for justice and right, or even for the
+interests of contending parties. We do not look to Egypt or to China for
+wise punishment of ordinary crimes; but we do look to Greece and Rome,
+and to Rome especially, for a legislation which shall balance the
+complicated relations of society on principles of enlightened reason.
+Moreover, those great popular rights which we now most zealously defend
+have generally been extorted in the strife of classes and parties,
+sometimes from kings, and sometimes from princes and nobles. Where there
+has been no opposition to absolutism these rights have not been secured;
+but whenever and wherever the people have been a power they have
+imperiously made their wants known, and so far as they have been
+reasonable they have been finally secured,--perhaps after angry
+expostulations and, disputations.
+
+Now, it is this kind of legislation which is remarkable in the history
+of Greece and Rome, secured by a combination of the people against the
+ruling classes in the interests of justice and the common welfare, and
+finally endorsed and upheld even by monarchs themselves. It is from this
+legislation that modern nations have learned wisdom; for a permanent law
+in a free country may be the result of a hundred years of discussion or
+contention,--a compromise of parties, a lesson in human experience. As
+the laws of Greece and Rome alone among the ancients are rich in moral
+wisdom and adapted more or less to all nations and ages in the struggle
+for equal rights and wise social regulations, I shall confine myself to
+them. Besides, I aim not to give useless and curious details, but to
+show how far in general the enlightened nations of antiquity made
+attainments in those things which we call civilization, and particularly
+in that great department which concerns so nearly all human
+interests,--that of the regulation of mutual social relations; and this
+by modes and with results which have had their direct influence upon our
+modern times.
+
+When we consider the native genius of the Greeks, and their marvellous
+achievements in philosophy, literature, and art, we are surprised that
+they were so inferior to the Romans in jurisprudence,--although in the
+early days of the Roman republic a deputation of citizens was sent to
+Athens to study the laws of Solon. But neither nations nor individuals
+are great in everything. Before Solon lived, Lycurgus had given laws to
+the Spartans. This lawgiver, one of the descendants of Hercules, was
+born, according to Grote, about eight hundred and eighty years before
+Christ, and was the uncle of the reigning king. There is, however, no
+certainty as to the time when he lived; it was probably about the period
+when Carthage was founded by the Phoenicians. He instituted the Spartan
+senate, and gave an aristocratic form to the constitution. But the
+senate, composed of about thirty old men who acted in conjunction with
+the two kings, did not differ materially from the council of chiefs, or
+old men, found in other ancient Grecian States; the Spartan chiefs
+simply modified or curtailed the power of the kings. In the course of
+time the senate, with the kings included in it, became the governing
+body of the State, and this oligarchical form of government lasted
+several hundred years. We know but little of the especial laws given by
+Lycurgus. We know the distinctions of society,--citizens and helots,
+and their mutual relations,--the distribution of lands to check luxury,
+the public men, the public training of youth, the severe discipline to
+which all were subjected, the cruelty exercised towards slaves, the
+attention given to gymnastic exercises and athletic sports,--in short,
+the habits and customs of the people rather than any regular system of
+jurisprudence. Lycurgus was the trainer of a military brotherhood rather
+than a law-giver. Under his régime the citizen belonged to the State
+rather than to his family, and all the ends of the State were warlike
+rather than peaceful,--not looking to the settlement of quarrels on
+principles of equity, or a development of industrial interests, which
+are the great aims of modern legislation.
+
+The influence of the Athenian Solon on the laws which affected
+individuals is more apparent than that of the Spartan Lycurgus, the
+earliest of the Grecian legislators. But Solon had a predecessor in
+Athens itself,--Draco, who in 624 was appointed to reduce to writing the
+arbitrary decisions of the archons, thus giving a form of permanent law
+and a basis for a court of appeal. Draco's laws were extraordinarily
+severe, punishing small thefts and even laziness with death. The
+formulation of any system of justice would have, as Draco's did, a
+beneficial influence on the growth of the State; but the severity of
+these bloody laws caused them to be hated and in practice neglected,
+until Solon arose. Solon was born in Athens about 638 B.C., and
+belonged to the noblest family of the State. He was contemporary with
+Pisistratus and Thales. His father having lost his property, Solon
+applied himself to merchandise,--always a respectable calling in a
+mercantile city. He first became known as a writer of love poems; then
+came into prominence as a successful military commander of volunteer
+forces in a disastrous war; and at last he gained the confidence of his
+countrymen so completely that in a period of anarchy, distress, and
+mutiny,--the poor being so grievously oppressed by the rich that a sixth
+part of the produce of land went to the landlord,--he was chosen archon,
+with authority to revise the laws, and might have made himself king. He
+abolished the custom of selling the body of a debtor for debt, and even
+annulled debts in a state of general distress,--which did not please the
+rich, nor even the poor, since they desired a redivision of lands such
+as Lycurgus had made in Sparta. He repealed the severe laws of Draco,
+which inflicted capital punishment for so many small offences, retaining
+the extreme penalty only for murder and treason. In order further to
+promote the interests of the people, he empowered any man whatever to
+enter an action for one that was injured. He left the great offices of
+state, however, in the hands of the rich, giving the people a share in
+those which were not so important. He re-established the council of the
+Areopagus, composed of those who had been archons, and nine were
+appointed annually for the general guardianship of the laws; but he
+instituted another court or senate of four hundred citizens, for the
+cognizance of all matters before they were submitted to the higher
+court. Although the poorest and most numerous class were not eligible
+for office, they had the right of suffrage, and could vote for the
+principal officers. It would at first seem that the legislation of Solon
+gave especial privileges to the rich, but it is generally understood
+that he was the founder of the democracy of Athens. He gave the
+Athenians, not the best possible code, but the best they were capable of
+receiving. He intended to give to the people as much power as was
+strictly needed, and no more; but in a free State the people continually
+encroach on the privileges of the rich, and thus gradually the chief
+power falls into their hands.
+
+Whatever the power which Solon gave to the people, and however great
+their subsequent encroachments, it cannot be doubted that he was the
+first to lay the foundations of constitutional government,--that is, one
+in which the people took part in legislation and in the election of
+rulers. The greatest benefit which he conferred on the State was in the
+laws which gave relief to poor debtors, those which enabled people to
+protect themselves by constitutional means, and those which prohibited
+fathers from selling their daughters and sisters for slaves,--an
+abomination which had long disgraced the Athenian republic.
+
+Some of Solon's laws were of questionable utility. He prohibited the
+exportation of the fruits of the soil in Attica, with the exception of
+olive-oil alone,--a regulation difficult to be enforced in a mercantile
+State. Neither would he grant citizenship to immigrants; and he released
+sons from supporting their parents in old age if the parents had
+neglected to give them a trade. He encouraged all developments of
+national industries, knowing that the wealth of the State depended on
+them. Solon was the first Athenian legislator who granted the power of
+testamentary bequests when a man had no legitimate children. Sons
+succeeded to the property of their parents, with the obligation of
+giving a marriage dowry to their sisters. If there were no sons, the
+daughters inherited the property of their parents; but a person who had
+no children could bequeath his property to whom he pleased. Solon
+prohibited costly sacrifices at funerals; he forbade evil-speaking of
+the dead, and indeed of all persons before judges and archons; he
+pronounced a man infamous who took part in a sedition.
+
+When this enlightened and disinterested man had finished his work of
+legislation, 494 B.C., he visited Egypt and Cyprus, and devoted his
+leisure to the composition of poems. He also, it is said, when a
+prisoner in the hands of the Persians, visited Croesus, the rich king of
+Lydia, and gave to him an admonitory lesson on the vicissitudes of life.
+After a prolonged absence, Solon returned to Athens about the time of
+the usurpation of his kinsman Peisistratus (560 B.C.), who, however,
+suffered the aged legislator and patriot to go unharmed, and even
+allowed most of his laws to remain in force.
+
+The constitution and laws of Athens continued substantially for about a
+hundred years after the archonship of Solon, when the democratic party
+under Cleisthenes gained complete ascendency. Some modification of the
+laws was then made. The political franchise was extended to all free
+native Athenians. The command of the military forces was given to ten
+generals, one from each tribe, instead of being intrusted to one of the
+archons. The Ecclesia, a formal assembly of the citizens, met more
+frequently. The people were called into direct action as _dikasts_, or
+jurors; all citizens were eligible to the magistracy, even to the
+archonship; ostracism,--which virtually was exile without
+disgrace,--became a political necessity to check the ascendency of
+demagogues.
+
+Such were the main features of the constitution and jurisprudence of
+Athens when the struggle between the patricians and plebeians of Rome
+began, to which we now give our attention. It was the real beginning of
+constitutional liberty in Rome. Before this time the government was in
+the hands either of kings or aristocrats. The patricians were
+descendants of the original Latin, Sabine, and Etruscan families; the
+plebeians were the throng of common folk brought in by conquest or later
+immigration,--mostly of Latin origin. The senate was the ruling power
+after the expulsion of the kings, and senators were selected from the
+great patrician families, who controlled by their wealth and influence
+the popular elections, the army and navy, and all foreign relations.
+Consuls, the highest magistrates, who commanded the armies, were
+annually elected by the people; but for several centuries the consuls
+belonged to great families. The constitution was essentially
+aristocratic, and the aristocracy was based on wealth. Power was in the
+hands of nobles, whether their ancestors were patricians or plebeians,
+although in the early ages of the Republic they were mostly patricians
+by birth. But with the growth of Rome new families that were not
+descended from the ancient tribes became prominent,--like the Claudii,
+the Julii, and the Servilii,--and were incorporated with the nobility.
+There are very few names in Roman history before the time of Marius
+which did not belong to this noble class. The _plebs_, or common people,
+had at first no political privileges whatever, not even the right of
+suffrage, and were not allowed to marry into patrician rank. Indeed,
+they were politically and socially oppressed.
+
+The first great event which gave the plebs protection and political
+importance was the appointment of representatives called "tribunes of
+the people,"--a privilege extorted from the patricians. The tribunes had
+the right to be present at the deliberations of the senate; their
+persons were inviolable, and they had the power of veto over obnoxious
+laws. Their power continually increased, until they were finally elected
+from the senatorial body. In 421 B.C. the plebs had gained sufficient
+influence to establish the _connubium_, by which they were allowed to
+intermarry with patricians. In the same year they were admitted to the
+quaestorship, which office entitled the possessor to a seat in the
+senate. The quaestors had charge of the public money. In 336 B.C. the
+plebeians obtained the praetorship, a judicial office.
+
+In the year 286 B.C. the distinctions vanished between plebeians and
+patricians, and the term _populus_ instead of _plebs_, was applied to
+all Roman people alike. Originally the _populus_ comprised strictly
+Roman citizens, those who belonged to the original tribes, and who had
+the right of suffrage. When the plebeians obtained access to the great
+offices of the state, the senate represented the whole people as it
+formerly represented the _populus_, and the term _populus_ was enlarged
+to embrace the entire community.
+
+The senate was an august body, and was very powerful. It was both
+judicial and legislative, and for several centuries was composed of
+patricians alone. Its members always belonged to the aristocracy,
+whether of patrician or plebeian descent, and were supposed to be rich.
+Under Augustus it required one million two hundred thousand sesterces
+annually to support the senatorial dignity. The senate, the members of
+which were chosen for life, had the superintendence of matters of
+religion and foreign relations; it commanded the levies of troops; it
+regulated duties and taxes; it gave audience to ambassadors; it
+determined upon the way that war should be conducted; it decreed to what
+provinces governors should be sent; it declared martial law in the
+appointment of dictators; and it decreed triumphs to fortunate generals.
+The senators, as a badge of distinction, wore upon their tunics a broad
+purple stripe, and they had the privilege of the best seats in the
+theatres. Their decisions were laws _(leges)._ A large part of them had
+held curule offices, which entitled them to a seat in the senate for
+life. The curule officers were the consuls, the praetors, the aediles,
+the quaestors, the tribunes; so that an able senator was sure of a great
+office in the course of his life. A man could scarcely be a senator
+unless he had held a great office, nor could he often have held a great
+office unless he were a senator. Thus it would seem that the Roman
+constitution for three hundred years after the expulsion of the kings
+was essentially aristocratic. The _plebs_ had but small consideration
+till the time of the Gracchi.
+
+But after the institution of tribunes a change in the constitution
+gradually took place, so that it was neither aristocratic nor popular
+exclusively, but was composed of both elements, and was a system of
+balance of power between the various classes. The more complete the
+balance of power, the closer is the resemblance to a constitutional
+government. When one class acted as a check against another class, as
+gradually came to pass, until the subversion of liberties by successful
+generals, the senate, the magistrates, and the people in their
+assemblies shared between them the political power, but the senate had a
+preponderating influence. The judicial, the legislative, and the
+executive authority was as well defined in Roman legislation as it is in
+English or American. No person was above the authority of the laws; no
+one class could subvert the liberties and prerogatives of another
+class,--even the senate could not override the constitution. The
+consuls, elected by the centuries, presided over the senate and over the
+assemblies of the people. There was no absolute power exercised at Rome
+until the subversion of the constitution, except by dictators chosen by
+the senate in times of imminent danger. Nor could senators elect members
+of their own body; the censors alone had the right of electing from the
+ex-magistrates, and of excluding such as were unworthy. The consuls
+could remain in office but a year, and could be called to account when
+their terms of office had expired. The tribunes of the people ultimately
+could prevent a consul from convening the senate, could seize a consul
+and imprison him, and could veto an ordinance of the senate itself. The
+nobles had no exclusive privilege like the feudal aristocracy of
+mediaeval Europe, although it was their aim to secure the high
+magistracies to the members of their own body. The term _nobilitas_
+implied that some one of a man's ancestors had filled a curule
+magistracy. A patrician, long before the reforms of the Gracchi, had
+become a man of secondary importance, but the nobles were aristocrats to
+the close of the republic, and continued to secure the highest offices;
+they prevented their own extinction by admitting into their ranks those
+who distinguished themselves,--that is, exercising their influence in
+the popular elections to secure the magistracies from among themselves.
+
+The Roman constitution then, as gradually developed by the necessities
+and crises that arose, which I have not space to mention, was a
+wonderful monument of human wisdom. The nobility were very powerful from
+their wealth and influence, but the people were not ground down. There
+were no oppressive laws to reduce them to practical slavery; what rights
+they gained they retained. They constantly extorted new privileges,
+until they were sufficiently powerful to be courted by demagogues. It
+was the demagogues, generally aristocratic ones, like Catiline and
+Caesar, who subverted the liberties of the people by buying votes. But
+for nearly five hundred years not a man arose whom the Roman people
+feared, and the proud symbol "SPQR," on the standards of the armies of
+the republic, bore the name of the Roman Senate and People to the ends
+of the earth.
+
+When, however, the senate came to be made up of men whom the great
+generals selected; when the tribunes played into the hands of the very
+men they were created to oppose; when the high-priest of a people,
+originally religious, was chosen politically and without regard to moral
+or religious consideration; when aristocratic nobles left their own
+ranks to steal the few offices which the people controlled,--then the
+constitution, under which the Romans had advanced to the conquest of the
+world, became subverted, and the empire was a consolidated despotism.
+
+Under the emperors there was no constitution, since they combined in
+their own persons all the great offices of state, and controlled the
+senate, the army, the tribunals of the law, the distant provinces, the
+city itself, and regulated taxes and imposed burdens as they pleased.
+The senate lost its independence, the courts their justice, the army its
+spirit, and the people their hopes. And yet the old forms remained; the
+senate met as in the days of the Gracchi, and there were consuls and
+praetors as before.
+
+However much we may deplore the subversion of the Roman constitution and
+the absolute reign of the emperors, in which most historians see a
+political necessity, there was yet under these emperors, whether good or
+bad, the reign of law, the bequest of five hundred years' experience.
+The emperors reigned despotically, but under the forms of legislation.
+Nor did they attempt to subvert laws which did not interfere with their
+own political power. What is called jurisprudence they even improved, as
+that later imperial despot Napoleon gave a code to the nation he ruled.
+It is this science of jurisprudence, for which the Romans had a genius,
+that gives them their highest claim to be ranked among the benefactors
+of mankind. They created legal science. Its aim was justice,--equity in
+the relations between man and man. This was the pride of the Roman
+world, even under the rule of tyrants and madmen, and this has survived
+all the calamities of fifteen hundred years. The Roman laws--founded by
+the Republic, but symmetrically completed by the Empire--have more
+powerfully affected the interests of civilization than have the
+philosophy and arts of Greece. Roman jurisprudence was not perfectly
+developed until five hundred years after the Christian era, when
+Justinian consolidated it into the Code, the Pandects, and the
+Institutes. The classical jurists, like Gaius, Ulpian, and Paulus, may
+have laid the foundation, but the superstructure was raised under the
+auspices of the imperial despots.
+
+The earliest code of Roman laws was called the Twelve Tables, framed
+from the report of the commissioners sent to Athens and other Greek
+States, to collect what was most useful in their legal systems. The laws
+of the Twelve Tables were the basis of all the Roman laws, civil and
+religious. But the edicts of the praetors, who were the great equity
+judges as well as the common-law magistrates, proclaimed certain changes
+which custom and the practice of the courts had introduced; and these,
+added to the _leges populi_, or laws proposed by the consul and passed
+by the centuries, the _plebiscita_, or laws proposed by the tribunes
+and passed by the tribes, and the _senatus consulta,_ or decrees of the
+senate, gradually swelled the laws to a great number. Three thousand
+engraved plates of brass containing these various laws were deposited in
+the capitol.
+
+Subtleties and fictions were in the course of litigations introduced by
+the lawyers to defeat the written statutes, and jurisprudence became
+complicated as early as the time of Cicero. Even the opinions of eminent
+lawyers were adopted by the legal profession as authoritative, and were
+recognized by the courts. The evils of a complicated jurisprudence were
+so evident in the seventh century of the city, that Q. Mucius Scaevola,
+a great lawyer, when consul, published a scientific elaboration of the
+civil law. Cicero studied law under him, and his contemporaries, Varus
+and Aelius Gallus, wrote learned treatises, from which extracts appear
+in the Digest made under the Emperor Justinian, 528 A.D. Julius Caesar
+contemplated a complete revision of the laws, but did not live long
+enough to carry out his intentions. His legislation, so far as he
+directed his mind to it, was very just. Among other laws established by
+him was one which ordained that creditors should accept lands as payment
+for their outstanding debts, according to the value determined by
+commissioners. In his time the relative value of money had changed, and
+was greatly diminished. The most important law of Augustus, deserving of
+all praise, was that which related to the manumission of slaves; but he
+did not interfere with the social relations of the people after he had
+deprived them of political liberty. He once attempted, by his _Lex
+Julia_, to counteract the custom which then prevailed, of abstaining
+from legal marriage and substituting concubinage instead, by which the
+free population declined; but this attempt to improve the morals of the
+people met with such opposition from the tribes and centuries that the
+next emperor abolished popular assemblies altogether, which Augustus had
+feared to do. The senate in the time of the emperors, composed chiefly
+of lawyers and magistrates, and entirely dependent upon them, became the
+great fountain of law. By the original constitution the people were the
+source of power, and the senate merely gave or refused its approbation
+to the laws proposed; but under the emperors the _comitia_, or popular
+assemblies, disappeared, and the senate passed decrees which had the
+force of laws, subject to the veto of the Emperor. It was not until the
+time of Septimus Severus and Caracalla (second century A.D.) that the
+legislative action of the senate ceased, and the edicts and rescripts of
+emperors took the place of all legislation.
+
+The golden age of Roman jurisprudence was from the birth of Cicero to
+the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus, 222 A.D.; before this period
+it was an occult science, confined to praetors, pontiffs, and patrician
+lawyers. But in the latter days of the republic law became the
+fashionable study of Roman youth, and eminent masters arose. The first
+great lawyer who left behind him important works was Q. Mucius Scaevola,
+who wrote a treatise in eighteen books on the civil law. "He was," says
+Cicero, "the most eloquent of jurists and the most learned of orators."
+This work, George Long thinks, had a great influence on contemporaries
+and on subsequent jurists, who followed it as a model. It is the oldest
+work from which there are any excerpts in the Digest.
+
+Servius Sulpicius, the friend of Cicero and his fellow-student in
+oratory, surpassed his teachers Balbus and Gallus, and was the equal in
+reputation of the great Mucius Scaevola, the Pontifex Maximus, who said
+it was disgraceful for a patrician and a noble to be ignorant of the law
+with which he had to do. Cicero ascribes the great superiority of
+Servius as a lawyer to the study of philosophy, which disciplined and
+developed his mind, and enabled him to deduce his conclusions from his
+premises with logical precision. He left behind him one hundred and
+eighty treatises, and had numerous pupils, among whom A. Ofilius and
+Alfenus Varus, Cato, Julius Caesar, Antony, and Cicero were great
+lawyers. Labeo, in the time of Augustus, wrote four hundred books on
+jurisprudence, spending six months in the year in giving instruction to
+his pupils and in answering legal questions, and the other six months in
+the country in writing books. Like all the great Roman jurists, he was
+versed in literature and philosophy, and so devoted to his profession
+that he refused political office. His rival Capito was equally learned
+in all departments of the law, and left behind him as many treatises as
+Labeo. These two jurists were the founders of celebrated schools, like
+the ancient philosophers, and each had distinguished followers. Gaius,
+who flourished in the time of the Antonines, was a great legal
+authority; and the recent discovery of his Institutes has revealed the
+least mutilated fragment of Roman jurisprudence which exists, and one of
+the most valuable, which sheds great light on ancient Roman law; it was
+found in the library of Verona. No Roman jurist had a higher reputation
+than Papinian, who was praefectus praetorio under Septimius Severus (193
+A.D.),--an office which made him second only to the Emperor, a sort of
+grand vizier, whose power extended over all departments of the State; he
+was beheaded by Caracalla. The great commentator Cujacius declares that
+he was the first of all lawyers who have been, or who are to be; that no
+one ever surpassed him in legal knowledge, and no one will ever equal
+him. Paulus was his contemporary, and held the same office as Papinian.
+He was the most fertile of Roman law-writers, and there is more taken
+from him in Justinian's Digest than from any other jurist, except
+Ulpian. There are two thousand and eighty-three excerpts from this
+writer,--one sixth of the whole Digest. No legal writer, ancient or
+modern, has handled so many subjects. In perspicuity he is said to be
+inferior to Ulpian, one of the most famous of jurists, who was his
+contemporary. Ulpian has also exercised a great influence on modern
+jurisprudence from the copious extracts of his writings in the Digest.
+He was the chief adviser of Alexander Severus, and like Paulus was
+praefectus praetorio. The number of excerpts in the Digest from him is
+said to be two thousand four hundred and sixty-two, and they form a
+third part of it. Some fragments of his writings remain. The last of the
+great civilians associated with Gaius, Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian, as
+oracles of jurisprudence, was Modestinus, who was a pupil of Ulpian. He
+wrote both in Greek and Latin. There are three hundred and forty-five
+excerpts in the Digest from his writings, the titles of which show the
+extent and variety of his labors.
+
+These eminent lawyers shed great glory on the Roman civilization. In the
+earliest times men sought distinction on the fields of battle, but in
+the latter days of the republic honor was conferred for forensic
+ability. The first pleaders of Rome were not jurisconsults, but
+aristocratic "patrons," who looked after their "clients,"--men of lower
+social grade, who in return for protection and assistance rendered
+service, sometimes political by voting, sometimes pecuniary, sometimes
+military. But when law became complicated, a class of men arose to
+interpret it. These men were held in great honor, and reached by their
+services the highest offices,--like Cicero and Hortensius. No
+remuneration was given originally for forensic pleading beyond the
+services which the client gave to a patron, but gradually the practice
+of the law became lucrative. Hortensius, as well as Cicero, gained an
+immense fortune; he had several villas, a gallery of paintings, a large
+stock of wines, parks, fish-ponds, and aviaries. Cicero had villas in
+all parts of Italy, a house on the Palatine with columns of Numidian
+marble, and a fortune of twenty millions of sesterces, equal to eight
+hundred thousand dollars. Most of the great statesmen of Rome in the
+time of Cicero were either lawyers or generals. Crassus, Pompey, P.
+Sextus, M. Marcellus, P. Clodius, Asinius Pollio, C. Cicero, M.
+Antonius, Julius Caesar, Caelius, Brutus, Catullus, were all celebrated
+for their forensic efforts. Candidates for the bar studied four years
+under a distinguished jurist, and were required to pass a rigorous
+examination. The judges were chosen from members of the bar, as well as
+in later times the senators. The great lawyers were not only learned in
+the law, but possessed great accomplishments. Varro was a lawyer, and
+was the most learned man that Rome ever produced. But under the emperors
+the lawyers were chiefly distinguished for their legal attainments, like
+Paulus and Ulpian.
+
+During this golden age of Roman jurisprudence many commentaries were
+written on the Twelve Tables, the Perpetual Edict, the Laws of the
+People, and the Decrees of the senate, as well as a vast mass of
+treatises on every department of the law, most of which have perished.
+The Institutes of Gaius, already mentioned, are the most valuable that
+remain, and have thrown great light on some important branches
+previously involved in obscurity. Their use in explaining the Institutes
+of Justinian is spoken of very highly by Mackenzie, since the latter are
+mainly founded on the long-lost work of Gaius. The great lawyers who
+flourished from Trajan to Alexander Severus, like Gaius, Ulpian, Paulus,
+Papinian, and Modestinus, had no successors who can be compared with
+them, and their works became standard authorities in the courts of law.
+
+After the death of Alexander Severus, 235 A.D., no great accession was
+made to Roman law until Theodosius II., 438 A.D., caused the
+constitutions, from Constantine to his own time, to be collected and
+arranged in sixteen books. This was called the Theodosian Code, which
+in the West was held in high esteem. It was very influential among the
+Germanic nations, serving as the chief basis of their early legislation;
+it also paved the way for the more complete codification that followed
+in the Justinian Code, which superseded it.
+
+To Justinian belongs the immortal glory of reforming the jurisprudence
+of the Romans. "In the space of ten centuries," says Gibbon, "the
+infinite variety of laws and legal opinions had filled many thousand
+volumes, which no fortune could purchase, and no capacity could digest.
+Books could not easily be found, and the judges, poor in the midst of
+riches, were reduced to the exercise of their illiterate discretion."
+The emperors had very early begun to issue ordinances, under the
+authority of the various offices gathered into their hands; and these,
+together with the answers to appeals from the lower courts made to the
+emperors directly, or to the sort of supreme court which they
+established, were called _imperial constitutions_ and _rescripts_.
+Justinian determined to unite in one body all the rules of law, whatever
+may have been their origin; and in the year 528 appointed ten
+jurisconsults, among whom was the celebrated Tribonian, to select and
+arrange the imperial constitutions and rescripts, leaving out what was
+obsolete or useless or contradictory, and to make such alterations as
+the circumstances required. This was called the _Code_, divided into
+twelve books, and comprising the constitutions from Hadrian to
+Justinian. It was published in fourteen months after it was undertaken.
+
+Justinian thereupon authorized Tribonian, then quaestor, _vir magnificus
+magisteria dignitate inter agentes decoratus,_--"for great titles were
+now given to the officers of the crown,"--to prepare, with the
+assistance of sixteen associates, a collection of extracts from the
+writings of the most eminent jurists, so as to form a body of law for
+the government of the empire, with power to select and omit and alter;
+and this immense work was done in three years, and published under the
+title of Digest, or Pandects. Says Lord Mackenzie:
+
+"All the judicial learning of former times was laid under contribution
+by Tribonian and his colleagues. Selections from the works of
+thirty-nine of the ablest lawyers, scattered over two thousand separate
+treatises, were collected in one volume; and care was taken to inform
+posterity that three millions of lines were abridged and reduced in
+these extracts to the modest number of one hundred and fifty thousand.
+Among the selected jurists only three names belonged to the age of the
+republic,--the civilians who flourished under the first emperors are
+seldom appealed to; so that most of the writers whose works have
+contributed to the Pandects lived within a period of one hundred years.
+More than a third of the whole Pandects is from Ulpian, and next to him
+the principal writers are Paulus, Papinian, Salvius Julianus, Pomponius,
+Q. Cervidius Scaevola, and Gaius. Though the variety of subjects is
+immense, the Digest has no claims to scientific arrangement. It is a
+vast cyclopedia of heterogeneous law badly arranged; everything is
+there, but everything is not in its proper place."
+
+Neither the Digest nor the Code was adapted to elementary instruction;
+it was therefore necessary to prepare a treatise on the principles of
+Roman law. This was intrusted to Tribonian and two professors,
+Theophilus and Dorotheus. It is probable that Tribonian merely
+superintended the work, which was founded chiefly on the Institutes of
+Gaius, divided into four books. It has been universally admired for its
+method and elegant precision. It was intended merely as an introduction
+to the Pandects and the Code, and was entitled the Institutes.
+
+The _Novels_, or _New Constitutions, of Justinian_ were subsequently
+published, being the new ordinances of the Emperor and the changes he
+thought proper to make, and were therefore of high authority. The Code,
+Pandects, Institutes, and Novels of Justinian comprise the Roman law as
+received in Europe, in the form given by the school of Bologna, and is
+called the "Corpus Juris Civilis." Savigny says:--
+
+"It was in that form that the Roman law became the common law of Europe;
+and when, four centuries later, other sources came to be added to it,
+the _Corpus Juris_ of the school of Bologna had been so universally
+received, and so long established as a basis of practice, that the new
+discoveries remained in the domain of science, and served only for the
+theory of the law. For the same reason, the Ante-Justinian law is
+excluded from practice."
+
+After Justinian the old texts were left to moulder as useless though
+venerable, and they have nearly all disappeared. The Code, the Pandects,
+and the Institutes were declared to be the only legitimate authority,
+and alone were admitted to the tribunals or taught in the schools. The
+rescripts of the early emperors recognized too many popular rights to
+suit the despotic character of Justinian; and the older jurists, like
+the Scaevolas, Sulpicius, and Labeo, were distasteful from their
+sympathy with free institutions. Different opinions have been expressed
+by the jurisconsults as to the merits of the Justinian collection. By
+some it is regarded as a vast mass of legal lumber; by others, as a
+beautiful monument of human labor. After the lapse of so many centuries
+it is certain that a large portion of it is of no practical utility,
+since it is not applicable to modern wants. But again, no one doubts
+that it has exercised a great and good influence on moral and political
+science, and introduced many enlightened views concerning the
+administration of justice as well as the nature of civil government, and
+thus has modified the codes of the Teutonic nations that sprang up on
+the ruins of the old Roman world. It was used in the Greek empire until
+the fall of Constantinople. It never entirely lost authority in Italy,
+although it remained buried for centuries, till the discovery of the
+Florentine copy of the Pandects at the siege of Amalfi in 1135. Peter
+Valence, in the eleventh century, made use of it in a law-book which he
+published.
+
+With the rise of the Italian cities, the study of Roman law revived, and
+Bologna became the seat from which it spread over Europe. In the
+sixteenth century the science of theoretical law passed from Italy to
+France, under the auspices of Francis I., when Cujas, or Cujacius,
+became the great ornament of the school of Bourges and the greatest
+commentator on Roman law until Dumoulin appeared. Grotius, in Holland,
+excited the same interest in civil law that Dumoulin did in France,
+followed by eminent professors in Leyden and the German universities. It
+was reserved for Pothier, in the middle of the eighteenth century, to
+reduce the Roman law to systematic order,--one of the most gigantic
+tasks that ever taxed the industry of man. The recent discoveries,
+especially that made by Niebuhr of the long-lost work of Gaius, have
+given a great impulse to the study of Roman law in Germany; and to this
+impulse no one has contributed so greatly as Savigny of Berlin.
+
+The great importance of the subject demands a more minute notice of the
+principles of the Roman law than the limits of this work properly allow.
+I shall therefore endeavor to abridge what has been written by eminent
+authorities, taking as a basis the late work of Lord Mackenzie and the
+learned and interesting essay of Professor Maine.
+
+The Institutes of Justinian began with the law of persons, recognizing
+the distinction of ranks. All persons are capable of enjoying civil
+rights, but not all in the same degree. Greater privileges are allowed
+to men than to women, to freemen than to slaves, to fathers than
+to children.
+
+In the eye of the law all Roman citizens were equal wherever they lived,
+whether in the capital or the provinces. Citizenship embraced both
+political and civil rights. Political rights had reference to the right
+of voting in the comitia; but this was not considered the essence of
+citizenship, which was the enjoyment of the _connubium_, and
+_commercium_. By the former the citizen could contract a valid marriage
+and acquire the rights resulting from it, particularly the paternal
+power; by the latter he could acquire and dispose of property.
+Citizenship was acquired by birth and by manumission; it was lost when a
+Roman became a prisoner of war, or had been exiled for crime, or became
+a citizen of another State. An unsullied reputation was required by law
+for a citizen to exercise his rights to their full extent.
+
+The Roman jurists acknowledged all persons originally free by natural
+law; and while they recognized slavery, they ascribed the power of
+masters entirely to the law and custom of nations. Persons taken in war
+were considered at the absolute control of their captors, and were
+therefore, _de facto_, slaves; the children of a female slave followed
+the condition of their mother, and belonged to her master. But masters
+could manumit their slaves, who thus became Roman citizens with some
+restrictions. After the emancipation of a slave, he was bound to render
+certain services to his former master as patron, and if the freedman
+died intestate his property reverted to his patron.
+
+Marriage was contracted by the simple consent of the parties, though in
+early times equality of condition was required. The _lex Canuleia_,
+A.U.C. 309, authorized connubium between patricians and plebeians, and
+the _lex Julia_, A.U.C. 757, allowed it between freedmen and freeborn.
+By the _conventio in manum_, a wife passed out of her family into that
+of her husband, who acquired all her property; without it, the woman
+remained in the power of her father, and retained the free disposition
+of her property. Polygamy was not permitted; and relationship within
+certain degrees rendered the parties incapable of contracting marriage.
+(These rules as to forbidden degrees have been substantially adopted in
+England.) Celibacy was discouraged. Concubinage was allowed, if a man
+had not a wife, and provided the concubine was not the wife of another
+man; this heathenish custom was abrogated by Justinian. The wife was
+entitled to protection and support from her husband, and she retained
+her property independent of him. On her marriage the father gave his
+daughter a dowry in proportion to his means, the management of which,
+with its usufruct during marriage, belonged to the husband; but he could
+not alienate real estate without the wife's consent, and on the
+dissolution of marriage the _dos_ reverted to the wife. Divorce existed
+in all ages at Rome, and was very common at the beginning of the empire;
+to check its prevalence, laws were passed inflicting severe penalties on
+those whose bad conduct led to it. Every man, whether married or not,
+could adopt children under certain restrictions, and they passed
+entirely under paternal power. But the marriage relation among the
+Romans did not accord after all with those principles of justice which
+we see in other parts of their legislative code. The Roman husband, like
+the father, was a tyrant. The facility of divorce destroyed mutual
+confidence, and inflamed every trifling dispute; for a word or a
+message or a letter or the mandate of a freedman was quite sufficient to
+secure a separation. It was not until Christianity became the religion
+of the empire that divorce could not be easily effected without a just
+cause. This facility of divorce was a great stigma on the Roman laws,
+and the degradation of woman was the principal consequence. But woman
+never was honored in any Pagan land, although her condition at Rome was
+better than it was at Athens. She always was regarded as a possession
+rather than as a person; her virtue was mistrusted, and her aspirations
+were scorned; she was hampered and guarded more like a slave than the
+equal companion of man. But the progress of legislation, as a whole, was
+in her favor, and she continued to gain new privileges until the fall of
+the empire. The Roman Catholic Church regards marriage as one of the
+sacraments, and through all the Middle Ages and down to our own day the
+great authority of the Church has been one of the strongest supports of
+that institution, as necessary to Christianity as to civilization. We
+Americans have improved on the morality of Jesus, of the early and later
+Church, and of the great nations of modern Europe; and in many of our
+States persons are allowed to slip out of the marriage tie about as
+easily as they get into it.
+
+Nothing is more remarkable in the Roman laws than the extent of
+paternal power. It was unjust, and bears the image of a barbarous age.
+Moreover, it seems to have been coeval with the foundation of the city.
+A father could chastise his children by stripes, by imprisonment, by
+exile, by sending them to the country with chains on their feet. He was
+even armed with the power of life and death. "Neither age nor rank,"
+says Gibbon, "nor the consular office, could exempt the most illustrious
+citizen from the bonds of filial subjection. Without fear, though not
+without danger of abuse, the Roman legislators had reposed unbounded
+confidence in the sentiments of paternal love, and the oppression was
+tempered by the assurance that each generation must succeed in its turn
+to the awful dignity of parent and master." By an express law of the
+Twelve Tables a father could sell his children as slaves. But the abuse
+of paternal power was checked in the republic by the censors, and
+afterward by emperors. Alexander Severus limited the right of the father
+to simple correction, and Constantine declared the father who should
+kill his son to be guilty of murder. The rigor of parents in reference
+to the disposition of the property of children was also gradually
+relaxed. Under Augustus, the son could keep absolute possession of what
+he had acquired in war; under Constantine, he could retain any property
+acquired in the civil service, and all property inherited from the
+mother could also be retained. In later times, a father could not give
+his son or daughter to another by adoption without their consent. Thus
+this _patria potestas_ was gradually relaxed as civilization advanced,
+though it remained a peculiarity of Roman law to the latest times, and
+was severer than is ever seen in the modern world. Fathers were bound to
+maintain their children when they had no separate means to supply their
+wants, and children were also bound to maintain their parents if in
+want. These reciprocal duties, creditable to the Roman lawgivers, are
+recognized in the French Code, but not in the English, which also
+recognizes the right of a father to bequeath his whole estate to
+strangers,--a thing which Roman fathers had not power to do. The age
+when children attained majority among the Romans was twenty-five years.
+Women were condemned to the perpetual tutelage of parents, husbands, or
+guardians, as it was supposed they never could attain to the age of
+reason and experience. The relation of guardian and ward was strictly
+observed by the Romans. They made a distinction between the right to
+govern a person and the right to manage his estate, although the tutor
+or guardian could do both. If the pupil was an infant, the tutor could
+act without the intervention of the pupil; if the pupil was above seven
+years of age, he was considered to have an imperfect will. The youth
+ceased to be a pupil, if a boy, at fourteen; if a girl, at twelve. The
+tutor managed the estate of the pupil, but was liable for loss
+occasioned by bad management. He could sell movable property when
+expedient, but not real estate, without judicial authority. The tutor
+named by the father was preferred to all others.
+
+The Institutes of Justinian pass from persons to things, or the law
+relating to real rights; in other words, that which pertains to
+property. Some things common to all, like air, light, the ocean, and
+things sacred, like temples and churches, are not classed as property.
+
+Two things were required for the transfer of property, for it is the
+essence of property that the owner of a thing should have the right to
+transfer it,--first, the consent of the owner to transfer the thing upon
+some just ground; and secondly, the actual delivery of the thing to the
+person who is to acquire it. Movables were presumed to be the property
+of the possessors, until positive evidence was produced to the contrary.
+A prescriptive title to movables was acquired by possession for one
+year, and to immovables by possession for two years. Undisturbed
+possession for thirty years constituted in general a valid title.
+
+When a Roman died, his heirs succeeded to all his property by hereditary
+right. If he left no will, his estate devolved upon his relatives in a
+certain order prescribed by law. The power of making a testament only
+belonged to citizens above puberty. Children under the paternal power
+could not make a will. Males above fourteen and females above twelve,
+when not under power, could make wills without the authority of their
+guardian; but pupils, lunatics, prisoners of war, criminals, and various
+other persons were incapable of making a testament. The testator could
+divide his property among his heirs in such proportions as he saw fit;
+but if there was no distribution, all the heirs participated equally. A
+man could disinherit either of his children by declaring his intentions
+in his will, but only for grave reasons,--such as grievously injuring
+his person or character or feelings, or attempting his life. No will was
+effectual unless one or more persons were appointed heirs to represent
+the deceased. Wills were required to be signed by the testator, or some
+person for him, in the presence of seven witnesses who were Roman
+citizens. If a will was made by a parent for distributing his property
+solely among his children, no witnesses were required; and the ordinary
+formalities were dispensed with among soldiers in actual service, and
+during the prevalence of pestilence. The testament was opened in the
+presence of the witnesses, or a majority of them; and after they had
+acknowledged their seals a copy was made, and the original was deposited
+in the public archives.
+
+According to the Twelve Tables, the powers of a testator in disposing
+of his property were unlimited; but in process of time, laws were
+enacted to restrain immoderate or unnatural bequests. By the Falcidian
+law, in the time of Augustus, no one could leave in legacies more than
+three fourths of his estate, so that the heirs could inherit at least
+one fourth. Again, a law was passed by which the descendants were
+entitled to one third of the succession, and to one half if there were
+more than four. In France, if a man die leaving one lawful child, he can
+dispose of only half his estate by will; if he leaves two children, he
+can dispose only of one third; if he leaves three or more children, then
+he can dispose by will of only one fourth of his estate. In England, a
+man can disinherit both his wife and children. These, and many other
+matters,--bequests in trust, succession of men dying intestate, heirs at
+law, etc.,--were regulated by the Romans in ways on which our modern
+legislators have improved little or none.
+
+In the matter of contracts the Roman law was especially comprehensive,
+and the laws of France and Scotland are substantially based upon the
+Roman system. The Institutes of Gaius and Justinian distinguish four
+sorts of obligations,--_aut re, aut verbis, aut literis, aut consensu_.
+Gibbon, in his learned chapter, prefers to consider the specific
+obligations of men to each other under promises, benefits, and
+injuries. Lord Mackenzie treats the subject in the order of the
+Institutes:--
+
+"Obligations contracted _re_--by the intervention of _things_--are
+called by the moderns real contracts, because they are not perfected
+till something has passed from one party to another. Of this description
+are the contracts of loan, deposit, and pledge,--security for
+indebtedness. Till the subject is actually lent, deposited, or pledged,
+it does not form the special contract of loan, deposit, or pledge."
+
+Next to the perfection of contracts by _re_,--the intervention of
+things,--were obligations contracted by _verbis_, spoken _words_, and by
+_literis_, or writings. The _verborum obligatio_ was contracted by
+uttering certain words of formal style,--an interrogation being put by
+one party, and an answer given by the other. These stipulations were
+binding. In England all guarantees must be in writing.
+
+The _obligatio literis_ was a written acknowledgment of debt, chiefly
+employed when money was borrowed; but the creditor could not sue upon a
+note within two years from its date, without being called upon also to
+prove that the money was in fact paid to the debtor.
+
+Contracts perfected by consent, _consensu_, had reference to sale,
+hiring; partnership, and mandate, or orders to be carried out by agents.
+All contracts of sale were good without writing.
+
+Acts which caused damage to another opened a new class of cases. The
+law obliged the wrong-doer to make reparation, and this responsibility
+extended to damages arising not only from positive acts, but from
+negligence or imprudence. In cases of libel or slander, the truth of the
+allegation might be pleaded in justification. In all cases it was
+necessary to show that an injury had been committed maliciously; but if
+damage arose in the exercise of a right, as killing a slave in
+self-defence, no claim for reparation could be maintained. If any one
+exercised a profession or trade for which he was not qualified, he was
+liable to all the damage his want of skill or knowledge might
+occasion,--a provision that some of our modern laws might advantageously
+revive. When any damage was done by a slave or an animal, the owner of
+the same was liable for the loss, though the mischief was done without
+his knowledge and against his will. If anything was thrown from a window
+giving on the public thoroughfare so as to injure any one by the fall,
+the occupier was bound to repair the damage, though done by a stranger.
+Legal claims might be transferred to a third person by sale, exchange,
+or donation; but to prevent speculators from purchasing debts at low
+prices, it was ordered that the assignee should not be entitled to exact
+from the debtor more than he himself had paid to acquire the debt, with
+interest,--a wise and just regulation.
+
+By the ancient constitution, the king had the prerogative of
+determining civil causes. The right then devolved on the consuls,
+afterward on the praetor, and in certain cases on the curule and
+plebeian ediles, who were charged with the internal police of the city.
+
+The praetor, a magistrate next in dignity to the consuls, acted as
+supreme judge of the civil courts, assisted by a council of
+jurisconsults to determine questions in law. At first one praetor was
+sufficient, but as the limits of the city and empire extended, he was
+joined by a colleague. After the conquest of Sicily, Sardinia, and the
+two Spains, new praetors were appointed to administer justice in the
+provinces. The praetor held his court in the comitium, wore a robe
+bordered with purple, sat in a curule chair, and was attended
+by lictors.
+
+The praetor delegated his power to three classes of judges, called
+respectively _judex_, _arbiter_, and _recuperator_. When parties were at
+issue about facts, it was the custom for the praetor to fix the question
+of law upon which the action turned, and then to remit to a delegate, or
+judge, to inquire into the facts and pronounce judgment according to
+them. In the time of Augustus there were four thousand judices, who were
+merely private citizens, generally senators or men of consideration. The
+judex was invested by the magistrate with a judicial commission for a
+single case only. After being sworn to duty, he received from the
+praetor a formula containing a summary of all the points under
+litigation, from which he was not allowed to depart. He was required not
+merely to investigate facts, but to give sentence; and as law questions
+were more or less mixed up with the case, he was allowed to consult one
+or more jurisconsults. If the case was beyond his power to decide, he
+could decline to give judgment. The arbiter, like the judex, received a
+formula from the praetor, and seemed to have more extensive power. The
+recuperators heard and determined cases, but the number appointed for
+each case was usually three or five.
+
+The _centumvirs_ constituted a permanent tribunal composed of members
+annually elected, in equal numbers, from each tribe; and this tribunal
+was presided over by the praetor, and divided into four chambers, which
+under the republic was placed under the ancient quaestors. The
+centumvirs decided questions of property, embracing a wide range of
+subjects. The Romans had no class of men like the judges of modern
+times; the superior magistrates were changed annually, and political
+duties were mixed with judicial. The evil was partially remedied by the
+institution of legal assessors, selected from the most learned
+jurisconsults. Under the empire the praetors were greatly increased;
+under Tiberius there were sixteen who administered justice, besides the
+consuls, six ediles, and ten tribunes of the people. The Emperor himself
+became the supreme judge, and he was assisted in the discharge of his
+judicial duties by a council composed of the consuls, a magistrate of
+each grade, and fifteen senators. At first, the duties of the praetorian
+prefects were purely military, but finally they discharged important
+judicial functions. The prefect of the city, in the time of the
+emperors, was a great judicial personage, who heard appeals from the
+praetors themselves.
+
+In all cases brought before the courts, the burden of proof was with the
+party asserting an affirmative fact. Proof by writing was generally
+considered most certain, but proof by witnesses was also admitted.
+Pupils, lunatics, infamous persons, interested parties, near relatives,
+and slaves could not bear evidence, nor any person who had a strong
+enmity against either party. The witnesses were required to give their
+testimony on oath. In most cases two witnesses were enough to prove a
+fact. When witnesses gave conflicting testimony, the judge regarded
+those who were most worthy of credit rather than those who were most
+numerous. In the English courts the custom used to be as with the
+Romans, of refusing testimony from those who were interested; but this
+has been removed. On the failure of regular proof, the Roman law allowed
+a party to refer the facts in a civil action to the oath of his
+adversary.
+
+Under the Roman republic there was no appeal in civil suits, but under
+the emperors a regular system was established. Under Augustus there was
+an appeal from all the magistrates to the prefect of the city, and from
+him to the praetorian prefect or even to the Emperor. In the provinces
+there was an appeal from the municipal magistrates to the governors, and
+from them to the Emperor, as Paul appealed from Festus to Caesar. Under
+Justinian no appeal was allowed from a suit which did not involve at
+least twenty pounds in gold.
+
+In regard to criminal courts among the Romans during the republic, the
+only body which had absolute power of life and death was the _comitia
+centuriata_. The senate had no jurisdiction in criminal cases, so far as
+Roman citizens were concerned. It was only in extraordinary emergencies
+that the senate, with the consuls, assumed the responsibility of
+inflicting summary punishment. Under the emperors, the senate was armed
+with the power of criminal jurisdiction; and as the senate was the tool
+of the imperator, he could crush whomsoever he pleased.
+
+As it was inconvenient, when Rome had become a very great city, to
+convene the comitia for the trial of offenders, the expedient was
+adopted of delegating the jurisdiction of the people to persons invested
+with temporary authority, called _quaestors_. These were finally
+established into regular and permanent courts, called _quaestores
+perpetui_. Every case submitted to these courts was tried by a judge and
+jury. It was the duty of the judge to preside and regulate proceedings
+according to law; and it was the duty of the jury, after hearing the
+evidence and pleadings, to decide on the guilt or innocence of the
+accused. As many as fifty persons frequently composed the jury, whose
+names were drawn out of an urn. Each party had a right to challenge a
+certain number, and the verdict was decided by a majority of votes. At
+first the judices were chosen from the senate, and afterward from the
+equestrians, and then again from both orders. But in process of time the
+quaestores perpetui gave place to imperial magistrates. The accused
+defended himself in person or by counsel.
+
+The Romans divided _crimes_ into public and private. Private crimes
+could be prosecuted only by the party injured, and were generally
+punished by pecuniary fines, as among the old Germanic nations.
+
+Of public crimes the _crimen laesae majestatis_, or treason, was
+regarded as the greatest; and this was punished with death and with
+confiscation of goods, while the memory of the offender was declared
+infamous. Greater severity could scarcely be visited on a culprit.
+Treason comprehended conspiracy against the government, assisting the
+enemies of Rome, and misconduct in the command of armies. Thus Manlius,
+in spite of his magnificent services, was hurled from the Tarpeian
+Rock, because he was convicted of an intention to seize upon the
+government. Under the empire not only any attempt on the life of the
+Emperor was treason, but disrespectful words or acts. The criminal was
+even tried after death, that his memory might become infamous; and this
+barbarous practice was perpetuated in France and Scotland as late as the
+beginning of the seventeenth century. In England men have been executed
+for treasonable words. Besides treason there were other crimes against
+the State, such as a breach of the peace, extortion on the part of
+provincial governors, embezzlement of public property, stealing sacred
+things, bribery,--most of which offences were punished by pecuniary
+penalties.
+
+But there were also crimes against individuals, which were punished with
+the death penalty. Wilful murder, poisoning, and parricide were
+capitally punished. Adultery was punished by banishment, besides a
+forfeiture of considerable property; Constantine made it a capital
+offence. Rape was punished with death and confiscation of goods, as in
+England till a late period, when transportation for life became the
+penalty. The punishments inflicted for forgery, coining base money, and
+perjury were arbitrary. Robbery, theft, patrimonial damage, and injury
+to person and property were private trespasses, and not punished by the
+State. After a lapse of twenty years without accusation, crimes were
+supposed to be extinguished. The Cornelian, Pompeian, and Julian laws
+formed the foundation of criminal jurisprudence. This however never
+attained the perfection that was seen in the Civil Code, in which the
+full maturity of Roman wisdom was reached. The emperors greatly
+increased the severity of punishments, as was probably necessary in a
+corrupt state of society. After the decemviral laws fell into disuse,
+the Romans in the days of the republic passed from extreme rigor to
+great lenity, as is observable in the transition from the Puritan régime
+to our own times in the United States. Capital punishment for several
+centuries was exceedingly rare, and was frequently prevented by
+voluntary exile. Under the empire, again, public executions were
+frequent and revolting.
+
+Fines were a common mode of punishment with the Romans, as with the
+early Germans. Imprisonment in a public jail was rare, the custom of
+bail being in general use. Although retaliation was authorized by the
+Twelve Tables for bodily injuries, it was seldom exacted, since
+pecuniary compensation was taken in lieu. Corporal punishments were
+inflicted upon slaves, but rarely upon citizens, except for military
+crimes; but Roman citizens could be sold into slavery for various
+offences, chiefly military, and criminals were often condemned to labor
+in the mines or upon public works. Banishment was common,--_aquae et
+ignis interdictio_; and this was equivalent to the deprivation of the
+necessities of life and incapacitating a person from exercising the
+rights of citizenship. Under the emperors persons were confined often on
+the rocky islands off the coast, or in a compulsory residence in a
+particular place assigned. Thus Chrysostom was sent to a dreary place on
+the banks of the Euxine, and Ovid was banished to Tomi. Death, when
+inflicted, was by hanging, scourging, and beheading; also by strangling
+in prison. Slaves were often crucified, and were compelled to carry
+their cross to the place of execution. This was the most ignominious and
+lingering of all deaths; it was abolished by Constantine, from reverence
+to the sacred symbol. Under the emperors, execution took place also by
+burning alive and exposure to wild beasts; it was thus the early
+Christians were tormented, since their offence was associated with
+treason. Persons of distinction were treated with more favor than the
+lower classes, and their punishments were less cruel and ignominious;
+thus Seneca, condemned for privity to treason, was allowed to choose his
+mode of death. The criminal laws of modern European States followed too
+often the barbarous custom of the Roman emperors until a recent date.
+Since the French Revolution the severity of the penal codes has been
+much modified.
+
+The penal statutes of Rome however, as Gibbon emphatically remarks,
+"formed a very small portion of the Code and the Pandects; and in all
+judicial proceedings the life or death of the citizen was determined
+with less caution and delay than the most ordinary question of covenant
+or inheritance." This was owing to the complicated relations of society,
+by which obligations are created or annulled, while duties to the State
+are explicit and well known, being inscribed not only on tables of
+brass, but on the conscience itself. It was natural, with the growth and
+development of commerce and dominion, that questions should arise which
+could not be ordinarily settled by ancient customs, and the practice of
+lawyers and the decisions of judges continually raised new difficulties,
+to be met only by new edicts. It is a pleasing fact to record, that
+jurisprudence became more just and enlightened as it became more
+intricate. The principles of equity were more regarded under the
+emperors than in the time of Cato. It is in the application of these
+principles that the laws of the Romans have obtained so high
+consideration; their abuse consisted in the expense of litigation, and
+the advantages which the rich thus obtained over the poor.
+
+But if delays and forms led to an expensive and vexatious administration
+of justice, these were more than compensated by the checks which a
+complicated jurisprudence gave to hasty or partial decisions. It was in
+the minuteness and precision of the forms of law, and in the foresight
+with which questions were anticipated in the various transactions of
+business, that the Romans in their civil and social relations were very
+much on a level with modern times. It would be difficult to find in the
+most enlightened of modern codes greater wisdom and foresight than
+appear in the legacy of Justinian as to all questions pertaining to the
+nature, the acquisition, the possession, the use, and the transfer of
+property. Civil obligations are most admirably defined, and all
+contracts are determined by the wisest application of the natural
+principles of justice. Nothing can be more enlightened than the laws
+which relate to leases, to sales, to partnerships, to damages, to
+pledges, to hiring of work, and to quasi-contracts. The laws pertaining
+to the succession to property, to the duties of guardians, to the rights
+of wards, to legacies, to bequests in trust, and to the general
+limitation of testamentary powers were singularly clear. The regulations
+in reference to intestate succession, and to the division of property
+among males and females, were wise and just; we find no laws of entail,
+no unequal rights, no absurd distinction between brothers, no peculiar
+privileges given to males over females, or to older sons. Particularly
+was everything pertaining to property and contracts and wills guarded
+with the most jealous care. A man was sure of possessing his own, and of
+transmitting it to his children. In the Institutes of Justinian we see
+on every page a regard to the principles of natural justice: but
+moreover we find that malicious witnesses should be punished; that
+corrupt judges should be visited with severe penalties; that libels and
+satires should subject their authors to severe chastisement; that every
+culprit should be considered innocent until his guilt was proved.
+
+No infringement on personal rights could be tolerated. A citizen was
+free to go where he pleased, to do whatsoever he would, if he did not
+trespass on the rights of another; to seek his pleasure unobstructed,
+and pursue his business without vexatious incumbrances. If he was
+injured or cheated, he was sure of redress; nor could he be easily
+defrauded with the sanction of the laws. A rigorous police guarded his
+person, his house, and his property; he was supreme and uncontrolled
+within his family. This security to property and life and personal
+rights was guaranteed by the greatest tyrants. Although political
+liberty was dead, the fullest personal liberty was enjoyed under the
+emperors, and it was under their sanction that jurisprudence in some of
+the most important departments of life reached perfection. If injustice
+was suffered it was not on account of the laws, but owing to the
+depravity of men, the venality of the rich, and the tricks of lawyers;
+the laws were wise and equal. The civil jurisprudence of the Romans
+could be copied with safety by the most enlightened of European States;
+indeed, it is already the foundation of their civil codes, especially in
+France and Germany.
+
+That there were some features in the Roman laws which we in these
+Christian times cannot indorse, and which we reprehend, cannot be
+denied. Under the republic there was not sufficient limit to paternal
+power, and the _pater familias_ was necessarily a tyrant. It was unjust
+that the father should control the property of his son, and cruel that
+he was allowed an absolute control not only over his children, but also
+his wife. Yet the limits of paternal power were more and more curtailed,
+so that under the later emperors fathers were not allowed to have more
+authority than was perhaps expedient.
+
+The recognition of slavery as a domestic institution was another blot,
+and slaves could be treated with the grossest cruelty and injustice
+without possibility of redress. But here the Romans were not sinners
+beyond all other nations, and our modern times have witnessed a
+parallel. It was not the existence of slavery, however, which was the
+greatest evil, but the facility by which slaves could be made. The laws
+pertaining to debt were severe, and were most disgraceful in dooming a
+debtor to the absolute power of a creditor. To subject men of the same
+race to slavery for trifling debts which they could not discharge, was
+the great defect of the Roman laws. But even these cruel regulations
+were modified, so that in the corrupt times of the empire there was no
+greater practical severity than was common in England as late as one
+hundred years ago. The temptations to fraud were enormous in a wicked
+state of society, and demanded a severe remedy. It is possible that our
+modern laws may show too great leniency to debtors who are not merely
+unfortunate, but dishonest. The problem is not yet solved, whether men
+should be severely handled who are guilty of reckless and unprincipled
+speculations and unscrupulous dealings, or whether they should be
+allowed immunity to prosecute their dangerous and disgraceful courses.
+
+Moreover, the penal code of the Romans in reference to breaches of trust
+or carelessness or ignorance, by which property was lost or squandered,
+may have been too severe, as is still the case in England in reference
+to hunting game on another's grounds. It was hard to doom a man to death
+who drove away his neighbor's cattle, or even entered in the night his
+neighbor's house; but severe penalties alone will keep men from crimes
+where there is a low state of virtue and religion, and general
+prosperity and contentment become impossible where there is no efficient
+protection to property. Society was never more secure and happy in
+England than when vagabonds could be arrested, and when petty larcenies
+were visited with certain retribution. Every traveller in France and
+England feels that in regard to the punishment of crime, those older
+countries, restricted as are their political privileges, are in most
+questions of secure and comfortable living vastly superior to our own.
+The Romans lost under the emperors their political rights, but gained
+protection and safety in their relations with society. Where quiet and
+industrious citizens feel safe in their homes, are protected from
+scoundrels in their dealings, have ample scope for industrial
+enterprise, and are free to choose their private pleasures, they resign
+themselves to the loss of electing their rulers without great
+unhappiness. There are greater evils in the world than the deprivation
+of the elective franchise, lofty and glorious as is this privilege. The
+arbitrary rule of the emperors was fatal to political aspirations and
+rights and the growth of a genuine manhood; yet it is but fair to note
+that the evils of political slavery were qualified and set off by the
+excellence of the civil code and the privileges of social freedom.
+
+The great practical evil connected with Roman jurisprudence was the
+intricacy and perplexity and uncertainty of the laws, together with the
+expense involved in litigation. The class of lawyers was large, and
+their gains were extortionate. Justice was not always to be found on the
+side of right. The law was uncertain as well as costly. The most learned
+counsel could be employed only by the rich, and even judges were venal,
+so that the poor did not easily find adequate redress. But all this is
+the necessary attendant on a factitious state of society, and by many is
+regarded as being quite as characteristic of modern, civilized Christian
+England and America as it was of Pagan Rome. Material civilization leads
+to an undue estimate of money; and when money purchases all that
+artificial people desire, then all classes will prostitute themselves
+for its possession, and justice, dignity, and elevation of sentiment
+will be forced to retreat,--as hermits sought a solitude when society
+had reached its lowest degradation, out of pure despair of its
+renovation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+The authorities for this chapter are very numerous. Since the Institutes
+of Gaius have been recovered, many eminent writers on Roman law have
+appeared, especially in Germany and France. Many might be cited, but for
+all ordinary purposes of historical study the work of Lord Mackenzie on
+Roman Law, together with the articles of George Long in Smith's
+Dictionary, will be found most useful. Maine's Treatise on Ancient Law
+is exceedingly interesting and valuable. Gibbon's famous chapter should
+also be read by every student. There is a fine translation of the
+Institutes of Justinian, which is quite accessible, by Dr. Harris of
+Oxford. The Code, Pandects, Institutes, and Novels are of course the
+original authority, with the long-lost Institutes of Gaius.
+
+In connection with the study of the Roman law, it would be well to read
+Sir George Bowyer's Commentaries on the Modern Civil Law. Also Irving,
+Introduction to the Study of the Civil Law; Lindley, Introduction to the
+Study of Jurisprudence; Wheaton's Elements of International Law; and
+Vattel, Le Droit des Gens.
+
+
+
+
+THE FINE ARTS.
+
+
+ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, PAINTING.
+
+500-430 B.C.
+
+
+My object in the present lecture is not a criticism of the principles
+of art so much as an enumeration of its various forms among the
+ancients, to show that in this department of civilization they reached
+remarkable perfection, and were not inferior to modern Christian nations.
+
+The first development of art among all the nations of antiquity was in
+architecture. The earliest buildings erected were houses to protect
+people from heat, cold, and the fury of the elements of Nature. At that
+remote period much more attention was given to convenience and practical
+utility than to beauty or architectural effect. The earliest houses were
+built of wood, and stone was not employed until temples and palaces
+arose. Ordinary houses were probably not much better than log-huts and
+hovels, until wealth was accumulated by private persons.
+
+The earliest monuments of enduring magnificence were the temples of
+powerful priests and the palaces of kings; and in Egypt and Assyria
+these appear earliest, as well as most other works showing civilization.
+Perhaps the first great monument which arose after the deluge of Noah
+was the Tower of Babel, built probably of brick. It was intended to be
+very lofty, but of its actual height we know nothing, nor of its style
+of architecture. Indeed, we do not know that it was ever advanced beyond
+its foundations; yet there are some grounds for supposing that it was
+ultimately finished, and became the principal temple of the Chaldaean
+metropolis.
+
+From the ruins of ancient monuments we conclude that architecture
+received its earliest development in Egypt, and that its effects were
+imposing, massive, and grand. It was chiefly directed to the erection of
+palaces and temples, the ruins of which attest grandeur and vastness.
+They were built of stone, in blocks so huge and heavy that even modern
+engineers are at loss to comprehend how they could have been transported
+and erected. All the monuments of the Pharaohs are wonders, especially
+such as appear in the ruins of Karnak,--a temple formerly designated as
+that of Jupiter Ammon. It was in the time of Sesostris, or Rameses the
+Great, the first of the Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty, that
+architecture in Egypt reached its greatest development. Then we find the
+rectangular-cut blocks of stone in parallel courses, the heavy pier, the
+cylindrical column with its bell-shaped capital, and the bold and
+massive rectangular architraves extending from pier to pier and column
+to column, surmounted by a deep covered coping or cornice.
+
+The imposing architecture of Egypt was chiefly owing to the impressive
+vastness of the public buildings. It was not produced by beauty of
+proportion or graceful embellishments; it was designed to awe the
+people, and kindle sentiments of wonder and astonishment. So far as this
+end was contemplated it was nobly reached; even to this day the
+traveller stands in admiring amazement before those monuments that were
+old three thousand years ago. No structures have been so enduring as the
+Pyramids; no ruins are more extensive and majestic than those of Thebes.
+The temple of Karnak and the palace of Rameses the Great were probably
+the most imposing ever built by man. This temple was built of blocks of
+stone seventy feet in length, on a platform one thousand feet long and
+three hundred wide, with pillars sixty feet in height. But this and
+other structures did not possess that unity of design which marked the
+Grecian temples. Alleys of colossal sphinxes formed the approach. At
+Karnak the alley was six thousand feet long, and before the main body
+of the edifice stood two obelisks commemorative of the dedication. The
+principal structures of Egyptian temples do not follow the straight
+line, but begin with pyramidal towers which flank the gateways; then
+follow, usually, a court surrounded with colonnades, subordinate
+temples, and houses for the priests. A second pylon, or pyramidal tower,
+leads to the interior and most considerable part of the temple,--a
+portico inclosed with walls, which receives light only through the
+entablature or openings in the roof. Adjoining this is the cella of the
+temple, without columns, enclosed by several walls, often divided into
+various small chambers with monolithic receptacles for idols or mummies
+or animals. The columns stand within the walls. The colonnade is not, as
+among the Greeks, an expansion of the temple; it is merely the wall with
+apertures. The walls, composed of square blocks, are perpendicular only
+on the inside, and bevelled externally, so that the thickness at the
+bottom sometimes amounts to twenty-four feet; thus the whole building
+assumes a pyramidal form, the fundamental principle of Egyptian
+architecture. The columns are more slender than the early Doric, are
+placed close together, and have bases of circular plinths; the shaft
+diminishes upward, and is ornamented with perpendicular or oblique
+furrows, but not fluted like Grecian columns. The capitals are of the
+bell form, ornamented with all kinds of foliage, and have a narrow but
+high abacus. They abound with sculptured decorations, the designs of
+which were borrowed from the vegetation of the country. The highest of
+the columns of the temple of Luxor is five and a quarter times the
+greatest diameter.
+
+But no monuments have ever excited so much curiosity and wonder as the
+Pyramids, not in consequence of any particular beauty or ingenuity in
+their construction, but because of their immense size and unknown age.
+None but sacerdotal monarchs would ever have erected them; none but a
+fanatical people would ever have toiled upon them. We do not know for
+what purpose they were raised, unless as sepulchres for kings. They are
+supposed to have been built at a remote antiquity, between two thousand
+and three thousand years before Christ. Lepsius thought that the oldest
+of these Pyramids were built more than three thousand years before
+Christ. The Pyramid of Cheops, at Memphis, covers a square whose side is
+seven hundred and sixty-eight feet, and rises into the air nearly five
+hundred feet. It is a solid mass of stone, which has suffered less from
+time than the mountains near it. Possibly it stands over an immense
+substructure, in which may yet be found the lore of ancient Egypt; it
+may even prove to be the famous labyrinth of which Herodotus speaks,
+built by the twelve kings of Egypt. According to this author, one
+hundred thousand men worked on this monument for forty years.
+
+The palaces of the kings are mere imitations of the temples, their only
+difference of architecture being that their rooms are larger and in
+greater numbers. Some think that the famous labyrinth was a collective
+palace of many rulers.
+
+Of Babylonian architecture we know little beyond what the Hebrew
+Scriptures and ancient authors tell us. But though nothing survives of
+ancient magnificence, we know that a city whose walls, according to
+Herodotus, were eighty-seven feet in thickness, three hundred and
+thirty-seven in height, and sixty miles in circumference, and in which
+were one hundred gates of brass, must have had considerable
+architectural splendor. This account of Babylon, however, is probably
+exaggerated, especially as to the height of the walls. The tower of
+Belus, the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Obelisk of Semiramis were
+probably wonderful structures, certainly in size, which is one of the
+conditions of architectural effect.
+
+The Tyrians must have carried architecture to considerable perfection,
+since the Temple of Solomon, one of the most magnificent in the ancient
+world, was probably built by artists from Tyre. It was not remarkable
+for size,--it was, indeed, very small,--but it had great splendor of
+decoration. It was of quadrangular outline, erected upon a solid
+platform of stone, and bearing a striking resemblance to the oldest
+Greek temples, like those of Aegina and Paestum. The portico of the
+Temple as rebuilt by Herod was one hundred and eighty feet high, and the
+Temple itself was entered by nine gates, thickly coated with silver and
+gold. The inner sanctuary was covered on all sides with plates of gold,
+and was dazzling to the eye. The various courts and porticos and palaces
+with which it was surrounded gave to it a very imposing effect.
+
+Architectural art in India was not so impressive and grand as in Egypt,
+and was directed chiefly to the erection of temples. Nor is it of very
+ancient date. There is no stone architecture now remaining in India,
+according to Sir James Fergusson, older than two and a half centuries
+before Christ; and this is in the form of Buddhist temples, generally
+traced to the great Asoka, who reigned from 272 B.C. to 236 B.C., and
+who established Buddhism as a state religion. There were doubtless
+magnificent buildings before his time, but they were of wood, and have
+all perished. We know, however, nothing about them.
+
+The Buddhist temples were generally excavated out of the solid rock, and
+only the façades were ornamented. These were not larger than ordinary
+modern parochial churches, and do not give the impression of
+extraordinary magnificence. Besides these rock-hewn temples in India
+there remain many examples of a kind of memorial monument called
+_stupas_, or _topes_. The earliest of these are single columns; but the
+later and more numerous are in the shape of cones or circular mounds,
+resembling domes, rarely exceeding one hundred feet in diameter. Around
+the apex of each was a balustrade, or some ornamental work, about six
+feet in diameter. These topes remind one of the Pantheon at Rome in
+general form, but were of much smaller size. They were built on a stone
+basement less than fifty feet in height, above which was the brickwork.
+In process of time they came to resemble pyramidal towers rather than
+rounded domes, and were profusely ornamented with carvings. The great
+peculiarity of all Indian architectural monuments is excessive
+ornamentation rather than beauty of proportion or grand effect.
+
+In course of time, however, Indian temples became more and more
+magnificent; and a Chinese traveller in the year 400 A.D. describes one
+in Gaudhava as four hundred and seventy feet high, decorated with every
+sort of precious substance. Its dome, as it appears in a bas-relief,
+must have rivalled that of St. Peter's at Rome; but no trace of it now
+remains. The topes of India, which were numerous, indicate that the
+Hindus were acquainted with the arch, both pointed and circular, which
+was not known to the Egyptians or the Greeks. The most important of
+these buildings, in which are preserved valuable relics, are found in
+the Punjab. They were erected about twenty years before Christ. In size,
+they are about one hundred and twenty-seven feet in diameter. Connected
+with the circular topes are found what are called _rails_, surrounding
+the topes, built in the form of rectangles, with heavy pillars. One of
+the most interesting of these was found to be two hundred and
+seventy-five feet long, having square pillars twenty-two feet in height,
+profusely carved with scenes from the life of Buddha, topped by capitals
+in the shape of elephants supporting a succession of horizontal stone
+beams, all decorated with a richness of carving unknown in any other
+country. The Amravati rail, one of the finest of the ancient monuments
+of India, is found to be one hundred and ninety-five by one hundred and
+sixty-five feet, having octagonal pillars ornamented with the most
+elaborate carvings.
+
+From an architectural point of view, the rails were surpassed by the
+_chaityas_, or temple-caves, in western India. These were cut in the
+solid rock. Some one thousand different specimens are to be found. The
+facades of these caves are perfect, generally in the form of an arch,
+executed in the rock with every variety of detail, and therefore
+imperishable without violence. The process of excavation extended
+through ten centuries from the time of Asoka; and the interiors as well
+as the façades were highly ornamented with sculptures. The temple-caves
+are seldom more than one hundred and fifty feet deep and fifty feet in
+width, and the roofs are supported by pillars like the interior of
+Gothic cathedrals, some of which are of beautiful proportions with
+elaborated capitals. Though these rock-hewn temples are no larger than
+ordinary Christian churches, they are very impressive from the richly
+decorated carvings; they were lighted from a single opening in the
+façade, sometimes in the shape of a horseshoe.
+
+Besides these chaityas, or temples, there are still more numerous
+_viharas_, or monasteries, found in India, of different dates, but none
+older than the third century before Christ. They show a central hall,
+surrounded on three sides by cells for the monks. On the fourth side is
+an open verandah; facing this is generally a shrine with an image of
+Buddha. These edifices are not imposing unless surrounded by galleries,
+as some were, supported by highly decorated pillars. The halls are
+constructed in several stories with heavy masonry, in the shape of
+pyramids adorned with the figures of men and animals. One of these halls
+in southern India had fifteen hundred cells. The most celebrated was
+the Nalanda monastery, founded in the first century by Nagarjuna, which
+accommodated ten thousand priests, and was enclosed by a wall measuring
+sixteen hundred feet by four hundred. It was to Central India what Mount
+Casino was to Italy, and Cluny was to France, in the Middle Ages,--the
+seat of learning and art.
+
+It was not until the Mohammedan conquest in India that architecture
+received a new impulse from the Saracenic influence. Then arose the
+mosques, minarets, and palaces which are a wonder for their
+magnificence, and in which are seen the influence of Greek art as well
+as that of India. There is an Oriental splendor in these palaces and
+mosques which has called out the admiration of critics, although it is
+different from those types of beauty which we are accustomed to praise.
+But these later edifices were erected in the Middle Ages, coeval with
+the cathedrals of Europe, and therefore do not properly come under the
+head of ancient art, in which the ancient Hindus, whether of Aryan or
+Turanian descent, did not particularly excel. It was in matters of
+religion and philosophy that the Hindus felt most interest, even as the
+ancient Jews thought more of theology than of art and science.
+
+Architecture, however, as the expression of genius and high
+civilization, was carried to perfection only by the Greeks, who excelled
+in so many things. It was among the ancient Dorians, who descended from
+the mountains of northern Greece eighty years after the fall of Troy,
+that architectural art worthy of the name first appeared. The Pelasgi
+erected Cyclopean structures fifteen hundred years before Christ, as
+seen in the massive walls of the Acropolis at Athens, constructed of
+huge blocks of hewn stone, and in the palaces of the princes of the
+heroic times. The lintel of the doorway of the Mycenaean treasury is
+composed of a single stone twenty-seven feet long and sixteen broad. But
+these edifices, which aimed at splendor and richness merely, were
+deficient in that simplicity and harmony which have given immortality to
+the temples of the Dorians. In this style of architecture everything was
+suitable to its object, and was grand and noble. The great thickness of
+the columns, the beautiful entablature, the ample proportion of the
+capital, the great horizontal lines of the architrave and cornice
+predominating over the vertical lines of the columns, the severity of
+geometrical forms produced for the most part by straight lines, gave an
+imposing simplicity to the Doric temple.
+
+How far the Greek architects were indebted to the Egyptian we cannot
+tell, for though columns are found amid the ruins of the Egyptian
+temples, they are of different shape from any made by the Greeks. In the
+structures of Thebes we find both the tumescent and the cylindrical
+columns, from which amalgamation might have been produced the Doric
+column. The Greeks seized on beauty wherever they found it, and improved
+upon it. The Doric column was not probably an entirely new creation, but
+shaped after models furnished by the most original of all the ancient
+nations, even the Egyptians. The Doric temples were uniform in plan. The
+columns were fluted, and were generally about six diameters in height;
+they diminished gradually upward from the base, with a slightly con
+vexed swelling; they were surmounted by capitals regularly proportioned
+according to their height. The entablature which the column supported
+was also of a certain number of diameters in height. So regular and
+perfect was the plan of the temple, that "if the dimensions of a single
+column and the proportion the entablature should bear to it were given
+to two individuals acquainted with the style, with directions to compose
+a temple, they would produce designs exactly similar in size,
+arrangement, and general proportions." The Doric order possessed a
+peculiar harmony, but taste and skill were nevertheless necessary in
+order to determine the number of diameters a column should have, and
+also the height of the entablature.
+
+The Doric was the favorite order of European Greece for one thousand
+years, and also of her colonies in Sicily and Magna Graecia. It was
+used exclusively until after the Macedonian conquest, and was chiefly
+applied to temples. The massive temples of Paestum, the colossal
+magnificence of the Sicilian ruins, and the more elegant proportions of
+the Athenian structures, like the Parthenon and Temple of Theseus, show
+the perfection of the Doric architecture. Although the general style of
+all the Doric temples is so uniform, hardly two temples were alike. The
+earlier Doric was more massive; the later was more elegant, and its
+edifices were rich in sculptured decorations. Nothing could surpass the
+beauty of a Doric temple in the time of Pericles. The stylobate, or
+general base upon which the columnar story stood, from two thirds to a
+whole diameter of a column in height, was built in three equal courses,
+which gradually receded upward and formed steps, as it were, of a grand
+platform. The column, simply set upon the stylobate, without base or
+pedestal, was from four to six diameters in height, with twenty flutes,
+having a capital of half a diameter. On this rested the entablature, two
+column-diameters in height, which was divided into architrave (lower
+mouldings), frieze (broad middle space), and cornice (upper mouldings).
+The great beauty of the temple was the portico in front,--a forest of
+columns supporting the triangular pediment, about a diameter and a half
+to the apex, making an angle at the base of about fourteen degrees.
+From the pediment projects the cornice, while in the apex and at the
+base of the flat three-cornered gable are sculptured ornaments,
+generally the figures of men or animals. The whole outline of columns
+supporting the entablature is graceful, while the variety of light and
+shade arising from the arrangement of mouldings and capitals produces a
+grand effect.
+
+The Parthenon, the most beautiful specimen of the Doric, has never been
+equalled, and it still stands august in its ruins, the glory of the old
+Acropolis and the pride of Athens. It was built of white Pentelic
+marble, and rested on a basement of limestone. It was two hundred and
+twenty-seven feet in length, one hundred and one in breadth, and
+sixty-five in height, surrounded with forty-eight fluted columns, six
+feet and two inches at the base and thirty-four feet in height, while
+within the peristyle, at either end, was an interior range of columns
+standing before the end of the cella. The frieze and the pediment were
+elaborately ornamented with reliefs and statues, and the cella, within
+and without, was adorned with the choicest sculptures of Phidias, The
+remains of the exquisite sculptures of the pediment and the frieze were
+in the early part of this century brought from Greece by Lord Elgin,
+purchased by the English government, and placed in the British Museum,
+where, preserved from further dilapidation, they stand as indisputable
+evidence of the perfection of Greek art. The grandest adornment of the
+temple was the colossal statue of Minerva in the eastern apartment of
+the cella, forty feet in height, composed of gold and ivory; the inner
+walls of the chamber were decorated with paintings, and the whole temple
+was a repository of countless treasure. But the Parthenon, so regular to
+the eye with its vertical, oblique, and horizontal lines, was curved in
+every line, with the exception of the gable,--with its entablature,
+architrave, frieze, and cornice, together with the basement, all arched
+upwards; and even the columns had a slight convexity of vertical line,
+amounting to 1/550 of the entire height of shaft, though so slightly as
+not to be perceptible. These curved lines gave to the structure a
+peculiar grace which cannot be imitated, as well as an effect
+of solidity.
+
+Nearly coeval with the Doric was the Ionic order, invented by the
+Asiatic Greeks, still more graceful, though not so imposing. The
+Acropolis is a perfect example of this order. The column is nine
+diameters in height, with a base, while the capital is more ornamented
+than the Doric. The shaft is fluted with twenty-four flutes and
+alternate fillets (flat longitudinal ridges), and the fillet is about a
+quarter the width of the flute. The pediment is flatter than that of
+the Doric order, and more elaborate. The great distinction of the Ionic
+column is a base, and a capital formed with volutes (spiral scrolls),
+the shaft also being more slender. Vitruvius, the greatest authority
+among the ancients in architecture, says that "the Greeks, in inventing
+these two kinds of columns, imitated in the one the naked simplicity and
+dignity of man, and in the other the delicacy and ornaments of woman;
+the base of the Ionic was the imitation of sandals, and the volutes of
+ringlets." The discoveries of many of the Ionic ornamentations among the
+remains of Assyrian architecture indicate the Oriental source of the
+Ionic ideas, just as the Doric style seems to have originated in Egypt.
+The artistic Greeks, however, always simplified and refined upon
+their masters.
+
+The Corinthian order exhibits a still greater refinement and elegance
+than the other two, and was introduced toward the end of the
+Peloponnesian War. Its peculiarity consists in columns with foliated
+capitals modelled after the acanthus leaf, and still greater height,
+about ten diameters, surmounted with a more ornamented entablature. Of
+this order the most famous temple in Greece was that of Minerva at
+Tegea, built by Scopas of Paros, but destroyed by fire four hundred
+years before Christ.
+
+Nothing more distinguished Greek architecture than the variety, the
+grace, and the beauty of the mouldings, generally in eccentric curves.
+The general outline of the moulding is a gracefully flowing cyma, or
+wave, concave at one end and convex at the other, like an Italic _f_,
+the concavity and convexity being exactly in the same curve, according
+to the line of beauty which Hogarth describes.
+
+The most beautiful application of Greek architecture was in the temples,
+which were very numerous and of extraordinary grandeur, long before the
+Persian War. Their entrance was always from the west or the east. They
+were built either in an oblong or round form, and were mostly adorned
+with columns. Those of an oblong form had columns either in the front
+alone, or in the eastern and western fronts, or on all the four sides.
+They generally had porticos attached to them, and were without windows,
+receiving their light from the door or from above. The friezes were
+adorned with various sculptures, as were sometimes the pediments, and no
+expense was spared upon them. The most important part of the temple was
+the cell (_cella,_ or temple proper, a square chamber), in which the
+statue of the deity was kept, generally surrounded with a balustrade. In
+front of the cella was the vestibule, and in the rear or back a chamber
+in which the treasures of the temple were kept. Names were applied to
+the temples as well as to the porticos, according to the number of
+columns in the portico at either end of the temple,--such as the
+tetrastyle (four columns in front), or hexastyle (when there were six).
+There were never more than ten columns across the front. The Parthenon
+had eight, but six was the usual number. It was the rule to have twice
+as many columns along the sides as in front. Some of the temples had
+double rows of columns on all sides, like that of Diana at Ephesus and
+of Quirinus at Rome. The distance between the columns varied from one
+diameter and a half to four diameters. About five eighths of a Doric
+temple were occupied by the cella, and three eighths by the portico.
+
+That which gives to the Greek temples so much simplicity and
+harmony,--the great elements of beauty in architecture,--is the simple
+outline in parallelogrammic and pyramidal forms, in which the lines are
+uninterrupted through their entire length. This simplicity and harmony
+are more apparent in the Doric than in any of the other orders, but
+pertain to all the Grecian temples of which we have knowledge. The Ionic
+and Corinthian, or the voluted and foliated orders, do not possess that
+severe harmony which pervades the Doric; but the more beautiful
+compositions are so consummate that they will ever be taken as models
+of study.
+
+There is now no doubt that the exteriors of the Grecian temples were
+ornamented in color,--perhaps with historical pictures, etc.,--although
+as the traces have mostly disappeared it is impossible to know the
+extent or mode of decoration. It has been thought that the mouldings
+also may have been gilded or colored, and that the background of the
+sculptures had some flat color laid on as a relief to the raised
+figures. We may be sure, however it was done, that the effect was not
+gaudy or crude, but restrained within the limits of refinement and good
+taste by the infallible artistic instinct of those masters of the
+beautiful.
+
+It is not the magnitude of the Greek temples and other works of art
+which most impresses us. It is not for this that they are important
+models; it is not for this that they are copied and reproduced in all
+the modern nations of Europe. They were generally small compared with
+the temples of Egypt, and with the vast dimensions of Roman
+amphitheatres; only three or four would compare in size with a Gothic
+cathedral,--the Parthenon, the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens, and
+the Temple of Diana at Ephesus; even the Pantheon at Rome is small,
+compared with the later monuments of the Caesars. The traveller is
+always disappointed in contemplating the ruins of Greek buildings so far
+as size is concerned. But it is their matchless proportions, their
+severe symmetry, the grandeur of effect, the undying beauty, the
+graceful form which impress us, and make us feel that they are perfect.
+By the side of the Colosseum they are insignificant in magnitude; they
+do not cover acres, like the baths of Caracalla. Yet who has copied the
+Flavian amphitheatre; who erects an edifice after the style of the
+Thermae? All artists, however, copy the Parthenon. That, and not the
+colossal monuments of the Caesars, reappears in the capitals of Europe,
+and stimulates the genius of a Michael Angelo or a Christopher Wren.
+
+The flourishing period of Greek architecture was during the period from
+Pericles to Alexander,--one hundred and thirteen years. The Macedonian
+conquest introduced more magnificence and less simplicity. The Roman
+conquest accelerated the decline in severe taste, when different orders
+began to be used indiscriminately.
+
+In this state the art passed into the hands of the masters of the world,
+and they inaugurated a new era in architecture. The art was still
+essentially Greek, although the Romans derived their first knowledge
+from the Etruscans. The Cloaca Maxima, or Great Sewer, was built during
+the reign of the second Tarquin,--the grandest monument of the reign of
+the kings. It is not probable that temples and other public buildings in
+Rome were either beautiful or magnificent until the conquest of Greece,
+after which Grecian architects were employed. The Romans adopted the
+Corinthian style, which they made even more ornamental; and by the
+successful combination of the Etruscan arch with the Grecian column they
+laid the foundation of a new and original style, susceptible of great
+variety and magnificence. They entered into architecture with the
+enthusiasm of their teachers, but in their passion for novelty lost
+sight of the simplicity which is the great fascination of a Doric
+temple. Says Memes:--
+
+"They [the Romans] deemed that lightness and grace were to be attained
+not so much by proportion between the vertical and the horizontal as by
+the comparative slenderness of the former. Hence we see a poverty in
+Roman architecture in the midst of profuse ornament. The great error was
+a constant aim to lessen the diameter while they increased the elevation
+of the columns. Hence the massive simplicity and severe grandeur of the
+ancient Doric disappear in the Roman, the characteristics of the order
+being frittered down into a multiplicity of minute details."
+
+When the Romans used the Doric at all, they used a base for the column,
+which was never done at Athens. They also altered the Doric capital,
+which cannot be improved. Again, most of the Grecian Doric temples were
+peripteral,--surrounded with pillars on all the sides. But the Romans
+built with porticos on one front only, which had a greater projection
+than the Grecian. They generally were projected three columns, while the
+Greek portico had usually but a single row. Many of the Roman temples
+are circular, like the Pantheon, which has a portico of eight columns
+projected to the depth of three. Nor did the Romans construct hypaethral
+or uncovered temples with internal columns, like the Greeks. The
+Pantheon is an exception, since the dome has an open eye; and one great
+ornament of this beautiful structure is in the arrangement of internal
+columns placed in the front of niches, composed of antae, or pier-formed
+ends of walls, to carry an entablature round under an attic on which the
+cupola rests. The Romans also adopted coupled columns, broken and
+recessed entablatures, and pedestals, which are considered blemishes.
+They again paid more attention to the interior than to the exterior
+decoration of their palaces and baths,--as we may infer from the ruins
+of Hadrian's villa at Tivoli and the excavations of Pompeii.
+
+The pediments (roof-angles) used in Roman architectural works are
+steeper than those made by the Greeks, varying in inclination from
+eighteen to twenty-five degrees, instead of fourteen. The mouldings are
+the same as the Grecian in general form, although they differ from them
+in contour; they are less delicate and graceful, but were used in great
+profusion. Roman architecture is overdone with ornament, every moulding
+carved, and every straight surface sculptured with foliage or historical
+subjects in relief. The ornaments of the frieze consist of foliage and
+animals, with a variety of other things. The great exuberance of
+ornament is considered a defect, although when applied to some
+structures it is exceedingly beautiful. In the time of the first Caesars
+Roman architecture had, from the huge size of the buildings, a character
+of grandeur and magnificence. Columns and arches appeared in all the
+leading public buildings,--columns generally forming the external and
+arches the internal construction. Fabric after fabric arose on the ruins
+of others. The Flavii supplanted the edifices of Nero, which ministered
+to debauchery, by structures of public utility.
+
+The Romans invented no new principle in architecture, unless it be the
+arch, which was known, though not practically applied, by the Assyrians,
+Egyptians, and Greeks. The Romans were a practical and utilitarian
+people, and needed for their various structures greater economy of
+material than was compatible with large blocks of stone, especially for
+such as were carried to great altitudes. The arch supplied this want,
+and is perhaps the greatest invention ever made in architecture. No
+instance of its adoption occurs in the construction of Greek edifices
+before Greece became a part of the Roman empire. Its application dates
+back to the Cloaca Maxima, and may have been of Etrurian invention. Some
+maintain that Archimedes of Sicily was the inventor of the arch; but to
+whomsoever the glory of the invention is due, it is certain that the
+Romans were the first of European nations to make a practical
+application of its wonderful qualities. It enabled them to rear vast
+edifices with the humblest materials, to build bridges, aqueducts,
+sewers, amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, as well as temples and
+palaces. The merits of the arch have never been lost sight of by
+succeeding generations, and it is an essential element in the
+magnificent Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Its application
+extends to domes and cupolas, to floors and corridors and roofs, and to
+various other parts of buildings where economy of material and labor is
+desired. It was applied extensively to doorways and windows, and is an
+ornament as well as a utility. The most imposing forms of Roman
+architecture may be traced to a knowledge of the properties of the arch,
+and as brick was more extensively used than any other material, the arch
+was invaluable. The imperial palace on Mount Palatine, the Pantheon
+(except its portico and internal columns), the temples of Peace, of
+Venus and Rome, and of Minerva Medica, were of brick. So were the great
+baths of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian, the villa of Hadrian, the
+city walls, the villa of Mecaenas at Tivoli, and most of the palaces of
+the nobility,--although, like many of the temples, they were faced with
+stone. The Colosseum was of travertine, a cheap white limestone, and
+faced with marble. It was another custom to stucco the surface of brick
+walls, as favorable to decorations. In consequence of the invention of
+the arch, the Romans erected a greater variety of fine structures than
+either the Greeks or Egyptians, whose public edifices were chiefly
+confined to temples. The arch entered into almost every structure,
+public or private, and superseded the use of long stone-beams, which
+were necessary in the Grecian temples, as also of wooden timbers, in the
+use of which the Romans were not skilled, and which do not really
+pertain to architecture: an imposing edifice must always be constructed
+of stone or brick. The arch also enabled the Romans to economize in the
+use of costly marbles, of which they were very fond, as well as of other
+stones. Some of the finest columns were made of Egyptian granite, very
+highly polished.
+
+The extensive application of the arch doubtless led to the deterioration
+of the Grecian architecture, since it blended columns with arcades, and
+thus impaired the harmony which so peculiarly marked the temples of
+Athens and Corinth; and as taste became vitiated with the decline of
+the empire, monstrous combinations took place, which were a great fall
+from the simplicity of the Parthenon and the interior of the Pantheon.
+
+But whatever defects marked the age of Diocletian and Constantine, it
+can never be questioned that the Romans carried architecture to a
+perfection rarely attained in our times. They may not have equalled the
+severe simplicity of their teachers the Greeks, but they surpassed them
+in the richness of their decorations, and in all buildings designed for
+utility, especially in private houses and baths and theatres.
+
+The Romans do not seem to have used other than semicircular arches. The
+Gothic, or Pointed, or Christian architecture, as it has been variously
+called, was the creation of the Middle Ages, and arose almost
+simultaneously in Europe after the first Crusade, so that it would seem
+to be of Eastern origin. But it was a graft on the old Roman arch, in
+the curve of the ellipse rather than the circle.
+
+Aside from this invention of the arch, to which we are indebted for the
+most beautiful ecclesiastical structures ever erected, we owe everything
+in architecture to the Greeks and Romans. We have found out no new
+principles which were not known to Vitruvius. No one man was the
+inventor or creator of the wonderful structures which ornamented the
+cities of the ancient world. We have the names of great architects, who
+reared various and faultless models, but they all worked upon the same
+principles, and these can never be subverted; so that in architecture
+the ancients are our schoolmasters, whose genius we revere the more we
+are acquainted with their works. What more beautiful than one of those
+grand temples which the cultivated heathen Greeks erected to the worship
+of their unknown gods!--the graduated and receding stylobate as a base
+for the fluted columns, rising at regular distances in all their severe
+proportion and matchless harmony, with their richly carved capitals
+supporting an entablature of heavy stones, most elaborately moulded and
+ornamented with the figures of plants and animals; and rising above
+this, on the ends of the temple, or over a portico several columns deep,
+the pediment, covered with chiselled cornices, with still richer
+ornaments rising from the apices and at the feet, all carved in white
+marble, and then spread over an area larger than any modern churches,
+making a forest of columns to bear aloft those ponderous beams of stone,
+without anything tending to break the continuity of horizontal lines, by
+which the harmony and simplicity of the whole are regulated! So
+accurately squared and nicely adjusted were the stones and pillars of
+which these temples were composed, that there was scarcely need even of
+cement. Without noise or confusion or sound of hammers did those
+temples rise, since all their parts were cut and carved in the distant
+quarries, and with mathematical precision. And within the cella, nearly
+concealed by surrounding columns, were the statues of the gods, and the
+altars on which incense was offered, or sacrifices made. In every part,
+interior and exterior, do we see a matchless proportion and beauty,
+whether in the shaft or the capital or the frieze or the pilaster or the
+pediment or the cornices, or even the mouldings,--everywhere grace and
+harmony, which grow upon the mind the more they are contemplated. The
+greatest evidence of the matchless creative genius displayed in those
+architectural wonders is that after two thousand years, and with all the
+inventions of Roman and modern artists, no improvement has been made;
+and those edifices which are the admiration of our own times are deemed
+beautiful as they approximate the ancient models, which will forever
+remain objects of imitation. No science can make two and two other than
+four; no art can make a Doric temple different from the Parthenon
+without departing from the settled principles of beauty and proportion
+which all ages have indorsed. Such were the Greeks and Romans in an art
+which is one of the greatest indices of material civilization, and which
+by them was derived from geometrical forms, or the imitation of Nature.
+
+The genius displayed by the ancients in sculpture is even more
+remarkable than their skill in architecture. Sculpture was carried to
+perfection only by the Greeks; but they did not originate the art, since
+we read of sculptured images from the remotest antiquity. The earliest
+names of sculptors are furnished by the Old Testament. Assyria and Egypt
+are full of relics to show how early this art was cultivated. It was not
+carried to perfection as early, probably, as architecture; but rude
+images of gods, carved in wood, are as old as the history of idolatry.
+The history of sculpture is in fact identified with that of idols. The
+Egyptians were probably the first who made any considerable advances in
+the execution of statues. Those which remain are rude, simple, uniform,
+without beauty or grace (except a certain serenity of facial expression
+which seems to pervade all their portraiture), but colossal and grand.
+Nearly two thousand years before Christ the walls of Thebes were
+ornamented with sculptured figures, even as the gates of Babylon were
+made of sculptured bronze. The dimensions of Egyptian colossal figures
+surpass those of any other nation. The sitting statues of Memnon at
+Thebes are fifty feet in height, and the Sphinx is twenty-five,--all of
+granite. The number of colossal statues was almost incredible. The
+sculptures found among the ruins of Karnak must have been made nearly
+four thousand years ago. They exhibit great simplicity of design, but
+have not much variety of expression. They are generally carved from the
+hardest stones, and finished so nicely that we infer that the Egyptians
+were acquainted with the art of hardening metals for their tools to a
+degree not known in our times. But we see no ideal grandeur among any of
+the remains of Egyptian sculpture; however symmetrical or colossal,
+there is no diversity of expression, no trace of emotion, no
+intellectual force,--everything is calm, impassive, imperturbable. It
+was not until sculpture came into the hands of the Greeks that any
+remarkable excellence in grace of form or expression of face was
+reached. But the progress of development was slow. The earliest carvings
+were rude wooden images of the gods, and more than a thousand years
+elapsed before the great masters were produced whose works marked the
+age of Pericles.
+
+It is not my object to give a history of the development of the plastic
+art, but to show the great excellence it attained in the hands of
+immortal sculptors.
+
+The Greeks had an intuitive perception of the beautiful, and to this
+great national trait we ascribe the wonderful progress which sculpture
+made. Nature was most carefully studied by the Greek artists, and that
+which was most beautiful in Nature became the object of their imitation.
+They even attained to an ideal excellence, since they combined in a
+single statue what could not be found in a single individual,--as Zeuxis
+is said to have studied the beautiful forms of seven virgins of Crotona
+in order to paint his famous picture of Venus. Great as was the beauty
+of Phryne or Aspasia or Lais, yet no one of them could have served for a
+perfect model; and it required a great sensibility to beauty in order to
+select and idealize what was most perfect in the human figure. Beauty
+was adored in Greece, and every means were used to perfect it,
+especially beauty of form, which is the characteristic excellence of
+Grecian statuary. The gymnasia were universally frequented; and the
+great prizes of the games, bestowed for feats of strength and agility,
+were regarded as the highest honors which men could receive,--the
+subject of the poet's ode and the people's admiration. Statues of the
+victors perpetuated their fame and improved the sculptor's art. From the
+study of these statues were produced those great creations which all
+subsequent ages have admired; and from the application of the principles
+seen in these forms we owe the perpetuation of the ideas of grace and
+beauty such as no other people besides the Greeks had ever discovered,
+or indeed scarcely appreciated. The sculpture of the human figure became
+a noble object of ambition in Greece, and was most munificently
+rewarded. Great artists arose, whose works adorned the temples of Greece
+so long as she preserved her independence, and when that was lost, her
+priceless productions were scattered over Asia and Europe. The Romans
+especially seized what was most prized, whether or not they could tell
+what was most perfect. Greece lived in her marble statues more than in
+her government or laws; and when we remember the estimation in which
+sculpture was held among the Greeks, the great prices paid for
+masterpieces, the care and attention with which they were guarded and
+preserved, and the innumerable works which were produced, filling all
+the public buildings, especially consecrated places, and even open
+spaces and the houses of the rich and great, calling from all classes
+admiration and praise,--we cannot think it likely that so great
+perfection will ever be reached again in those figures which are
+designed to represent beauty of form. Even the comparatively few statues
+which have survived the wars and violence of two thousand years,
+convince us that the moderns can only imitate; they can produce no
+creations equal to those by Athenian artists. "No mechanical copying of
+Greek statues, however skilful the copyist, can ever secure for modern
+sculpture the same noble and effective character it possessed among the
+Greeks, for the simple reason that the imitation, close as may be the
+resemblance, is but the result of the eye and hand, while the original
+is the expression of a true and deeply felt sentiment. Art was not
+sustained by the patronage of a few who affect to have what is called
+_taste_; in Greece the artist, having a common feeling for the beautiful
+with his countrymen, produced his works for the public, which were
+erected in places of honor and dedicated in temples of the gods."
+
+It was not until the Persian wars awakened among the Greeks the
+slumbering consciousness of national power, and Athens became the
+central point of Grecian civilization, that sculpture, like architecture
+and painting, reached its culminating point of excellence under Phidias
+and his contemporaries. Great artists had previously made themselves
+famous, like Miron, Polycletus, and Ageladas; but the great riches which
+flowed into Athens at this time gave a peculiar stimulus to art,
+especially under the encouragement of such a ruler as Pericles, whose
+age was the golden era of Grecian history.
+
+Pheidias, or Phidias, was to sculpture what Aeschylus was to tragic
+poetry,--the representative of the sublime and grand. He was born four
+hundred and eighty-four years before Christ, and was the pupil of
+Ageladas. He stands at the head of the ancient sculptors, not from what
+_we_ know of him, for his masterpieces have perished, but from the
+estimation in which he was held by the greatest critics of antiquity. It
+was to him that Pericles intrusted the adornment of the Parthenon, and
+the numerous and beautiful sculptures of the frieze and the pediment
+were the work of artists whom he directed. His great work in that
+wonderful edifice was the statue of the goddess Minerva herself, made of
+gold and ivory, forty feet in height, standing victorious, with a spear
+in her left hand and an image of victory in her right, with helmet on
+her head, and her shield resting by her side. The cost of this statue
+may be estimated when we consider that the gold alone used upon it was
+valued at forty-four talents, equal to five hundred thousand dollars of
+our money,--an immense sum in that age. Some critics suppose that this
+statue was overloaded with ornament, but all antiquity was unanimous in
+its admiration. The exactness and finish of detail were as remarkable as
+the grandeur of the proportions. Another of the famous works of Phidias
+was a colossal bronze statue of Athene Promachos, sixty feet in height,
+on the Acropolis between the Propylaea and the Parthenon. But both of
+these yielded to the colossal statue of Zeus in his great temple at
+Olympia, represented in a sitting posture, forty feet high, on a
+pedestal of twenty feet. The god was seated on a throne. Ebony, gold,
+ivory, and precious stones formed, with a multitude of sculptured and
+painted figures, the wonderful composition of this throne. In this his
+greatest work the artist sought to embody the idea of majesty and
+repose,--of a supreme deity no longer engaged in war with Titans and
+Giants, but enthroned as a conqueror, ruling with a nod the subject
+world, and giving his blessing to those victories which gave glory to
+the Greeks. So famous was this statue, which was regarded as the
+masterpiece of Grecian art, that it was considered a calamity to die
+without having seen it; and this served for a model for all subsequent
+representations of majesty and power in repose among the ancients. It
+was removed to Constantinople by Theodosius I., and was destroyed by
+fire in the year 475 A.D. Phidias executed various other famous works,
+which have perished; but even those that were executed under his
+superintendence which have come down to our times,--like the statues
+which ornamented the pediment of the Parthenon,--are among the finest
+specimens of art that exist, and exhibit the most graceful and
+appropriate forms which could have been selected, uniting grandeur with
+simplicity, and beauty with accuracy of anatomical structure. His
+distinguishing excellence was ideal beauty, and that of the
+sublimest order.
+
+Of all the wonders and mysteries of ancient art the colossal statues of
+ivory and gold were perhaps the most remarkable, and the difficulty of
+executing them has been set forth by the ablest of modern critics, like
+Winckelmann, Heyne, and De Quincey. "The grandeur of their dimensions,
+the perfection of their workmanship, the richness of their materials,
+their majesty, beauty, and ideal truth, the splendor of the architecture
+and pictorial decoration with which they were associated,--all conspired
+to impress the beholder with wonder and awe, and induce a belief of the
+actual presence of the god."
+
+After the Peloponnesian War a new school of art arose in Athens, which
+appealed more to the passions. Of this school was Praxiteles, who aimed
+to please without seeking to elevate or instruct. No one has probably
+ever surpassed him in execution. He wrought in bronze and marble, and
+was one of the artists who adorned the Mausoleum of Artemisia. Without
+attempting the sublime impersonation of the deity, in which Phidias
+excelled, he was unsurpassed in the softer graces and beauties of the
+human form, especially in female figures. His most famous work was an
+undraped statue of Venus, for his native town of Cnidus, which was so
+remarkable that people flocked from all parts of Greece to see it. He
+did not aim at ideal majesty so much as at ideal gracefulness; his works
+were formed from the most beautiful living models, and hence expressed
+only the ideal of sensuous charms. It is probable that the Venus de
+Medici of Cleomenes was a mere copy of the Aphrodite of Praxiteles,
+which was so highly extolled by, the ancient authors; it was of Parian
+marble, and modelled from the celebrated Phryne. His statues of Dionysus
+also expressed the most consummate physical beauty, representing the god
+as a beautiful youth crowned with ivy, and expressing tender and dreamy
+emotions. Praxiteles sculptured several figures of Eros, or the god of
+love, of which that at Thespiae attracted visitors to the city in the
+time of Cicero. It was subsequently carried to Rome, and perished by a
+conflagration in the time of Titus. One of the most celebrated statues
+of this artist was an Apollo, many copies of which still exist. His
+works were very numerous, but chiefly from the circle of Dionysus,
+Aphrodite, and Eros, in which adoration for corporeal attractions is the
+most marked peculiarity, and for which the artist was fitted by his
+dissolute life.
+
+Scopas was the contemporary of Praxiteles, and was the author of the
+celebrated group of Niobe, which is one of the chief ornaments of the
+gallery of sculpture at Florence. He flourished about three hundred and
+fifty years before Christ, and wrought chiefly in marble. He was
+employed in decorating the Mausoleum which Artemisia erected to her
+husband,--one of the wonders of the world. His masterpiece is said to
+have been a group representing Achilles conducted to the island of Leuce
+by the divinities of the sea, which ornamented the shrine of Domitius in
+the Flaminian Circus. In this, tender grace, heroic grandeur, daring
+power, and luxurious fulness of life were combined with wonderful
+harmony. Like the other great artists of this school, Scopas exhibited
+the grandeur and sublimity for which Phidias was celebrated, but a
+greater refinement and luxury, as well as skill in the use of drapery.
+
+Sculpture in Greece culminated, as an art, in Lysippus, who worked
+chiefly in bronze. He is said to have executed fifteen hundred statues,
+and was much esteemed by Alexander the Great, by whom he was extensively
+patronized. He represented men not as they were, but as they appeared to
+be; and if he exaggerated, he displayed great energy of action. He aimed
+to idealize merely human beauty, and his imitation of Nature was carried
+out in the minutest details. None of his works are extant; but as he
+alone was permitted to make the statue of Alexander, we infer that he
+had no equals. The Emperor Tiberius transferred one of his statues (that
+of an athlete) from the baths of Agrippa to his own chamber, which so
+incensed the people that he was obliged to restore it. His favorite
+subject was Hercules, and a colossal statue of this god was carried to
+Rome by Fabius Maximus, when he took Tarentum, and afterward was
+transferred to Constantinople; the Farnese Hercules and the Belvidere
+Torso are probably copies of this work. He left many eminent scholars,
+among whom were Chares (who executed the famous Colossus of Rhodes),
+Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus who sculptured the group of the
+"Laocoön." The Rhodian school was the immediate offshoot from the school
+of Lysippus at Sicyon; and from this small island of Rhodes the Romans,
+when they conquered it, carried away three thousand statues. The
+Colossus was one of the wonders of the world (seventy cubits in height);
+and the Laocoön (the group of the Trojan hero and his two sons encoiled
+by serpents) is a perfect miracle of art, in which pathos is exhibited
+in the highest degree ever attained in sculpture. It was discovered in
+1506, near the baths of Titus, and is one of the choicest remains of
+ancient plastic art.
+
+The great artists of antiquity did not confine themselves to the
+representation of man, but also carved animals with exceeding accuracy
+and beauty. Nicias was famous for his dogs, Myron for his cows, and
+Lysippus for his horses. Praxiteles composed his celebrated lion after a
+living animal. "The horses of the frieze of the Elgin Marbles," says
+Flaxman, "appear to live and move; to roll their eyes, to gallop,
+prance, and curvet; the veins of their faces and legs seem distended
+with circulation. The beholder is charmed with the deer-like lightness
+and elegance of their make; and although the relief is not above an inch
+from the background, and they are so much smaller than nature, we can
+scarcely suffer reason to persuade us they are not alive." The Greeks
+also carved gems, cameos, medals, and vases, with unapproachable
+excellence. Very few specimens have come down to our times, but those
+which we possess show great beauty both in design and execution.
+
+Grecian statuary began with ideal representations of the deities, and
+was carried to the greatest perfection by Phidias in his statues of
+Jupiter and Minerva. Then succeeded the school of Praxiteles, in which
+the figures of gods and goddesses were still represented, but in mortal
+forms. The school of Lysippus was famous for the statues of celebrated
+men, especially in cities where Macedonian rulers resided. Artists were
+expected henceforth to glorify kings and powerful nobles and rulers by
+portrait statues. From this period, however, plastic art degenerated;
+nor were works of original genius produced, but rather copies or
+varieties from the three great schools to which allusion has been made.
+Sculpture may have multiplied, but not new creations; although some
+imitations of great merit were produced, like the Hermaphrodite, the
+Torso, the Farnese Hercules, and the Fighting Gladiator. When Corinth
+was sacked by Mummius, some of the finest statues of Greece were carried
+to Rome; and after the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, the Greek
+artists emigrated to Italy. The fall of Syracuse introduced many works
+of priceless value into Rome; but it was from Athens, Delphi, Corinth,
+Elis, and other great centres of art that the richest treasures were
+brought. Greece was despoiled to ornament Italy.
+
+The Romans did not create a school of sculpture. They borrowed wholly
+from the Greeks, yet made, especially in the time of Hadrian, many
+beautiful statues. They were fond of this art, and all eminent men had
+statues erected to their memory. The busts of emperors were found in
+every great city, and Rome was filled with statues. The monuments of the
+Romans were even more numerous than those of the Greeks, and among them
+some admirable portraits are found. These sculptures did not express
+that consummation of beauty and grace, of refinement and sentiment,
+which marked the Greeks; but the imitations were good. Art had reached
+its perfection under Lysippus; there was nothing more to learn. Genius
+in that department could soar no higher. It will never rise to
+loftier heights.
+
+It is noteworthy that the purest forms of Grecian art arose in its
+earlier stages. From a moral point of view, sculpture declined from the
+time of Phidias. It was prostituted at Rome under the emperors. The
+specimens which have often been found among the ruins of ancient baths
+make us blush for human nature. The skill of execution did not decline
+for several centuries; but the lofty ideal was lost sight of, and gross
+appeals to human passions were made by those who sought to please
+corrupt leaders of society in an effeminate age. The turgidity and
+luxuriance of art gradually passed into tameness and poverty. The
+reliefs on the Arch of Constantine are rude and clumsy compared with
+those on the column of Marcus Aurelius.
+
+It is not my purpose to describe the decline of art, or enumerate the
+names of the celebrated masters who exalted sculpture in the palmy days
+of Pericles or even Alexander. I simply speak of sculpture as an art
+which reached a great perfection among the Greeks and Romans, as we have
+a right to infer from the specimens that have been preserved. How many
+more must have perished, we may infer from the criticisms of the ancient
+authors. The finest productions of our own age are in a measure
+reproductions; they cannot be called creations, like the statue of the
+Olympian Jove. Even the Moses of Michael Angelo is a Grecian god, and
+Powers's Greek Slave is a copy of an ancient Venus. The very tints which
+have been admired in some of the works of modern sculptors are borrowed
+from Praxiteles, who succeeded in giving to his statues an appearance of
+living flesh. The Museum of the Vatican alone contains several thousand
+specimens of ancient sculpture which have been found among the débris of
+former magnificence, many of which are the productions of Greek artists
+transported to Rome. Among them are antique copies of the Cupid and the
+Faun of Praxiteles, the statue of Demosthenes, the Minerva Medica, the
+Athlete of Lysippus, the Torso Belvedere sculptured by Apollonius, the
+Belvidere Antinous, of faultless anatomy and a study for Domenichino,
+the Laocoön, so panegyrized by Pliny, the Apollo Belvedere, the work of
+Agasias of Ephesus, the Sleeping Ariadne, with numerous other statues of
+gods and goddesses, emperors, philosophers, poets, and statesmen of
+antiquity. The Dying Gladiator, which ornaments the capitol, is alone a
+magnificent proof of the perfection to which sculpture was carried
+centuries after the art had culminated at Athens. And these are only a
+few which stand out among the twenty thousand recovered statues that now
+embellish Italy, to say nothing of those that are scattered over Europe.
+We have the names of hundreds of artists who were famous in their day.
+Not merely the figures of men are chiselled, but of animals and plants.
+Nature in all her forms was imitated; and not merely Nature, but the
+dresses of the ancients are perpetuated in marble. No modern sculptor
+has equalled, in delicacy of finish, the draperies of those ancient
+statues as they appear to us even after the exposure and accidents of
+two thousand years. No one, after a careful study of the museums of
+Europe, can question that of all the nations who have claimed to be
+civilized, the ancient Greeks and Romans deserve a proud pre-eminence in
+an art which is still regarded as among the highest triumphs of human
+genius. All these matchless productions of antiquity are the result of
+native genius alone, without the aid of Christian ideas. Nor with the
+aid of Christianity are we sure that any nation will ever soar to
+loftier heights than did the Greeks in that proud realm which was
+consecrated to Paganism.
+
+We are not so certain in regard to the excellence of the ancients in the
+art of painting as we are in regard to sculpture and architecture, since
+so few specimens of painting have been preserved. We have only the
+testimony of the ancients themselves; and as they had so severe a taste
+and so great a susceptibility to beauty in all its forms, we cannot
+suppose that their notions were crude in this great art which the
+moderns have carried to such great perfection. In this art the moderns
+doubtless excel, especially in perspective and drawing, and light and
+shade. No age, we fancy, can surpass Italy in the fifteenth and
+sixteenth centuries, when the genius of Raphael, Correggio, and
+Domenichino blazed with such wonderful brilliancy.
+
+Painting in some form, however, is very ancient, though not so ancient
+as are the temples of the gods and the statues that were erected to
+their worship. It arose with the susceptibility to beauty of form and
+color, and with the view of conveying thoughts and emotions of the soul
+by imitation of their outward expression. The walls of Babylon were
+painted after Nature with representations of different species of
+animals and of combats between them and man. Semiramis was represented
+as on horseback, striking a leopard with a dart, and her husband Ninus
+as wounding a lion. Ezekiel describes various idols and beasts portrayed
+upon the walls, and even princes painted in vermilion, with girdles
+around their loins. In ages almost fabulous there were some rude
+attempts in this art, which probably arose from the coloring of statues
+and reliefs. The wooden chests of Egyptian mummies are covered with
+painted and hieroglyphic presentations of religious subjects; but the
+colors were laid without regard to light and shade. The Egyptians did
+not seek to represent the passions and emotions which agitate the soul,
+but rather to authenticate events and actions; and hence their
+paintings, like hieroglyphics, are but inscriptions. It was their great
+festivals and religious rites which they sought to perpetuate, not ideas
+of beauty or of grace. Thus their paintings abound with dismembered
+animals, plants, and flowers, with censers, entrails,--whatever was used
+in their religious worship. In Greece also the original painting
+consisted in coloring statues and reliefs of wood and clay. At Corinth,
+painting was early united with the fabrication of vases, on which were
+rudely painted figures of men and animals. Among the Etruscans, before
+Rome was founded, it is said there were beautiful paintings, and it is
+probable that these people were advanced in art before the Greeks. There
+were paintings in some of the old Etruscan cities which the Roman
+emperors wished to remove, so much admired were they even in the days of
+the greatest splendor. The ancient Etruscan vases are famous for designs
+which have never been exceeded in purity of form, but it is probable
+that these were copied from the Greeks.
+
+Whether the Greeks or the Etruscans were the first to paint, however,
+the art was certainly carried to the greatest perfection among the
+former. The development of it was, like all arts, very gradual. It
+probably began by drawing the outline of a shadow, without intermediate
+markings; the next step was the complete outline with the inner
+markings,--such as are represented on the ancient vases, or like the
+designs of Flaxman. They were originally practised on a white ground;
+then light and shade were introduced, and then the application of colors
+in accordance with Nature. We read of a great painting by Bularchus, of
+the battle of Magnete, purchased by a king of Lydia seven hundred and
+eighteen years before Christ. As the subject was a battle, it must have
+represented the movement of figures, although we know nothing of the
+coloring or of the real excellence of the work, except that the artist
+was paid munificently. Cimon of Cleona is the first great name connected
+with the art in Greece. He is praised by Pliny, to whom we owe the
+history of ancient painting more than to any other author. Cimon was not
+satisfied with drawing simply the outlines of his figures, such as we
+see in the oldest painted vases, but he also represented limbs, and
+folds of garments. He invented the art of foreshortening, or the various
+representations of the diminution of the length of figures as they
+appear when looked at obliquely; and hence was the first painter of
+perspective. He first made muscular articulations, indicated the veins,
+and gave natural folds to drapery.
+
+A much greater painter than he was Polygnotus of Thasos, the
+contemporary of Phidias, who came to Athens about the year 463
+B.C.,--one of the greatest geniuses of any age, and one of the most
+magnanimous, who had the good fortune to live in an age of exceeding
+intellectual activity. He painted on panels, which were afterward let
+into the walls, being employed on the public buildings of Athens, and on
+the great temple of Delphi, the hall of which he painted gratuitously.
+He also decorated the Propylaea, which was erected under the
+superintendence of Phidias. The pictures of Polygnotus had nothing of
+that elaborate grouping, aided by the powers of perspective, so much
+admired in modern art. His greatness lay in statuesque painting, which
+he brought nearly to perfection by ideal expression, accurate drawing,
+and improved coloring. He used but few colors, and softened the rigidity
+of his predecessors by making the mouth of beauty smile. He gave great
+expression to the face and figure, and his pictures were models of
+excellence for the beauty of the eyebrows, the blush upon the cheeks,
+and the gracefulness of the draperies. He strove, like Phidias, to
+express character in repose. He imitated the personages and the subjects
+of the old mythology, and treated them in an epic spirit, his subjects
+being almost invariably taken from Homer and the Epic cycle.
+
+Among the works of Polygnotus, as mentioned by Pliny, are his paintings
+in the Temple at Delphi, in the Propylaea of the Acropolis, in the
+Temple of Theseus, and in the Temple of the Dioscuri at Athens. He
+painted in a truly religious spirit, and upon symmetrical principles,
+with great grandeur and freedom, resembling Michael Angelo more than any
+other modern artist.
+
+The use of oil was unknown to the ancients. The artists painted upon
+wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, but not upon canvas, which was
+not used till the time of Nero. They painted upon tablets or panels, and
+not upon the walls,--the panels being afterward framed and encased in
+the walls. The stylus, or cestrum, used in drawing and for spreading the
+wax colors was pointed on one end and flat on the other, and generally
+made of metal. Wax was prepared by purifying and bleaching, and then
+mixed with colors. When painting was practised in watercolors, glue was
+used with the white of an egg or with gums; but wax and resins were also
+worked with water, with certain preparations. This latter mode was
+called encaustic, and was, according to Plutarch, the most durable of
+all methods. It was not generally adopted till the time of Alexander the
+Great. Wax was a most essential ingredient, since it prevented the
+colors from cracking. Encaustic painting was practised both with the
+cestrum and the pencil, and the colors were also burned in.
+
+Fresco, or water-color, on fresh plaster, was used for coloring walls,
+which were divided into compartments or panels. The composition of the
+stucco, and the method of preparing the walls for painting, is described
+by the ancient writers: "They first covered the walls with a layer of
+ordinary plaster, over which, when dry, were successively added three
+other layers of a finer quality, mixed with sand. Above these were
+placed three layers of a composition of chalk and marble-dust, the upper
+one being laid on before the under one was dry; by which process the
+different layers were so bound together that the whole mass formed one
+beautiful and solid slab, resembling marble, and was capable of being
+detached from the wall and transported in a wooden frame to any
+distance. The colors were applied when the composition was still wet.
+The fresco wall, when painted, was covered with an encaustic varnish,
+both to heighten the color and to preserve it from the effects of the
+sun or the weather; but this process required so much care, and was
+attended with so much expense, that it was used only in the better
+houses and palaces." The later discoveries at Pompeii show the same
+correctness of design in painting as in sculpture, and also considerable
+perfection in coloring. The great artists of Greece--Phidias and
+Euphranor, Zeuxis and Protogenes, Polygnotus and Lysippus--were both
+sculptors and painters, like Michael Angelo; and the ancient writers
+praise the paintings of these great artists as much as their sculpture.
+The Aldobrandini Marriage, found on the Esquiline Mount during the
+pontificate of Clement VIII., and placed in the Vatican by Pius VII., is
+admired both for drawing and color. Polygnotus was praised by Aristotle
+for his designs, and by Lucian for his color.
+
+Dionysius and Mikon were the great contemporaries of Polygnotus, the
+former being celebrated for his portraits. His pictures were deficient
+in the ideal, but were remarkable for expression and elegant drawing.
+Mikon was particularly skilled in painting horses, and was the first who
+used for a color the light Attic ochre, and the black made from burnt
+vine-twigs. He painted three of the walls of the Temple of Theseus, and
+also the walls of the Temple of the Dioscuri.
+
+A greater painter still was Apollodorus of Athens. Through his labors,
+about 408 B.C., dramatic effect was added to the style of Polygnotus,
+without departing from his pictures as models. "The acuteness of his
+taste," says Fuseli, "led him to discover that as all men were connected
+by one general form, so they were separated each by some predominant
+power, which fixed character and bound them to a class. Thence he drew
+his line of imitation, and personified the central form of the class to
+which his object belonged, and to which the rest of its qualities
+administered without being absorbed. Agility was not suffered to destroy
+firmness, solidity, or weight; nor strength and weight, agility.
+Elegance did not degenerate into effeminacy, nor grandeur swell to
+hugeness." His aim was to deceive the eye of the spectator by the
+semblance of reality: he painted men and things as they really appeared.
+He also made a great advance in coloring: he invented chiaro-oscuro.
+Other painters had given attention to the proper gradation of light and
+shade; he heightened this effect by the gradation of tints, and thus
+obtained what the moderns call _tone_. He was the first who conferred
+due honor on the pencil,--_primusque gloriam penicillo jure contulit_.
+
+This great painter was succeeded by Zeuxis, who belonged to his school,
+but who surpassed him in the power to give ideal form to rich effects.
+He began his great career four hundred and twenty-four years before
+Christ, and was most remarkable for his female figures. His Helen,
+painted from five of the most beautiful women of Croton, was one of the
+most renowned productions of antiquity, to see which the painter
+demanded money. He gave away his pictures, because, with an artist's
+pride, he maintained that their price could not be estimated. There is
+a tradition that Zeuxis laughed himself to death over an old woman
+painted by him. He arrived at illusion of the senses, regarded as a high
+attainment in art,--as in the instance recorded of his grapes, at which
+the birds pecked. He belonged to the Asiatic school, whose headquarters
+were at Ephesus,--the peculiarities of which were accuracy of imitation,
+the exhibition of sensuous charms, and the gratification of sensual
+tastes. He went to Athens about the time that the sculpture of Phidias
+was completed, which modified his style. His marvellous powers were
+displayed in the contrast of light and shade, which he learned from
+Apollodorus. He gave ideal beauty to his figures, but it was in form
+rather than in expression. He taught the true method of grouping, by
+making each figure the perfect representation of the class to which it
+belonged. His works were deficient in those qualities which elevate the
+feelings and the character. He was the Euripides rather than the Homer
+of his art. He exactly imitated natural objects, which are incapable of
+ideal representation. His works were not so numerous as they were
+perfect in their way, in some of which, as in the Infant Hercules
+strangling the Serpent, he displayed great dramatic power. Lucian highly
+praises his Female Centaur as one of the most remarkable paintings of
+the world, in which he showed great ingenuity of contrasts. His Jupiter
+Enthroned is also extolled by Pliny, as one of his finest works. Zeuxis
+acquired a great fortune, and lived ostentatiously.
+
+Contemporaneous with Zeuxis, and equal in fame, was Parrhasius, a native
+of Ephesus, whose skill lay in accuracy of drawing and power of
+expression. He gave to painting true proportion, and attended to minute
+details of the countenance and the hair. In his gods and heroes, he did
+for painting what Phidias did in sculpture. His outlines were so perfect
+as to indicate those parts of the figure which they did not express. He
+established a rule of proportion which was followed by all succeeding
+artists. While many of his pieces were of a lofty character, some were
+demoralizing. Zeuxis yielded the palm to him, since Parrhasius painted a
+curtain which deceived his rival, whereas the grapes of Zeuxis had
+deceived only birds. Parrhasius was exceedingly arrogant and luxurious,
+and boasted of having reached the utmost limits of his art. He combined
+the magic tone of Apollodorus with the exquisite design of Zeuxis and
+the classic expression of Polygnotus.
+
+Many were the eminent painters that adorned the fifth century before
+Christ, not only in Athens, but in the Ionian cities of Asia. Timanthes
+of Sicyon was distinguished for invention, and Eupompus of the same
+city founded a school. His advice to Lysippus is memorable: "Let Nature,
+not an artist, be your model." Protogenes was celebrated for his high
+finish. His Talissus took him seven years to complete. Pamphilus was
+celebrated for composition, Antiphilus for facility, Theon of Samos for
+prolific fancy, Apelles for grace, Pausias for his chiaro-oscuro,
+Nicomachus for his bold and rapid pencil, Aristides for depth of
+expression.
+
+The art probably culminated in Apelles, who was at once a rich colorist
+and portrayer of sensuous charm and a scientific artist, while he added
+a peculiar grace of his own, which distinguished him above both his
+predecessors and contemporaries. He was contemporaneous with Alexander,
+and was alone allowed to paint the picture of the great conqueror.
+Apelles was a native of Ephesus, studied under Pamphilus of Amphipolis,
+and when he had gained reputation he went to Sicyon and took lessons
+from Melanthius. He spent the best part of his life at the court of
+Philip and Alexander, and painted many portraits of these great men and
+of their generals. He excelled in portraits, and labored so assiduously
+to perfect himself in drawing that he never spent a day without
+practising. He made great improvement in the mechanical part of his art,
+inventing some colors, and being the first to varnish pictures. By the
+general consent of ancient authors, Apelles stands at the head of all
+the painters of their world. His greatest work was his Venus Anadyomene,
+or Venus rising out of the sea, in which female grace was personified;
+the falling drops of water from her hair gave the appearance of a
+transparent silver veil over her form. This picture cost one hundred
+talents, was painted for the Temple of Aesculapius at Cos, and afterward
+placed by Augustus in the temple which he dedicated to Julius Caesar.
+The lower part of it becoming injured, no one could be found to repair
+it; nor was there an artist who could complete an unfinished picture
+which Apelles left. He feared no criticism, and was unenvious of the
+fame of rivals.
+
+After Apelles, the art of painting declined, although great painters
+occasionally appeared, especially from the school of Sicyon, which was
+renowned for nearly two hundred years. The destruction of Corinth by
+Mummius, 146 B.C., gave a severe blow to Grecian art. This general
+destroyed, or carried to Rome, more works than all his predecessors
+combined. Sulla, when he spoiled Athens, inflicted a still greater
+injury; and from that time artists resorted to Rome and Alexandria and
+other flourishing cities for patronage and remuneration. The
+masterpieces of famous artists brought enormous prices, and Greece and
+Asia were ransacked for old pictures. The paintings which Aemilius
+Paulus brought from Greece required two hundred and fifty wagons to
+carry them in the triumphal procession. With the spoliation of Greece,
+the migration of artists began; and this spoliation of Greece, Asia, and
+Sicily continued for two centuries. We have already said that such was
+the wealth of Rhodes in works of art that three thousand statues were
+found there by the conquerors; nor could there have been less at Athens,
+Olympia, and Delphi. Scaurus had all the public pictures of Sicyon
+transported to Rome. Verres plundered every temple and public building
+in Sicily.
+
+Thus Rome was possessed of the finest paintings in the world, without
+the slightest claim to the advancement of the art. And if the opinion of
+Sir Joshua Reynolds is correct, art could advance no higher in the realm
+of painting, as well as of statuary, than the Greeks had already borne
+it. Yet the Romans learned to place as high value on the works of
+Grecian genius as the English do on the paintings of the old masters of
+Italy and Flanders. And if they did not add to the art, they gave such
+encouragement that under the emperors it may be said to have been
+flourishing. Varro had a gallery of seven hundred portraits of eminent
+men. The portraits as well as the statues of the great were placed in
+the temples, libraries, and public buildings. The baths especially were
+filled with paintings.
+
+The great masterpieces of the Greeks were either historical or
+mythological. Paintings of gods and heroes, groups of men and women, in
+which character and passion could be delineated, were the most highly
+prized. It was in the expression given to the human figure--in beauty of
+form and countenance, in which all the emotions of the soul, as well as
+the graces of the body were portrayed--that the Greek artists sought to
+reach the ideal, and to gain immortality. And they painted for a people
+who had both a natural and a cultivated taste and sensibility.
+
+Among the Romans portrait, decorative, and scene painting engrossed the
+art, much to the regret of such critics as Pliny and Vitruvius. Nothing
+could be in more execrable taste than a colossal painting of Nero, one
+hundred and twenty feet high. From the time of Augustus landscape
+decorations were common, and were carried out with every species of
+license. Among the Greeks we do not read of landscape painting. This has
+been reserved for our age, and is much admired, as it was at Rome in the
+latter days of the empire. Mosaic work, of inlaid stones or composition
+of varying shades and colors, gradually superseded painting in Rome; it
+was first used for floors, and finally walls and ceilings were
+ornamented with it. It is true, the ancients could show no such
+exquisite perfection of colors, tints, and shades as may be seen to-day
+in the wonderful reproductions of world-renowned paintings on the walls
+of St. Peter's at Rome; but many ancient mosaics have been preserved
+which attest beauty of design of the highest character,--like the Battle
+of Issus, lately discovered at Pompeii; and this brilliant art had its
+origin and a splendid development at the hands of the old Romans.
+
+Thus in all those arts of which modern civilization is proudest, and in
+which the genius of man has soared to the loftiest heights, the ancients
+were not merely our equals,--they were our superiors. It is greater to
+originate than to copy. In architecture, in sculpture, and perhaps in
+painting, the Greeks attained absolute perfection. Any architect of our
+time, who should build an edifice in different proportions from those
+that were recognized in the great cities of antiquity, would make a
+mistake. Who can improve upon the Doric columns of the Parthenon, or
+upon the Corinthian capitals of the Temple of Jupiter? Indeed, it is in
+proportion as we accurately copy the faultless models of the age of
+Pericles that excellence with us is attained and recognized; when we
+differ from them we furnish grounds of just criticism. So in
+sculpture,--the finest modern works are inspired by antique models. It
+is only when the artist seeks to bring out the purest and loftiest
+sentiments of the soul, such as only Christianity can inspire, that he
+may hope to surpass the sculpture of antiquity in one department of that
+art alone,--in expression, rather than in beauty of form, on which no
+improvement can be made. And if we possessed the painted Venus of
+Apelles, as we can boast of having the sculptured Venus of Cleomenes, we
+should probably discover greater richness of coloring as well as grace
+of figure than appear in that famous picture of Titian which is one of
+the proudest ornaments of the galleries of Florence, and one of the
+greatest marvels of Italian art.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Winckelmann's History of Ancient Art; Müller's Ancient Art and its
+Remains; A.J. Guattani, Antiquités de la Grande Grèce; Mazois,
+Antiquités de Pompeii; Sir W. Gill, Pompeiana; Donaldson's Antiquities
+of Athens; Vitruvius, Stuart, Chandler, Clarke, Dodwell, Cleghorn, De
+Quincey, Fergusson, Schliemann,--these are some of the innumerable
+authorities on Architecture among the ancients.
+
+In Sculpture, Pliny and Cicero are the most noted critics. There is a
+fine article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica on this subject. In Smith's
+Dictionary are the Lives and works of the most noted masters. Müller's
+Ancient Art alludes to the leading masterpieces. Montfauçon's Antiquité
+Expliquée en Figures; Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, by the Society of
+Dilettanti, London, 1809; Ancient Marbles of the British Museum, by
+Taylor Combe; Millin, Introduction à l'Étude des Monuments Antiques;
+Monuments Inédits d'Antiquité figurée, recuellis et publiés par
+Raoul-Rochette; Gerhard's Archäologische Zeitung; David's Essai sur le
+Classement Chronologique des Sculpteurs Grecs les plus célèbres.
+
+In Painting, see Müller's Ancient Art; Fuseli's Lectures; Sir Joshua
+Reynolds's Lectures; Lanzi's History of Painting in Italy (translated by
+Roscoe); and the Article on "Painting," Encyclopaedia Britannica, and
+Article "Pictura," Smith's Dictionary, both of which last mentioned
+refer to numerous German, French, and other authorities, should the
+reader care to pursue the subject. Vitruvius (on Architecture,
+translated by Gwilt) writes at some length on ancient wall-paintings.
+The finest specimens of ancient paintings are found in catacombs, the
+baths, and the ruins of Pompeii. On this subject Winckelmann is the
+great authority.
+
+
+
+
+ANCIENT SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.
+
+
+ASTRONOMY, GEOGRAPHY, ETC.
+
+2000-100 B.C.
+
+
+It would be absurd to claim for the ancients any great attainments in
+science, such as they made in the field of letters or the realm of art.
+It is in science, especially when applied to practical life, that the
+moderns show their great superiority to the most enlightened nations of
+antiquity. In this great department of human inquiry modern genius
+shines with the lustre of the sun. It is this which most strikingly
+attests the advance of civilization. It is this which has distinguished
+and elevated the races of Europe, and carried them in the line of
+progress beyond the attainments of the Greeks and Romans. With the
+magnificent discoveries and inventions of the last three hundred years
+in almost every department of science, especially in the explorations of
+distant seas and continents, in the analysis of chemical compounds, in
+the wonders of steam and electricity, in mechanical appliances to
+abridge human labor, in astronomical researches, in the explanation of
+the phenomena of the heavens, in the miracles which inventive genius has
+wrought,--seen in our ships, our manufactories, our printing-presses,
+our observatories, our fortifications, our laboratories, our mills, our
+machines to cultivate the earth, to make our clothes, to build our
+houses, to multiply our means of offence and defence, to make weak
+children do the work of Titans, to measure our time with the accuracy of
+the planetary orbits, to use the sun itself in perpetuating our
+likenesses to distant generations, to cause a needle to guide the
+mariner with assurance on the darkest night, to propel a heavy ship
+against wind and tide without oars or sails, to make carriages ascend
+mountains without horses at the rate of thirty miles an hour, to convey
+intelligence with the speed of lightning from continent to continent and
+under oceans that ancient navigators never dared to cross,--these and
+other wonders attest an ingenuity and audacity of intellect which would
+have overwhelmed with amazement the most adventurous of Greeks and the
+most potent of Romans.
+
+But the great discoveries and inventions to which we owe this marked
+superiority are either accidental or the result of generations of
+experiment, assisted by an immense array of ascertained facts from which
+safe inductions can be made. It is not, probably, the superiority of
+the European races over the Greeks and Romans to which we may ascribe
+the wonderful advance of modern society, but the particular direction
+which genius was made to take. Had the Greeks given the energy of their
+minds to mechanical forces as they did to artistic creations, they might
+have made wonderful inventions. But it was not so ordered by Providence.
+At that time the world was not in the stage of development when this
+particular direction of intellect could have been favored. The
+development of the physical sciences, with their infinite multiplicity
+and complexity, required more centuries of observation, collection and
+collation of facts, deductions from known phenomena, than the ancients
+had had to work with; while the more ethereal realms of philosophy,
+ethics, aesthetics, and religion, though needing keen study of Nature
+and of man, depended more upon inner spiritual forces, and less upon
+accumulated detail of external knowledge. Yet as there were some
+subjects which the Greeks and Romans seemed to exhaust, some fields of
+labor and thought in which they never have been and perhaps never will
+be surpassed, so some future age may direct its energies into channels
+that are as unknown to us as clocks and steam-engines were to the
+Greeks. This is the age of mechanism and of science; and mechanism and
+science sweep everything before them, and will probably be carried to
+their utmost capacity and development. After that the human mind may
+seek some new department, some new scope for its energies, and an age of
+new wonders may arise,--perhaps after the present dominant races shall
+have become intoxicated with the greatness of their triumphs and have
+shared the fate of the old monarchies of the East. But I would not
+speculate on the destinies of the European nations, whether they are to
+make indefinite advances until they occupy and rule the whole world, or
+are destined to be succeeded by nations as yet undeveloped,--savages, as
+their fathers were when Rome was in the fulness of material wealth
+and grandeur.
+
+I have shown that in the field of artistic excellence, in literary
+composition, in the arts of government and legislation, and even in the
+realm of philosophical speculation, the ancients were our
+school-masters, and that among them were some men of most marvellous
+genius, who have had no superiors among us. But we do not see among them
+the exhibition of genius in what we call science, at least in its
+application to practical life. It would be difficult to show any
+department of science which the ancients carried to any considerable
+degree of perfection. Nevertheless, there were departments in which they
+made noble attempts, and in which they showed large capacity, even if
+they were unsuccessful in great practical results.
+
+Astronomy was one of these. In this science such men as Eratosthenes,
+Aristarchus, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy were great lights of whom humanity
+may be proud; and had they been assisted by our modern inventions, they
+might have earned a fame scarcely eclipsed by that of Kepler and Newton.
+The old astronomers did little to place this science on a true
+foundation, but they showed great ingenuity, and discovered some truths
+which no succeeding age has repudiated. They determined the
+circumference of the earth by a method identical with that which would
+be employed by modern astronomers; they ascertained the position of the
+stars by right ascension and declination; they knew the obliquity of the
+ecliptic, and determined the place of the sun's apogee as well as its
+mean motion. Their calculations on the eccentricity of the moon prove
+that they had a rectilinear trigonometry and tables of chords. They had
+an approximate knowledge of parallax; they could calculate eclipses of
+the moon, and use them for the correction of their lunar tables. They
+understood spherical trigonometry, and determined the motions of the sun
+and moon, involving an accurate definition of the year and a method of
+predicting eclipses; they ascertained that the earth was a sphere, and
+reduced the phenomena of the heavenly bodies to uniform movements of
+circular orbits. We have settled by physical geography the exact form
+of the earth, but the ancients arrived at their knowledge by
+astronomical reasoning. Says Whewell:--
+
+"The reduction of the motions of the sun, moon, and five planets to
+circular orbits, as was done by Hipparchus, implies deep concentrated
+thought and scientific abstraction. The theories of eccentrics and
+epicycles accomplished the end of explaining all the known phenomena.
+The resolution of the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies into an
+assemblage of circular motions was a great triumph of genius, and was
+equivalent to the most recent and improved processes by which modern
+astronomers deal with such motions."
+
+Astronomy was probably born in Chaldaea as early as the time of Abraham.
+The glories of the firmament were impressed upon the minds of the rude
+primitive races with an intensity which we do not feel, with all the
+triumphs of modern science. The Chaldaean shepherds, as they watched
+their flocks by night, noted the movements of the planets, and gave
+names to the more brilliant constellations. Before religious rituals
+were established, before great superstitions arose, before poetry was
+sung, before musical instruments were invented, before artists
+sculptured marble or melted bronze, before coins were stamped, before
+temples arose, before diseases were healed by the arts of medicine,
+before commerce was known, those Oriental shepherds counted the anxious
+hours by the position of certain constellations. Astronomy is therefore
+the oldest of the ancient sciences, although it remained imperfect for
+more than four thousand years. The old Assyrians, Egyptians, and Greeks
+made but few discoveries which are valued by modern astronomers, but
+they laid the foundation of the science, and ever regarded it as one of
+the noblest subjects that could stimulate the faculties of man. It was
+invested with all that was religious and poetical.
+
+The spacious level and unclouded horizon of Chaldaea afforded peculiar
+facilities of observation; and its pastoral and contemplative
+inhabitants, uncontaminated by the vices and superstitions of subsequent
+ages, active-minded and fresh, discovered after a long observation of
+eclipses--some say extending over nineteen centuries--the cycle of two
+hundred and twenty-three lunations, which brings back the eclipses in
+the same order. Having once established their cycle, they laid the
+foundation for the most sublime of all the sciences. Callisthenes
+transmitted from Babylon to Aristotle a collection of observations of
+all the eclipses that preceded the conquests of Alexander, together with
+the definite knowledge which the Chaldaeans had collected about the
+motions of the heavenly bodies. Such knowledge was rude and simple, and
+amounted to little beyond the fact that there were spherical
+revolutions about an inclined axis, and that the poles pointed always to
+particular stars. The Egyptians also recorded their observations, from
+which it would appear that they observed eclipses at least sixteen
+hundred years before the beginning of our era,--which is not improbable,
+if the speculations of modern philosophers respecting the age of the
+world are entitled to credit. The Egyptians discovered by the rising of
+Sirius that the year consists of three hundred and sixty-five and
+one-quarter days; and this was their sacred year, in distinction from
+the civil, which consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days. They
+also had observed the courses of the planets, and could explain the
+phenomena of the stations and retrogradations; and it is asserted too
+that they regarded Mercury and Venus as satellites of the sun. Some have
+maintained that the obelisks which the Egyptians erected served the
+purpose of gnomons for determining the obliquity of the ecliptic, the
+altitude of the pole, and the length of the tropical year. It is thought
+even that the Pyramids, by the position of their sides toward the
+cardinal points, attest Egyptian acquaintance with a meridional line.
+The Chinese boast of having noticed and recorded a series of eclipses
+extending over a period of thirty-eight hundred and fifty-eight years;
+and it is probable that they anticipated the Greeks two thousand years
+in the discovery of the Metonic cycle,--or the cycle of nineteen years,
+at the end of which time the new moons fall on the same days of the
+year. The Chinese also determined the obliquity of the ecliptic eleven
+hundred years before our era. The Hindus at a remote antiquity
+represented celestial phenomena with considerable exactness, and
+constructed tables by which the longitude of the sun and moon were
+determined, and dials to measure time. Bailly thinks that thirty-one
+hundred and two years before Christ astronomy was cultivated in Siam
+which hardly yields in accuracy to that which modern science has built
+on the theory of universal gravitation.
+
+But the Greeks after all were the only people of antiquity who elevated
+astronomy to the dignity of a science. They however confessed that they
+derived their earliest knowledge from the Babylonian and Egyptian
+priests, while the priests of Thebes claimed to be the originators of
+exact astronomical observations. Diodorus asserts that the Chaldaeans
+used the Temple of Belus, in the centre of Babylon, for their survey of
+the heavens. But whether the Babylonians or the Egyptians were the
+earliest astronomers is of little consequence, although the pedants make
+it a grave matter of investigation. All we know is that astronomy was
+cultivated by both Babylonians and Egyptians, and that they made but
+very limited attainments. They approximated to the truth in reference
+to the solar year, by observing the equinoxes and solstices and the
+heliacal rising of particular stars.
+
+The early Greek philosophers who visited Egypt and the East in search of
+knowledge, found very little to reward their curiosity or industry,--not
+much beyond preposterous claims to a high antiquity, and to an esoteric
+wisdom which has not yet been revealed. Plato and Eudoxus spent thirteen
+years in Heliopolis for the purpose of extracting the scientific
+knowledge of the Egyptian priests, yet they learned but little beyond
+the fact that the solar year was a trifle beyond three hundred and
+sixty-five days. No great names have come down to us from the priests of
+Babylon or Egypt; no one gained an individual reputation. The Chaldaean
+and Egyptian priests may have furnished the raw material of observation
+to the Greeks, but the latter alone possessed the scientific genius by
+which undigested facts were converted into a symmetrical system. The
+East never gave valuable knowledge to the West; it gave the tendency to
+religious mysticism, which in its turn tended to superstition. Instead
+of astronomy, it gave astrology; instead of science, it gave magic,
+incantations, and dreams. The Eastern astronomers connected their
+astronomy with divination from the stars, and made their antiquity reach
+back to two hundred and seventy thousand years. There were soothsayers
+in the time of Daniel, and magicians, exorcists, and interpreters of
+signs. They were not men of scientific research, seeking truth; it was
+power they sought, by perverting the intellect of the people. The
+astrology of the East was founded on the principle that a star or
+constellation presided over the birth of an individual, and that it
+either portended his fate, or shed a good or bad influence upon his
+future life. The star which looked upon a child at the hour of his birth
+was called the "horoscopus," and the peculiar influence of each planet
+was determined by the astrologers. The superstitions of Egypt and
+Chaldaea unfortunately spread among both the Greeks and Romans, and
+these were about all that the Western nations learned from the boastful
+priests of occult Oriental science. Whatever was known of real value
+among the ancients is due to the earnest inquiries of the Greeks.
+
+And yet their researches were very unsatisfactory until the time of
+Hipparchus. The primitive knowledge was almost nothing. The Homeric
+poems regarded the earth as a circular plain bounded by the heaven,
+which was a solid vault or hemisphere, with its concavity turned
+downward. This absurdity was believed until the time of Herodotus, five
+centuries after; nor was it exploded fully in the time of Aristotle. The
+sun, moon, and stars were supposed to move upon or with the inner
+surface of the heavenly hemisphere, and the ocean was thought to gird
+the earth around as a great belt, into which the heavenly bodies sank at
+night. Homer believed that the sun arose out of the ocean, ascended the
+heaven, and again plunged into the ocean, passing under the earth, and
+producing darkness. The Greeks even personified the sun as a divine
+charioteer driving his fiery steeds over the steep of heaven, until he
+bathed them at evening in the western waves. Apollo became the god of
+the sun, as Diana was the goddess of the moon. But the early Greek
+inquirers did not attempt to explain how the sun found his way from the
+west back again to the east; they merely took note of the diurnal
+course, the alternation of day and night, the number of the seasons, and
+their regular successions. They found the points of the compass by
+determining the recurrence of the equinoxes and solstices; but they had
+no conception of the ecliptic,--of that great circle in the heaven
+formed by the sun's annual course,--and of its obliquity when compared
+with our equator. Like the Egyptians and Babylonians, the Greeks
+ascertained the length of the year to be three hundred and sixty-five
+days; but perfect accuracy was lacking, for want of scientific
+instruments and of recorded observations of the heavenly bodies. The
+Greeks had not even a common chronological era for the designation of
+years. Herodotus informs us that the Trojan War preceded his time by
+eight hundred years: he merely states the interval between the event in
+question and his own time; he had certain data for distant periods. The
+Greeks reckoned dates from the Trojan War, and the Romans from the
+building of their city. The Greeks also divided the year into twelve
+months, and introduced the intercalary circle of eight years, although
+the Romans disused it afterward, until the calendar was reformed by
+Julius Caesar. Thus there was no scientific astronomical knowledge worth
+mentioning among the primitive Greeks.
+
+Immense research and learning have been expended by modern critics to
+show the state of scientific astronomy among the Greeks. I am amazed
+equally at the amount of research and its comparative worthlessness; for
+what addition to science can be made by an enumeration of the
+puerilities and errors of the Greeks, and how wasted and pedantic the
+learning which ransacks all antiquity to prove that the Greeks adopted
+this or that absurdity![1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The style of modern historical criticism is well
+exemplified in the discussions of the Germans whether the Arx on the
+Capitoline Hill occupied the northeastern or southwestern corner, which
+take up nearly one half of the learned article on the Capitoline in
+Smith's Dictionary.]
+
+The earliest historic name associated with astronomy in Greece was
+Thales, the founder of the Ionic school of philosophers. He is reported
+to have made a visit to Egypt, to have fixed the year at three hundred
+and sixty-five days, to have determined the course of the sun from
+solstice to solstice, and to have calculated eclipses. He attributed an
+eclipse of the moon to the interposition of the earth between the sun
+and moon, and an eclipse of the sun to the interposition of the moon
+between the sun and earth,--and thus taught the rotundity of the earth,
+sun, and moon. He also determined the ratio of the sun's diameter to its
+apparent orbit. As he first solved the problem of inscribing a
+right-angled triangle in a circle, he is the founder of geometrical
+science in Greece. He left, however, nothing to writing; hence all
+accounts of him are confused,--some doubting even if he made the
+discoveries attributed to him. His philosophical speculations, which
+science rejects,--such as that water is the principle of all
+things,--are irrelevant to a description of the progress of astronomy.
+That he was a great light no one questions, considering the ignorance
+with which he was surrounded.
+
+Anaximander, who followed Thales in philosophy, held to puerile
+doctrines concerning the motions and nature of the stars, which it is
+useless to repeat. His addition to science, if he made any, was in
+treating the magnitudes and distances of the planets. He constructed
+geographical charts, and attempted to delineate the celestial sphere,
+and to measure time with a gnomon, or time-pillar, by the motion of its
+shadow upon a dial.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: Dr. E.H. Knight, in his "American Mechanical Dictionary"
+(i. 692), cites the Scriptural account of the beautiful altar seen by
+King Ahaz of Jerusalem, in Damascus, when he went thither to greet
+Tiglath-Pileser, the Assyrian who had helped him against his Samarian
+enemy. Ahaz erected a similar altar at Jerusalem, and also a _sun-dial,_
+the same one mentioned in the account of the miraculous cure of his son
+Hezekiah. "This," says Dr. Knight, "was probably the first dial on
+record, and is one hundred and forty years before Thales, and nearly
+four hundred before Plato and Aristotle, and just a little previous to
+the lunar eclipses observed at Babylon, as recorded by Ptolemy.... The
+Hebrew word [for this dial] is said by Colonel White of the Bengal army
+to signify a _staircase_, which much strengthens the inference that it
+was like the equinoctial dial of the Indian nations and of Mesopotamia,
+from whence its pattern is assumed to have been derived."]
+
+Anaximenes of Miletus taught, like his predecessors, crude notions of
+the sun and stars, and speculated on the nature of the moon, but did
+nothing to advance his science on true grounds, except by the
+construction of sun-dials. The same may be said of Heraclitus,
+Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Anaxagoras: they were great men, but they
+gave to the world mere speculations, some of which are very puerile.
+They all held to the idea that the heavenly bodies revolved around the
+earth, and that the earth was a plain; but they explained eclipses, and
+supposed that the moon derived its light from the sun. Some of them
+knew the difference between the planets and the fixed stars. Anaxagoras
+scouted the notion that the sun was a god, and supposed it to be a mass
+of ignited stone,--for which he was called an atheist.
+
+Socrates, who belonged to another school, avoided all barren
+speculations concerning the universe, and confined himself to human
+actions and interests. He looked even upon geometry in a very practical
+way, valuing it only so far as it could be made serviceable to
+land-measuring. As for the stars and planets, he supposed it was
+impossible to arrive at a true knowledge of them, and regarded
+speculations upon them as useless.
+
+It must be admitted that the Greek astronomers, however barren were
+their general theories, laid the foundation of science. Pythagoras
+taught the obliquity of the ecliptic, probably learned in Egypt, and the
+identity of the morning and evening stars. It is supposed that he
+maintained that the sun was the centre of the universe, and that the
+earth revolved around it; but this he did not demonstrate, and his whole
+system was unscientific, assuming certain arbitrary principles, from
+which he reasoned deductively. "He assumed that fire is more worthy than
+earth; that the more worthy place must be given to the more worthy; that
+the extremity is more worthy than the intermediate parts,--and hence,
+as the centre is an extremity, the place of fire is at the centre of the
+universe, and that therefore the earth and other heavenly bodies move
+round the fiery centre." But this was no heliocentric system, since the
+sun moved, like the earth, in a circle around the central fire. This was
+merely the work of the imagination, utterly unscientific, though bold
+and original. Nor did this hypothesis gain credit, since it was the
+fixed opinion of philosophers that the earth was the centre of the
+universe, around which the sun, moon, and planets revolved. But the
+Pythagoreans were the first to teach that the motions of the sun, moon,
+and planets are circular and equable. Their idea that the celestial
+bodies emitted a sound, and were combined into a harmonious symphony,
+was exceedingly crude, however beautiful "The music of the spheres"
+belongs to poetry, as well as to the speculations of Plato.
+
+Eudoxus, in the fifth century before Christ, contributed to science by
+making a descriptive map of the heavens, which was used as a manual of
+sidereal astronomy to the sixth century of our era.
+
+The error of only one hundred and ninety days in the periodic time of
+Saturn shows that there had been for a long time close observations.
+Aristotle--whose comprehensive intellect, like that of Bacon, took in
+all forms of knowledge--condensed all that was known in his day into a
+treatise concerning the heavens. He regarded astronomy as more
+intimately connected with mathematics than any other branch of science.
+But even he did not soar far beyond the philosophers of his day, since
+he held to the immobility of the earth,--the grand error of the
+ancients. Some few speculators in science (like Heraclitus of Pontus,
+and Hicetas) conceived a motion of the earth itself upon its axis, so as
+to account for the apparent motion of the sun; but they also thought it
+was in the centre of the universe.
+
+The introduction of the gnomon (time-pillar) and dial into Greece
+advanced astronomical knowledge, since they were used to determine the
+equinoxes and solstices, as well as parts of the day. Meton set up a
+sun-dial at Athens in the year 433 B.C., but the length of the hour
+varied with the time of the year, since the Greeks divided the day into
+twelve equal parts. Dials were common at Rome in the time of Plautus,
+224 B.C.; but there was a difficulty in using them, since they failed at
+night and in cloudy weather, and could not be relied on. Hence the
+introduction of water-clocks instead.
+
+Aristarchus is said to have combated (280 B.C.) the geocentric theory so
+generally received by philosophers, and to have promulgated the
+hypothesis "that the fixed stars and the sun are immovable; that the
+earth is carried round the sun in the circumference of a circle of
+which the sun is the centre; and that the sphere of the fixed stars,
+having the same centre as the sun, is of such magnitude that the orbit
+of the earth is to the distance of the fixed stars as the centre of the
+sphere of the fixed stars is to its surface." Aristarchus also,
+according to Plutarch, explained the apparent annual motion of the sun
+in the ecliptic by supposing the orbit of the earth to be inclined to
+its axis. There is no evidence that this great astronomer supported his
+heliocentric theory with any geometrical proof, although Plutarch
+maintains that he demonstrated it. This theory gave great offence,
+especially to the Stoics; and Cleanthes, the head of the school at that
+time, maintained that the author of such an impious doctrine should be
+punished. Aristarchus left a treatise "On the Magnitudes and Distances
+of the Sun and Moon;" and his methods to measure the apparent diameters
+of the sun and moon are considered theoretically sound by modern
+astronomers, but practically inexact owing to defective instruments. He
+estimated the diameter of the sun at the seven hundred and twentieth
+part of the circumference of the circle which it describes in its
+diurnal revolution, which is not far from the truth; but in this
+treatise he does not allude to his heliocentric theory.
+
+Archimedes of Syracuse, born 287 B.C., is stated to have measured the
+distance of the sun, moon, and planets, and he constructed an orrery in
+which he exhibited their motions. But it was not in the Grecian colony
+of Syracuse, but of Alexandria, that the greatest light was shed on
+astronomical science. Here Aristarchus resided, and also Eratosthenes,
+who lived between the years 276 and 196 B.C. The latter was a native of
+Athens, but was invited by Ptolemy Euergetes to Alexandria, and placed
+at the head of the library. His great achievement was the determination
+of the circumference of the earth. This was done by measuring on the
+ground the distance between Syene, a city exactly under the tropic, and
+Alexandria, situated on the same meridian. The distance was found to be
+five thousand stadia. The meridional distance of the sun from the zenith
+of Alexandria he estimated to be 7° 12', or a fiftieth part of the
+circumference of the meridian. Hence the circumference of the earth was
+fixed at two hundred and fifty thousand stadia,--which is not very
+different from our modern computation. The circumference being known,
+the diameter of the earth was easily determined. The moderns have added
+nothing to this method. He also calculated the diameter of the sun to be
+twenty-seven times greater than that of the earth, and the distance of
+the sun from the earth to be eight hundred and four million stadia, and
+that of the moon seven hundred and eighty thousand stadia,--a close
+approximation to the truth.
+
+Astronomical science received a great impulse from the school of
+Alexandria, the greatest light of which was Hipparchus, who flourished
+early in the second century before Christ. He laid the foundation of
+astronomy upon a scientific basis. "He determined," says Delambre, "the
+position of the stars by right ascensions and declinations, and was
+acquainted with the obliquity of the ecliptic. He determined the
+inequality of the sun and the place of its apogee, as well as its mean
+motion; the mean motion of the moon, of its nodes and apogee; the
+equation of the moon's centre, and the inclination of its orbit. He
+calculated eclipses of the moon, and used them for the correction of his
+lunar tables, and he had an approximate knowledge of parallax." His
+determination of the motions of the sun and moon, and his method of
+predicting eclipses evince great mathematical genius. But he combined
+with this determination a theory of epicycles and eccentrics which
+modern astronomy discards. It was however a great thing to conceive of
+the earth as a solid sphere, and to reduce the phenomena of the heavenly
+bodies to uniform motions in circular orbits. "That Hipparchus should
+have succeeded in the first great steps of the resolution of the
+heavenly bodies into circular motions is a circumstance," says Whewell,
+"which gives him one of the most distinguished places in the roll of
+great astronomers." But he did even more than this: he discovered that
+apparent motion of the fixed stars round the axis of the ecliptic, which
+is called the Precession of the Equinoxes,--one of the greatest
+discoveries in astronomy. He maintained that the precession was not
+greater than fifty-nine seconds, and not less than thirty-six seconds.
+Hipparchus also framed a catalogue of the stars, and determined their
+places with reference to the ecliptic by their latitudes and longitudes.
+Altogether he seems to have been one of the greatest geniuses of
+antiquity, and his works imply a prodigious amount of calculation.
+
+Astronomy made no progress for three hundred years, although it was
+expounded by improved methods. Posidonius constructed an orrery, which
+exhibited the diurnal motions of the sun, moon, and five planets.
+Posidonius calculated the circumference of the earth to be two hundred
+and forty thousand stadia, by a different method from Eratosthenes. The
+barrenness of discovery from Hipparchus to Ptolemy,--the Alexandrian
+mathematician, astronomer, and geographer in the second century of the
+Christian era,--in spite of the patronage of the royal Ptolemies of
+Egypt, was owing to the want of instruments for the accurate measure of
+time (like our clocks), to the imperfection of astronomical tables, and
+to the want of telescopes. Hence the great Greek astronomers were unable
+to realize their theories. Their theories however were magnificent, and
+evinced great power of mathematical combination; but what could they do
+without that wondrous instrument by which the human eye indefinitely
+multiplies its power? Moreover, the ancients had no accurate almanacs,
+since the care of the calendar belonged not so much to the astronomers
+as to the priests, who tampered with the computation of time for
+sacerdotal objects. The calendars of different communities differed.
+Hence Julius Caesar rendered a great service to science by the reform of
+the Roman calendar, which was exclusively under the control of the
+college of pontiffs, or general religious overseers. The Roman year
+consisted of three hundred and fifty-five days; and in the time of
+Caesar the calendar was in great confusion, being ninety days in
+advance, so that January was an autumn month. He inserted the regular
+intercalary month of twenty-three days, and two additional ones of
+sixty-seven days. These, together with ninety days, were added to three
+hundred and sixty-five days, making a year of transition of four hundred
+and forty-five days, by which January was brought back to the first
+month in the year after the winter solstice; and to prevent the
+repetition of the error, he directed that in future the year should
+consist of three hundred and sixty-five and one-quarter days, which he
+effected by adding one day to the months of April, June, September, and
+November, and two days to the months of January, Sextilis, and
+December, making an addition of ten days to the old year of three
+hundred and fifty-five. And he provided for a uniform intercalation of
+one day in every fourth year, which accounted for the remaining
+quarter of a day.
+
+Caesar was a student of astronomy, and always found time for its
+contemplation. He is said even to have written a treatise on the motion
+of the stars. He was assisted in his reform of the calendar by
+Sosigines, an Alexandrian astronomer. He took it out of the hands of the
+priests, and made it a matter of pure civil regulation. The year was
+defined by the sun, and not as before by the moon.
+
+Thus the Romans were the first to bring the scientific knowledge of the
+Greeks into practical use; but while they measured the year with a great
+approximation to accuracy, they still used sun-dials and water-clocks to
+measure diurnal time. Yet even these were not constructed as they should
+have been. The hour-marks on the sun-dial were all made equal, instead
+of varying with the periods of the day,--so that the length of the hour
+varied with the length of the day. The illuminated interval was divided
+into twelve equal parts; so that if the sun rose at five A.M., and set
+at eight P.M., each hour was equal to eighty minutes. And this rude
+method of measurement of diurnal time remained in use till the sixth
+century. Clocks, with wheels and weights, were not invented till the
+twelfth century.
+
+The last great light among the ancients in astronomical science was
+Ptolemy, who lived from 100 to 170 A.D., in Alexandria. He was
+acquainted with the writings of all the previous astronomers, but
+accepted Hipparchus as his guide. He held that the heaven is spherical
+and revolves upon its axis; that the earth is a sphere, and is situated
+within the celestial sphere, and nearly at its centre; that it is a mere
+point in reference to the distance and magnitude of the fixed stars, and
+that it has no motion. He adopted the views of the ancient astronomers,
+who placed Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars next under the sphere of the fixed
+stars, then the sun above Venus and Mercury, and lastly the moon next to
+the earth. But he differed from Aristotle, who conceived that the earth
+revolves in an orbit around the centre of the planetary system, and
+turns upon its axis,--two ideas in common with the doctrines which
+Copernicus afterward unfolded. But even Ptolemy did not conceive the
+heliocentric theory,--the sun the centre of our system. Archimedes and
+Hipparchus both rejected this theory.
+
+In regard to the practical value of the speculations of the ancient
+astronomers, it may be said that had they possessed clocks and
+telescopes, their scientific methods would have sufficed for all
+practical purposes. The greatness of modern discoveries lies in the
+great stretch of the perceptive powers, and the magnificent field they
+afford for sublime contemplation. "But," as Sir G. Cornewall Lewis
+remarks, "modern astronomy is a science of pure curiosity, and is
+directed exclusively to the extension of knowledge in a field which
+human interests can never enter. The periodic time of Uranus, the nature
+of Saturn's ring, and the occultation of Jupiter's satellites are as far
+removed from the concerns of mankind as the heliacal rising of Sirius,
+or the northern position of the Great Bear." This may seem to be a
+utilitarian view, with which those philosophers who have cultivated
+science for its own sake, finding in the same a sufficient reward, can
+have no sympathy.
+
+The upshot of the scientific attainments of the ancients, in the
+magnificent realm of the heavenly bodies, would seem to be that they
+laid the foundation of all the definite knowledge which is useful to
+mankind; while in the field of abstract calculation they evinced
+reasoning and mathematical powers that have never been surpassed.
+Eratosthenes, Archimedes, and Hipparchus were geniuses worthy to be
+placed by the side of Kepler, Newton, and La Place, and all ages will
+reverence their efforts and their memory. It is truly surprising that
+with their imperfect instruments, and the absence of definite data,
+they reached a height so sublime and grand. They explained the doctrine
+of the sphere and the apparent motions of the planets, but they had no
+instruments capable of measuring angular distances. The ingenious
+epicycles of Ptolemy prepared the way for the elliptic orbits and laws
+of Kepler, which in turn conducted Newton to the discovery of the law of
+gravitation,--the grandest scientific discovery in the annals of
+our race.
+
+Closely connected with astronomical science was geometry, which was
+first taught in Egypt,--the nurse and cradle of ancient wisdom. It arose
+from the necessity of adjusting the landmarks disturbed by the
+inundations of the Nile. There is hardly any trace of geometry among the
+Hebrews. Among the Hindus there are some works on this science, of great
+antiquity. Their mathematicians knew the rule for finding the area of a
+triangle from its sides, and also the celebrated proposition concerning
+the squares on the sides of the right-angled triangle. The Chinese, it
+is said, also knew this proposition before it was known to the Greeks,
+among whom it was first propounded by Thales. He applied a circle to the
+measurement of angles. Anaximander made geographical charts, which
+required considerable geometrical knowledge. Anaxagoras employed
+himself in prison in attempting to square the circle. Thales, as has
+been said, discovered the important theorem that in a right-angled
+triangle the squares on the sides containing the right angle are
+together equal to the square on the opposite side of it. Pythagoras
+discovered that of all figures having the same boundary, the circle
+among plane figures and the sphere among solids are the most capacious.
+Hippocrates treated of the duplication of the cube, and wrote elements
+of geometry, and knew that the area of a circle was equal to a triangle
+whose base is equal to its circumference and altitude equal to its
+radius. The disciples of Plato invented conic sections, and discovered
+the geometrical foci.
+
+It was however reserved for Euclid to make his name almost synonymous
+with geometry. He was born 323 B.C., and belonged to the Platonic sect,
+which ever attached great importance to mathematics. His "Elements" are
+still in use, as nearly perfect as any human production can be. They
+consist of thirteen books. The first four are on plane geometry; the
+fifth is on the theory of proportion, and applies to magnitude in
+general; the seventh, eighth, and ninth are on arithmetic; the tenth on
+the arithmetical characteristics of the division of a straight line; the
+eleventh and twelfth on the elements of solid geometry; the thirteenth
+on the regular solids. These "Elements" soon became the universal study
+of geometers throughout the civilized world; they were translated into
+the Arabic, and through the Arabians were made known to mediaeval
+Europe. There can be no doubt that this work is one of the highest
+triumphs of human genius, and it has been valued more than any single
+monument of antiquity; it is still a text-book, in various English
+translations, in all our schools. Euclid also wrote various other works,
+showing great mathematical talent.
+
+Perhaps a greater even than Euclid was Archimedes, born 287 B.C. He
+wrote on the sphere and cylinder, terminating in the discovery that the
+solidity and surface of a sphere are two thirds respectively of the
+solidity and surface of the circumscribing cylinder. He also wrote on
+conoids and spheroids. "The properties of the spiral and the quadrature
+of the parabola were added to ancient geometry by Archimedes, the last
+being a great step in the progress of the science, since it was the
+first curvilineal space legitimately squared." Modern mathematicians may
+not have the patience to go through his investigations, since the
+conclusions he arrived at may now be reached by shorter methods; but the
+great conclusions of the old geometers were reached by only prodigious
+mathematical power. Archimedes is popularly better known as the inventor
+of engines of war and of various ingenious machines than as a
+mathematician, great as were his attainments in this direction. His
+theory of the lever was the foundation of statics till the discovery of
+the composition of forces in the time of Newton, and no essential
+addition was made to the principles of the equilibrium of fluids and
+floating bodies till the time of Stevin, in 1608. Archimedes detected
+the mixture of silver in a crown of gold which his patron, Hiero of
+Syracuse, ordered to be made; and he invented a water-screw for pumping
+water out of the hold of a great ship which he had built. He contrived
+also the combination of pulleys, and he constructed an orrery to
+represent the movement of the heavenly bodies. He had an extraordinary
+inventive genius for discovering new provinces of inquiry and new points
+of view for old and familiar objects. Like Newton, he had a habit of
+abstraction from outward things, and would forget to take his meals. He
+was killed by Roman soldiers when Syracuse was taken; and the Sicilians
+so soon forgot his greatness that in the time of Cicero they did not
+know where his tomb was.
+
+Eratosthenes was another of the famous geometers of antiquity, and did
+much to improve geometrical analysis. He was also a philosopher and
+geographer. He gave a solution of the problem of the duplication of the
+cube, and applied his geometrical knowledge to the measurement of the
+magnitude of the earth,--being one of the first who brought
+mathematical methods to the aid of astronomy, which in our day is almost
+exclusively the province of the mathematician.
+
+Apollonius of Perga, probably about forty years younger than Archimedes,
+and his equal in mathematical genius, was the most fertile and profound
+writer among the ancients who treated of geometry. He was called the
+Great Geometer. His most important work is a treatise on conic sections,
+which was regarded with unbounded admiration by contemporaries, and in
+some respects is unsurpassed by any thing produced by modern
+mathematicians. He however made use of the labors of his predecessors,
+so that it is difficult to tell how far he is original. But all men of
+science must necessarily be indebted to those who have preceded them.
+Even Homer, in the field of poetry, made use of the bards who had sung
+for a thousand years before him; and in the realms of philosophy the
+great men of all ages have built up new systems on the foundations which
+others have established. If Plato or Aristotle had been contemporaries
+with Thales, would they have matured so wonderful a system of
+dialectics? Yet if Thales had been contemporaneous with Plato, he might
+have added to the great Athenian's sublime science even more than did
+Aristotle. So of the great mathematicians of antiquity; they were all
+wonderful men, and worthy to be classed with the Newtons and Keplers of
+our times. Considering their means and the state of science, they made
+as _great_ though not as _fortunate_ discoveries,--discoveries which
+show patience, genius, and power of calculation. Apollonius was one of
+these,--one of the master intellects of antiquity, like Euclid and
+Archimedes; one of the master intellects of all ages, like Newton
+himself. I might mention the subjects of his various works, but they
+would not be understood except by those familiar with mathematics.
+
+Other famous geometers could also be named, but such men as Euclid,
+Archimedes, and Apollonius are enough to show that geometry was
+cultivated to a great extent by the philosophers of antiquity. It
+progressively advanced, like philosophy itself, from the time of Thales
+until it had reached the perfection of which it was capable, when it
+became merged into astronomical science. It was cultivated more
+particularly by the disciples of Plato, who placed over his school this
+inscription: "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here." He believed
+that the laws by which the universe is governed are in accordance with
+the doctrines of mathematics. The same opinion was shared by Pythagoras,
+the great founder of the science, whose main formula was that _number_
+is the essence or first principle of all things. No thinkers ever
+surpassed the Greeks in originality and profundity; and mathematics,
+being highly prized by them, were carried to the greatest perfection
+their method would allow. They did not understand algebra, by the
+application of which to geometry modern mathematicians have climbed to
+greater heights than the ancients; but then it is all the more
+remarkable that without the aid of algebraic analysis they were able to
+solve such difficult problems as occupied the minds of Archimedes and
+Apollonius. No positive science can boast of such rapid development as
+geometry for two or three hundred years before Christ, and never was the
+intellect of man more severely tasked than by the ancient
+mathematicians.
+
+No empirical science can be carried to perfection by any one nation or
+in any particular epoch; it can only expand with the progressive
+developments of the human race itself. Nevertheless, in that science
+which for three thousand years has been held in the greatest honor, and
+which is one of the three great liberal professions of our modern times,
+the ancients, especially the Greeks, made considerable advance. The
+science of medicine, having in view the amelioration of human misery and
+the prolongation of life itself, was very early cultivated. It was,
+indeed, in old times another word for _physics_,--the science of
+Nature,--and the _physician_ was the observer and expounder of physics.
+The physician was supposed to be acquainted with the secrets of
+Nature,--that is, the knowledge of drugs, of poisons, of antidotes to
+them, and the way to administer them. He was also supposed to know the
+process of preserving the body after death. Thus Joseph, seventeen
+hundred years before the birth of Christ, commanded his physician to
+embalm the body of his father; and the process of embalming was probably
+known to the Egyptians before the period when history begins. Helen, of
+Trojan fame, put into wine a drug that "frees man from grief and anger,
+and causes oblivion of all ills." Solomon was a great botanist,--a realm
+with which the science of medicine is indissolubly connected. The origin
+of Hindu medicine is lost in remote antiquity. The Ayur Veda, written
+nine hundred years before Hippocrates was born, sums up the knowledge of
+previous periods relating to obstetric surgery, to general pathology, to
+the treatment of insanity, to infantile diseases, to toxicology, to
+personal hygiene, and to diseases of the generative functions.
+
+Thus Hippocrates, the father of European medicine, must have derived his
+knowledge not merely from his own observations, but from the writings of
+men unknown to us and from systems practised for an indefinite period.
+The real founders of Greek medicine are fabled characters, like Hercules
+and Aesculapius,--that is, benefactors whose fictitious names alone
+have descended to us. They are mythical personages, like Hermes and
+Chiron. Twelve hundred years before Christ temples were erected to
+Aesculapius in Greece, the priests of which were really physicians, and
+the temples themselves hospitals. In them were practised rites
+apparently mysterious, but which modern science calls by the names of
+mesmerism, hydropathy, the use of mineral springs, and other essential
+elements of empirical science. And these temples were also medical
+schools. That of Cos gave birth to Hippocrates, and it was there that
+his writings were begun. Pythagoras--for those old Grecian philosophers
+were the fathers of all wisdom and knowledge, in mathematics and
+empirical sciences as well as philosophy itself--studied medicine in the
+schools of Egypt, Phoenicia, Chaldaea, and India, and came in conflict
+with sacerdotal power, which has ever been antagonistic to new ideas in
+science. He travelled from town to town as a teacher or lecturer,
+establishing communities in which _medicine_ as well as _numbers_
+was taught.
+
+The greatest name in medical science in ancient or in modern times, the
+man who did the most to advance it, the greatest medical genius of whom
+we have any early record, was Hippocrates, born on the island of Cos,
+460 B.C., of the great Aesculapian family. He received his instruction
+from his father. We know scarcely more of his life than we do of Homer
+himself, although he lived in the period of the highest splendor of
+Athens. Even his writings, like those of Homer, are thought by some to
+be the work of different men. They were translated into Arabic, and were
+no slight means of giving an impulse to the Saracenic schools of the
+Middle Ages in that science in which the Saracens especially excelled.
+The Hippocratic collection consists of more than sixty works, which were
+held in the highest estimation by the ancient physicians. Hippocrates
+introduced a new era in medicine, which before his time had been
+monopolized by the priests. He carried out a system of severe induction
+from the observation of facts, and is as truly the creator of the
+inductive method as Bacon himself. He abhorred theories which could not
+be established by facts; he was always open to conviction, and candidly
+confessed his mistakes; he was conscientious in the practice of his
+profession, and valued the success of his art more than silver and gold.
+The Athenians revered Hippocrates for his benevolence as well as genius.
+The great principle of his practice was _trust in Nature_; hence he was
+accused of allowing his patients to die. But this principle has many
+advocates among scientific men in our day; and some suppose that the
+whole successful practice of Homoeopathy rests on the primal principle
+which Hippocrates advanced, although the philosophy of it claims a
+distinctly scientific basis in the principle _similia similibus
+curantur_. Hippocrates had great skill in diagnosis, by which medical
+genius is most severely tested; his practice was cautious and timid in
+contrast with that of his contemporaries. He is the author of the
+celebrated maxim, "Life is short and art is long." He divides the causes
+of disease into two principal classes,--the one comprehending the
+influence of seasons, climates, and other external forces; the other
+including the effects of food and exercise. To the influence of climate
+he attributes the conformation of the body and the disposition of the
+mind; to a vicious system of diet he attributes innumerable forms of
+disease. For more than twenty centuries his pathology was the foundation
+of all the medical sects. He was well acquainted with the medicinal
+properties of drugs, and was the first to assign three periods to the
+course of a malady. He knew but little of surgery, although he was in
+the habit of bleeding, and often employed the knife; he was also
+acquainted with cupping, and used violent purgatives. He was not aware
+of the importance of the pulse, and confounded the veins with the
+arteries. Hippocrates wrote in the Ionic dialect, and some of his works
+have gone through three hundred editions, so highly have they been
+valued. His authority passed away, like that of Aristotle, on the
+revival of science in Europe. Yet who have been greater ornaments and
+lights than these two distinguished Greeks?
+
+The school of Alexandria produced eminent physicians, as well as
+mathematicians, after the glory of Greece had departed. So highly was it
+esteemed that Galen in the second century,--born in Greece, but famous
+in the service of Rome,--went there to study, five hundred years after
+its foundation. It was distinguished for inquiries into scientific
+anatomy and physiology, for which Aristotle had prepared the way. Galen
+was the Humboldt of his day, and gave great attention to physics. In
+eight books he developed the general principles of natural science known
+to the Greeks. On the basis of the Aristotelian researches, the
+Alexandrian physicians carried out extensive inquiries in physiology.
+Herophilus discovered the fundamental principles of neurology, and
+advanced the anatomy of the brain and spinal cord.
+
+Although the Romans had but little sympathy with science or philosophy,
+being essentially political and warlike in their turn of mind, yet when
+they had conquered the world, and had turned their attention to arts,
+medicine received a good share of their attention. The first physicians
+in Rome were Greek slaves. Of these was Asclepiades, who enjoyed the
+friendship of Cicero. It is from him that the popular medical theories
+as to the "pores" have descended. He was the inventor of the
+shower-bath. Celsus wrote a work on medicine which takes almost equal
+rank with the Hippocratic writings.
+
+Medical science at Rome culminated in Galen, as it did at Athens in
+Hippocrates. Galen was patronized by Marcus Aurelius, and availed
+himself of all the knowledge of preceding naturalists and physicians. He
+was born at Pergamos about the year 130 A.D., where he learned, under
+able masters, anatomy, pathology, and therapeutics. He finished his
+studies at Alexandria, and came to Rome at the invitation of the
+Emperor. Like his imperial patron, Galen was one of the brightest
+ornaments of the heathen world, and one of the most learned and
+accomplished men of any age. He left five hundred treatises, most of
+them relating to some branch of medical science, which give him the name
+of being one of the most voluminous of authors. His celebrity is founded
+chiefly on his anatomical and physiological works. He was familiar with
+practical anatomy, deriving his knowledge from dissection. His
+observations about health are practical and useful; he lays great stress
+on gymnastic exercises, and recommends the pleasures of the chase, the
+cold bath in hot weather, hot baths for old people, the use of wine, and
+three meals a day. The great principles of his practice were that
+disease is to be overcome by that which is contrary to the disease
+itself,--hence the name Allopathy, invented by the founder of
+Homoeopathy to designate the fundamental principle of the general
+practice,--and that nature is to be preserved by that which has relation
+with nature. His "Commentaries on Hippocrates" served as a treasure of
+medical criticism, from which succeeding annotators borrowed. No one
+ever set before the medical profession a higher standard than Galen
+advanced, and few have more nearly approached it. He did not attach
+himself to any particular school, but studied the doctrines of each. The
+works of Galen constituted the last production of ancient Roman
+medicine, and from his day the decline in medical science was rapid,
+until it was revived among the Arabs.
+
+The physical sciences, it must be confessed, were not carried by the
+ancients to any such length as geometry and astronomy. In physical
+geography they were particularly deficient. Yet even this branch of
+knowledge can boast of some eminent names. When men sailed timidly along
+the coasts, and dared not explore distant seas, the true position and
+characteristics of countries could not be ascertained with the
+definiteness that it is at present. But geography was not utterly
+neglected in those early times, nor was natural history.
+
+Herodotus gives us most valuable information respecting the manners and
+customs of Oriental and barbarous nations; and Pliny wrote a Natural
+History in thirty-seven books, which is compiled from upwards of two
+thousand volumes, and refers to twenty thousand matters of importance.
+He was born 23 A.D., and was fifty-six when the eruption of Vesuvius
+took place, which caused his death. Pliny cannot be called a scientific
+genius in the sense understood by modern savants; nor was he an original
+observer,--his materials being drawn up second-hand, like a modern
+encyclopaedia. Nor did he evince great judgment in his selection: he had
+a great love of the marvellous, and his work was often unintelligible;
+but it remains a wonderful monument of human industry. His Natural
+History treats of everything in the natural world,--of the heavenly
+bodies, of the elements, of thunder and lightning, of the winds and
+seasons, of the changes and phenomena of the earth, of countries and
+nations, of seas and rivers, of men, animals, birds, fishes, and plants,
+of minerals and medicines and precious stones, of commerce and the fine
+arts. He is full of errors, but his work is among the most valuable
+productions of antiquity. Buffon pronounced his Natural History to
+contain an infinity of knowledge in every department of human
+occupation, conveyed in a dress ornate and brilliant. It is a literary
+rather than a scientific monument, and as such it is wonderful. In
+strict scientific value, it is inferior to the works of modern research;
+but there are few minds, even in these times, who have directed
+inquiries to such a variety of subjects as are treated in Pliny's
+masterpiece.
+
+If we would compare the geographical knowledge of the ancients with that
+of the moderns, we confess to the immeasurable inferiority of
+the ancients.
+
+Eratosthenes, though more properly an astronomer, and the most
+distinguished among the ancients, was also a considerable writer on
+geography, indeed, the first who treated the subject systematically,
+although none of his writings have reached us. The improvements he
+pointed out were applied by Ptolemy himself. His work was a presentation
+of the geographical knowledge known in his day, so far as geography is
+the science of determining the position of places on the earth's
+surface. When Eratosthenes began his labors, in the third century before
+Christ, it was known that the surface of the earth was spherical; he
+established parallels of latitude and longitude, and attempted the
+difficult undertaking of measuring the circumference of the globe by the
+actual measurement of a segment of one of its great circles.
+
+Hipparchus (beginning of second century before Christ) introduced into
+geography a great improvement; namely, the relative situation of
+places, by the same process that he determined the positions of the
+heavenly bodies. He also pointed out how longitude might be determined
+by observing the eclipses of the sun and moon. This led to the
+construction of maps; but none have reached us except those that were
+used to illustrate the geography of Ptolemy. Hipparchus was the first
+who raised geography to the rank of a science. He starved himself to
+death, being tired of life.
+
+Posidonius, who was nearly a century later, determined the arc of a
+meridian between Rhodes and Alexandria to be a forty-eighth part of the
+whole circumference,--an enormous calculation, yet a remarkable one in
+the infancy of astronomical science. His writings on history and
+geography are preserved only in quotations by Cicero, Strabo,
+and others.
+
+Geographical knowledge however was most notably advanced by Strabo, who
+lived in the Augustan era; although his researches were chiefly confined
+to the Roman empire. Strabo was, like Herodotus, a great traveller, and
+much of his geographical information is the result of his own
+observations. It is probable he was much indebted to Eratosthenes, who
+preceded him by three centuries. The authorities of Strabo were chiefly
+Greek, but his work is defective from the imperfect notions which the
+ancients had of astronomy; so that the determination of the earth's
+figure by the measure of latitude and longitude, the essential
+foundation of geographical description, was unknown. The enormous
+strides which all forms of physical science have made since the
+discovery of America throw all ancient descriptions and investigations
+into the shade, and Strabo appears at as great disadvantage as Pliny or
+Ptolemy; yet the work of Strabo, considering his means, and the
+imperfect knowledge of the earth's surface and astronomical science in
+his day, was really a great achievement. He treats of the form and
+magnitude of the earth, and devotes eight books to Europe, six to Asia,
+and one to Africa. The description of places belongs to Strabo, whose
+work was accepted as the text-book of the science till the fifteenth
+century, for in his day the Roman empire had been well surveyed. He
+maintained that the earth is spherical, and established the terms
+_longitude_ and _latitude_, which Eratosthenes had introduced, and
+computed the earth to be one hundred and eighty thousand stadia in
+circumference, and a degree to be five hundred stadia in length, or
+sixty-two and a-half Roman miles. His estimates of the length of a
+degree of latitude were nearly correct; but he made great errors in the
+degrees of longitude, making the length of the world from east to west
+too great, which led to the belief in the practicability of a western
+passage to India. He also assigned too great length to the
+Mediterranean, arising from the difficulty of finding the longitude with
+accuracy. But it was impossible, with the scientific knowledge of his
+day, to avoid errors, and we are surprised that he made so few.
+
+Whatever may be said of the accuracy of the great geographer of
+antiquity, it cannot be denied that he was a man of immense research and
+learning. His work in seventeen books is one of the most valuable that
+have come down from antiquity, both from the discussions which run
+through it, and the curious facts which can be found nowhere else. It is
+scarcely fair to estimate the genius of Strabo by the correctness and
+extent of his geographical knowledge. All men are comparatively ignorant
+in science, because science is confessedly a progressive study. The
+great scientific lights of our day may be insignificant, compared with
+those who are to arise, if profundity and accuracy of knowledge be made
+the test. It is the genius of the ancients, their grasp and power of
+mind, their original labors, which we are to consider.
+
+Thus it would seem that among the ancients, in those departments of
+science which are inductive, there were not sufficient facts, well
+established, from which to make sound inductions; but in those
+departments which are deductive, like pure mathematics, and which
+require great reasoning powers, there were lofty attainments,--which
+indeed gave the foundation for the achievements of modern science.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+An exceedingly learned work (London, 1862) on the Astronomy of the
+Ancients, by Sir George Cornewall Lewis, though rather ostentatious in
+the parade of authorities, and minute on points which are not of much
+consequence, is worth consulting. Delambre's History of Ancient
+Astronomy has long been a classic, but is richer in materials for a
+history than a history itself. There is a valuable essay in the
+Encyclopaedia Britannica, which refers to a list of special authors.
+Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences may also be consulted with
+profit. Dunglison's History of Medicine is a standard, giving much
+detailed information, and Leclerc among the French and Speugel among the
+Germans are esteemed authorities. Strabo's Geography is the most
+valuable of antiquity; see also Polybius: both of these have been
+translated and edited for English readers.
+
+
+
+
+MATERIAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS.
+
+
+MECHANICAL AND USEFUL ARTS.
+
+4000-50 B.C.
+
+
+While the fine arts made great progress among the cultivated nations of
+antiquity, and with the Greeks reached a refinement that has never since
+been surpassed, the ancients were far behind modern nations in
+everything that has utility for its object. In implements of war, in
+agricultural instruments, in the variety of manufactures, in machinery,
+in chemical compounds, in domestic utensils, in grand engineering works,
+in the comfort of houses, in modes of land-travel and transportation, in
+navigation, in the multiplication of books, in triumphs over the forces
+of Nature, in those discoveries and inventions which abridge the labors
+of mankind and bring races into closer intercourse,--especially by such
+wonders as are wrought by steam, gas, electricity, gunpowder, the
+mariner's compass, and the art of printing,--the modern world feels its
+immense superiority to all the ages that have gone before. And yet,
+considering the infancy of science and the youth of nations, more was
+accomplished by the ancients for the comfort and convenience and luxury
+of man than we naturally might suppose.
+
+Egypt was the primeval seat of what may be called material civilization,
+and many arts and inventions were known there when the rest of the world
+was still in ignorance and barbarism. More than four thousand years ago
+the Egyptians had chariots of war and most of the military weapons known
+afterward to the Greeks,--especially the spear and bow, which were the
+most effective offensive weapons known to antiquity or the Middle Ages.
+Some of their warriors were clothed in coats of brass equal to the steel
+or iron cuirass worn by the Mediaeval knights of chivalry. They had the
+battle-axe, the shield, the sword, the javelin, the metal-headed arrow.
+One of the early Egyptian kings marched against his enemies with six
+hundred thousand infantry, twenty thousand cavalry, and twenty-three
+thousand chariots of war, each drawn by two horses. The saddles and
+bridles of their horses were nearly as perfect as ours are at the
+present time; the leather they used was dyed in various colors, and
+adorned with metal edges. The wheels of their chariots were bound with
+hoops of metal, and had six spokes. Umbrellas to protect from the rays
+of the sun were held over the heads of their women of rank when they
+rode in their highly-decorated chariots. Walls of solid masonry, thick
+and high, surrounded their principal cities, while an attacking or
+besieging army used movable towers. Their disciplined troops advanced to
+battle in true military precision, at the sound of the trumpet.
+
+The public works of Egyptian kings were on a grand scale. They united
+rivers with seas by canals which employed hundreds of thousands of
+workmen. They transported heavy blocks of stone, of immense weight and
+magnitude, for their temples, palaces, and tombs. They erected obelisks
+in single shafts nearly one hundred feet in height, and they engraved
+the sides of these obelisks from top to bottom with representations of
+warriors, priests, and captives. They ornamented their vast temples with
+sculptures which required the hardest metals. Rameses the Great, the
+Sesostris of the Greeks, had a fleet of four hundred vessels in the
+Arabian Gulf, and the rowers wore quilted helmets. His vessels had
+sails, which implies the weaving of flax and the twisting of heavy
+ropes; some of his war-galleys were propelled by forty-four oars, and
+were one hundred and twenty feet in length.
+
+Among their domestic utensils the Egyptians used the same kind of
+buckets for wells that we find to-day among the farmhouses of New
+England. Skilful gardeners were employed in ornamenting grounds and in
+raising fruits and vegetables. The leather cutters and dressers were
+famous for their skill, as well as workers in linen. Most products of
+the land, as well as domestic animals, were sold by weight in carefully
+adjusted scales. Instead of coins, money was in rings of gold, silver,
+and copper. The skill used by the Egyptians in rearing fowls, geese, and
+domestic animals greatly surpassed that known to modern farmers.
+According to Wilkinson, they caught fish in nets equal to the seines
+employed by modern fishermen. Their houses as well as their monuments
+were built of brick, and were sometimes four or five stories in height,
+and secured by bolts on the doors. Locks and keys were also in use, made
+of iron; and the doorways were ornamented. Some of the roofs of their
+public buildings were arched with stone. In their mills for grinding
+wheat circular stones were used, resembling in form those now employed,
+generally turned by women, but sometimes so large that asses and mules
+were employed in the work. The walls and ceilings of their buildings
+were richly painted, the devices being as elaborate as those of the
+Greeks. Besides town-houses, the rich had villas and gardens, where they
+amused themselves with angling and spearing fish in the ponds. The
+gardens were laid in walks shaded with trees, and were well watered from
+large tanks. Vines were trained on trellis-work supported by pillars,
+and sometimes in the form of bowers. For gathering fruit, baskets were
+used somewhat similar to those now employed. Their wine-presses showed
+considerable ingenuity, and after the necessary fermentation the wine
+was poured into large earthen jars, corresponding to the amphorae of the
+Romans, and covered with lids made air-tight by resin and bitumen. The
+Egyptians had several kinds of wine, highly praised by the ancients; and
+wine among them was cheap and abundant. Egypt was also renowned for
+drugs unknown to other nations, and for beer made of barley, as well as
+wine. As for fruits, they had the same variety as we have at the present
+day, their favorite fruit being dates. "So fond were the Egyptians of
+trees and flowers that they exacted a contribution from the nations
+tributary to them of their rarest plants, so that their gardens bloomed
+with flowers of every variety in all seasons of the year." Wreaths and
+chaplets were in common use from the earliest antiquity. It was in their
+gardens, abounding with vegetables as well as with fruits and flowers,
+that the Egyptians entertained their friends.
+
+In Egyptian houses were handsome chairs and fauteuils, stools and
+couches, the legs of which were carved in imitation of the feet of
+animals; and these were made of rare woods, inlaid with ivory, and
+covered with rich stuffs. Some of the Egyptian chairs were furnished
+with cushions and covered with the skins of leopards and lions; the
+seats were made of leather, painted with flowers. Footstools were
+sometimes made of elegant patterns, inlaid with ivory and precious
+woods. Mats were used in the sitting-rooms. The couches were of every
+variety of form, and utilized in some instances as beds. The tables were
+round, square, and oblong, and were sometimes made of stone and highly
+ornamented with carvings. Bronze bedsteads were used by the
+wealthy classes.
+
+In their entertainments nothing was omitted by the Egyptians which would
+produce festivity,--music, songs, dancing, and games of chance. The
+guests arrived in chariots or palanquins, borne by servants on foot, who
+also carried parasols over the heads of their masters. Previous to
+entering the festive chamber water was brought for the feet and hands,
+the ewers employed being made often of gold and silver, of beautiful
+form and workmanship. Servants in attendance anointed the head with
+sweet-scented ointment from alabaster vases, and put around the heads of
+the guests garlands and wreaths in which the lotus was conspicuous; they
+also perfumed the apartments with myrrh and frankincense, obtained
+chiefly from Syria. Then wine was brought, and emptied into
+drinking-cups of silver or bronze, and even of porcelain, beautifully
+engraved, one of which was exclusively reserved for the master of the
+house. While at dinner the party were enlivened with musical
+instruments, the chief of which were the harp, the lyre, the guitar, the
+tambourine, the pipe, the flute, and the cymbal. Music was looked upon
+by the Egyptians as an important science, and was diligently studied and
+highly prized; the song and the dance were united with the sounds of
+musical instruments. Many of the ornamented vases and other vessels used
+by the Egyptians in their banquets were not inferior in elegance of form
+and artistic finish to those made by the Greeks at a later day. The
+Pharaoh of the Jewish Exodus had drinking-vessels of gold and silver,
+exquisitely engraved and ornamented with precious stones.
+
+Some of the bronze vases found at Thebes and other parts of Egypt show
+great skill in the art of compounding metals, and were highly polished.
+Their bronze knives and daggers had an elastic spring, as if made of
+steel. Wilkinson expresses his surprise at the porcelain vessels
+recently discovered, as well as admiration of them, especially of their
+rich colors and beautiful shapes. There is a porcelain bowl of exquisite
+workmanship in the British Museum inscribed with the name of Rameses
+II., proving that the arts of pottery were carried to great perfection
+two thousand years before Christ. Boxes of elaborate workmanship, made
+of precious woods finely carved and inlaid with ivory, are also
+preserved in the different museums of Europe, all dating from a remote
+antiquity. These boxes are of every form, with admirably fitting lids,
+representing fishes, birds, and animals. The rings, bracelets, and other
+articles of jewelry that have been preserved show great facility on the
+part of the Egyptians in cutting the hardest stones. The skill displayed
+in the sculptures on the hard obelisks and granite monuments of Egypt
+was remarkable, since they were executed with hardened bronze.
+
+Glass-blowing was another art in which the Egyptians excelled. Fifteen
+hundred years before Christ they made ornaments of glass, and glass
+vessels of large size were used for holding wine. Such was their skill
+in the manufacture of glass that they counterfeited precious stones with
+a success unknown to the moderns. We read of a counterfeited emerald six
+feet in length. Counterfeited necklaces were sold at Thebes which
+deceived strangers. The uses to which glass was applied were in the
+manufacture of bottles, beads, mosaic work, and drinking-cups, and their
+different colors show considerable knowledge of chemistry. The art of
+cutting and engraving stones was doubtless learned by the Israelites in
+their sojourn in Egypt. So perfect were the Egyptians in the arts of
+cutting precious stones that they were sought by foreign merchants, and
+they furnished an important material in commerce.
+
+From the earliest times the Egyptians were celebrated for their
+manufacture of linen, which was one of the principal articles of
+commerce; and cotton and woollen cloths as well as linen were woven.
+Cotton was used not only for articles of dress, but for the covering of
+chairs and other kinds of furniture. The great mass of the mummy cloths
+is of coarse texture; but the "fine linen" spoken of in the Scripture
+was as fine as muslin, in some instances containing more than five
+hundred threads to an inch, while the finest productions of the looms of
+India have only one hundred threads to the inch. Not only were the
+threads of linen cloth of extraordinary fineness, but the dyes were
+equally remarkable, and were unaffected by strong alkalies. Spinning was
+principally the occupation of women, who also practised the art of
+embroidery, in which gold thread was used, supposed to be beaten out by
+the hammer; but in the arts of dyeing and embroidery the Egyptians were
+surpassed by the Babylonians, who were renowned for their cloths of
+various colors.
+
+The manufacture of paper was another art for which the Egyptians were
+famous, made from the papyrus, a plant growing in the marsh-land of the
+Nile. The papyrus was also applied to the manufacture of sails, baskets,
+canoes, and parts of sandals. Some of the papyri, on which is
+hieroglyphic writing dating from two thousand years before our era, are
+in good preservation. Sheep-skin parchment also was used for writing.
+
+The Egyptians were especially skilled in the preparation of leather for
+sandals, shields, and chairs. The curriers used the same semicircular
+knife which is now in use. The great consumption of leather created a
+demand far greater than could be satisfied by the produce of the
+country, and therefore skins from foreign countries were imported as
+part of the tribute laid on conquered nations or tribes.
+
+More numerous than the tanners in Egypt were the potters, among whom the
+pottery-wheel was known from a remote antiquity, previous to the arrival
+of Joseph from Canaan, and long before the foundation of the Greek
+Athens. Earthenware was used for holding wine, oils, and other liquids;
+but the finest production of the potter were the vases, covered with a
+vitreous glaze and modelled in every variety of forms, some of which
+were as elegant as those made later by the Greeks, who excelled in this
+department of art.
+
+Carpenters and cabinet-makers formed a large class of Egyptian workmen
+for making coffins, boxes, tables, chairs, doors, sofas, and other
+articles of furniture, frequently inlaid with ivory and rare woods.
+Veneering was known to these workmen, probably arising from the scarcity
+of wood. The tools used by the carpenters, as appear from the
+representations on the monuments, were the axe, the adze, the hand-saw,
+the chisel, the drill, and the plane. These tools were made of bronze,
+with handles of acacia, tamarisk, and other hard woods. The hatchet, by
+which trees were felled, was used by boat-builders. The boxes and other
+articles of furniture were highly ornamented with inlaid work.
+
+Boat-building in Egypt also employed many workmen. Boats were made of
+the papyrus plant, deal, cedar, and other woods, and were propelled both
+by sails and oars. One ship-of-war built for Ptolemy Philopater is said
+by ancient writers to have been 478 feet long, to have had forty banks
+of oars, and to have carried 400 sailors, 4,000 rowers, and 3,000
+soldiers. This is doubtless an exaggeration, but indicates great
+progress in naval architecture. The construction of boats varied
+according to the purpose for which they were intended. They were built
+with ribs as at the present day, with small keels, square sails, with
+spacious cabins in the centre, and ornamented sterns; there was usually
+but one mast, and the prows terminated in the heads of animals. The
+boats of burden were somewhat similar to our barges; the sails were
+generally painted with rich colors. The origin of boat-building was
+probably the raft, and improvement followed improvement until the
+ship-of-war rivalled in size our largest vessels, while Egyptian
+merchant vessels penetrated to distant seas, and probably doubled the
+Cape of Good Hope.
+
+In regard to agriculture the Egyptians were the most advanced of the
+nations of antiquity, since the fertility of their soil made the
+occupation one of primary importance. Irrigation was universally
+practised, the Nile furnishing water for innumerable canals. The soil
+was often turned up with the hoe rather than the plough. The grain was
+sown broadcast, and was trodden in by goats. Their plough was very
+simple, and was drawn by oxen; the yoke being attached to the horns.
+Although the soil was rich, manures were frequently used. The chief
+crops were those of wheat, barley, beans, peas, lentils, vetches,
+lupines, clover, rice, indigo, cotton, lettuce, flax, hemp, cumin,
+coriander, poppy, melons, cucumbers, onions, and leeks. We do not read
+of carrots, cabbages, beets, or potatoes, which enter so largely into
+modern husbandry. Oil was obtained from the olive, the castor-berry,
+simsin, and coleseed. Among the principal trees which were cultivated
+were the vine, olive, locust, acacia, date, sycamore, pomegranate, and
+tamarisk. Grain, after harvest, was trodden out by oxen, and the straw
+was used as provender. To protect the fields from inundation dykes
+were built.
+
+All classes in Egypt delighted in the sports of the field, especially in
+the hunting of wild animals, in which the arrow was most frequently
+used. Sometimes the animals were caught in nets, in enclosed places near
+water-brooks. The Egyptians also had numerous fish-ponds, since they
+were as fond of angling as they were of hunting. Hunting in Egypt was an
+amusement, not an occupation as among nomadic people. Not only was
+hunting for pleasure a great amusement among Egyptians, but also among
+Babylonians and Persians, who coursed the plains with dogs. They used
+the noose or lasso also to catch antelopes and wild cattle, which were
+hunted with lions; the bow used in the chase was similar to that
+employed in war. All the subjects of the chase were sculptured on the
+monuments with great spirit and fidelity, especially the stag, the ibex,
+the porcupine, the wolf, the hare, the lion, the fox, and the giraffe.
+The camel is not found among the Egyptian sculptures, nor the bear. Of
+the birds found in their sculptures were vultures, eagles, kites, hawks,
+owls, ravens, larks, swallows, turtle-doves, quails, ostriches, storks,
+plovers, snipes, geese, and ducks, many of which were taken in nets. The
+Nile and Lake Birket el Keroun furnished fish in great abundance. The
+profits of the fisheries were enormous, and were farmed out by the
+government.
+
+The Egyptians were very fond of ornaments in dress, especially the
+women. They paid great attention to their sandals; they wore their hair
+long and plaited, bound round with an ornamented fillet fastened by a
+lotus bud; they wore ear-rings and a profusion of rings on the fingers
+and bracelets for the arms, made of gold and set with precious stones.
+The scarabaeus, or sacred beetle, was the adornment of rings and
+necklaces; even the men wore necklaces and rings and chains. Both men
+and women stained the eyelids and brows. Pins and needles were among the
+articles of the toilet, usually made of bronze; also metallic mirrors
+finely polished. The men carried canes or walking-sticks,--the wands of
+Moses and Aaron.
+
+As the Egyptians paid great attention to health, physicians were held in
+great repute; and none were permitted to practise but in some particular
+branch, such as diseases of the eye, the ear, the head, the teeth, and
+the internal maladies. They were paid by government, and were skilled in
+the knowledge of drugs. The art of curing diseases originated, according
+to Pliny, in Egypt. Connected with the healing art was the practice of
+embalming dead bodies, which was carried to great perfection.
+
+In elegance of life the Greeks and Romans, however, far surpassed any
+of the nations of antiquity, if not in luxury itself, which was confined
+to the palaces of kings. In social refinements the Greeks were not
+behind any modern nation, as one infers from reading Becker's Charicles.
+Among the Greeks was the network of trades and professions, as in Paris
+and London, and a complicated social life in which all the amenities
+known to the modern world were seen, especially in Athens and Corinth
+and the Ionian capitals. What could be more polite and courteous than
+the intercourse carried on in Greece among cultivated and famous people?
+When were symposia more attractive than when the _élite_ of Athens, in
+the time of Pericles, feasted and communed together? When was art ever
+brought in support of luxury to greater perfection? We read of libraries
+and books and booksellers, of social games, of attractive gardens and
+villas, as well as of baths and spectacles, of markets and fora in
+Athens. The common life of a Pericles or a Cicero differed but little
+from that of modern men of rank and fortune.
+
+In describing the various arts which marked the nations of antiquity, we
+cannot but feel that in a material point of view the ancient
+civilization in its important features was as splendid as our own. In
+the decoration of houses, in social entertainments, in cookery, the
+Romans were our equals. The mosaics, the signet rings, cameos,
+bracelets, bronzes, vases, couches, banqueting-tables, lamps, colored
+glass, potteries, all attest great elegance and beauty. The tables of
+thuga root and Delian bronze were as expensive as modern sideboards;
+wood and ivory were carved in Rome as exquisitely as in Japan and China;
+mirrors were made of polished silver. Glass-cutters could imitate the
+colors of precious stones so well that the Portland vase, from the tomb
+of Alexander Severus, was long considered as a genuine sardonyx. The
+palace of Nero glittered with gold and jewels; perfumes and flowers were
+showered from ivory ceilings. The halls of Heliogabalus were hung with
+cloth of gold, enriched with jewels; his beds were silver, and his
+tables of gold. A banquet dish of Drusillus weighed five hundred pounds
+of silver. Tunics were embroidered with the figures of various animals;
+sandals were garnished with precious stones. Paulina wore jewels, when
+she paid visits, valued at $800,000. Drinking-cups were engraved with
+scenes from the poets; libraries were adorned with busts, and presses of
+rare woods; sofas were inlaid with tortoise-shell, and covered with
+gorgeous purple. The Roman grandees rode in gilded chariots, bathed in
+marble baths, dined from golden plate, drank from crystal cups, slept on
+beds of down, reclined on luxurious couches, wore embroidered robes,
+and were adorned with precious stones. They ransacked the earth and the
+seas for rare dishes for their banquets, and ornamented their houses
+with carpets from Babylon, onyx cups from Bithynia, marbles from
+Numidia, bronzes from Corinth, statues from Athens,--whatever, in short,
+was precious or rare or curious in the most distant countries.
+
+What a concentration of material wonders was to be seen in all the
+countries that bordered on the Mediterranean,--not merely in Italy and
+Greece, but in Sicily and Asia Minor, and even in Gaul and Spain! Every
+country was dotted with cities, villas, and farms. Every country was
+famous for oil, or fruit, or wine, or vegetables, or timber, or flocks,
+or pastures, or horses. More than two hundred and fifty cities or towns
+in Italy alone are historical, and some were famous.
+
+The excavations of Pompeii attest great luxury and elegance of life.
+Cortona, Clusium, Veii, Ancona, Ostia, Praeneste, Antium, Misenum,
+Baiae, Puteoli, Neapolis, Brundusium, Sybaris, were all celebrated.
+
+And still more remarkable were the old capitals of Greece, Asia Minor,
+and Africa. Syracuse was older than Rome, and had a fortress of a mile
+and a half in length. Carthage, under the emperors, nearly equalled its
+ancient magnificence. Athens was never more splendid than in the time of
+the Roman Antonines. In spite of successive conquests, there still
+towered upon the Acropolis the most wonderful temple of antiquity, built
+of Pentelic marble, and adorned with the sculptures of Phidias. Corinth
+was richer and more luxurious than Athens, and possessed the most
+valuable pictures of Greece, as well as the finest statues; a single
+street for three miles was adorned with costly edifices. And even the
+islands which were colonized by Greeks were seats of sculpture and
+painting, as well as of schools of learning. Still grander were the
+cities of Asia Minor. Antioch had a street four miles in length, with
+double colonnades; and its baths, theatres, museums, and temples excited
+universal admiration. At Ephesus was the grand temple of Diana, four
+times as large as the Parthenon at Athens, covering as much ground as
+Cologne Cathedral, with one hundred and twenty-eight columns sixty feet
+high. The Ephesian theatre was capable of seating sixty thousand
+spectators. Tarsus, the birthplace of Paul, was no mean city; and
+Damascus, the old capital of Syria, was both beautiful and rich.
+
+Laodicea was famous for tapestries, Hierapolis for its iron wares,
+Cybara for its dyes, Sardis for its wines, Smyrna for its beautiful
+monuments, Delos for its slave-trade, Cyrene for its horses, Paphos for
+its temple of Venus, in which were a hundred altars. Seleucia, on the
+Tigris, had a population of four hundred thousand. Caesarea in
+Palestine, founded by Herod the Great, and the principal seat of
+government to the Roman prefects, had a harbor equal in size to the
+renowned Piraeus, and was secured against the southwest winds by a mole
+of such massive construction that the blocks of stone, sunk under the
+water, were fifty feet in length, eighteen in width, and nine in
+thickness. The city itself was constructed of polished stone, with an
+agora, a theatre, a circus, a praetorium, and a temple to Caesar. Tyre,
+which had resisted for seven months the armies of Alexander, remained to
+the fall of the empire a great emporium of trade; it monopolized the
+manufacture of imperial purple. Sidon was equally celebrated for its
+glass and embroidered robes. The Sidonians cast glass mirrors, and
+imitated precious stones. But the glory of both Tyre and Sidon was in
+ships, which visited all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and even
+penetrated to Britain and India.
+
+But greater than Tyre or Antioch, or any eastern city, was Alexandria,
+the capital of Egypt. Egypt even in its decline was still a great
+monarchy; and when the sceptre of three hundred kings passed from
+Cleopatra the last of the Ptolemies, to Augustus Caesar the conqueror at
+Actium, the military force of Egypt is said to have amounted to seven
+hundred thousand men. The annual revenues of this State under the
+Ptolemies amounted to about seventeen million dollars in gold and
+silver, besides the produce of the earth. A single feast cost
+Philadelphus more than half a million of pounds sterling, and he had
+accumulated treasures to the amount of seven hundred and forty thousand
+talents, or about eight hundred and sixty million dollars. What European
+monarch ever possessed such a sum? The kings of Egypt, even when
+tributary to Rome, were richer in gold and silver than was Louis XIV. in
+the proudest hour of his life.
+
+The ground-plan of Alexandria was traced by Alexander himself, but it
+was not completed until the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Its
+circumference was about fifteen miles; the streets were regular, and
+crossed one another at right angles, being wide enough for free passage
+of both carriages and foot passengers. Its harbor could hold the largest
+fleet ever congregated; its walls and gates were constructed with all
+the skill and strength known to antiquity; its population numbered six
+hundred thousand, and all nations were represented in its crowded
+streets. The wealth of the city may be inferred from the fact that in
+one year sixty-two hundred and fifty talents, or more than six million
+dollars, were paid to the public treasury for port dues. The library was
+the largest in the world, numbering over seven hundred thousand
+volumes; and this was connected with a museum, a menagerie, a botanical
+garden, and various halls for lectures, altogether forming the most
+famous university in the Roman empire. The inhabitants were chiefly
+Greek, and had all the cultivated tastes and mercantile thrift of that
+quick-witted people. In a commercial point of view Alexandria was the
+most important city in the world, and its ships whitened every sea.
+Unlike most commercial cities, it was intellectual, and its schools of
+poetry, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, and theology were more
+renowned than even those of Athens during the third and fourth
+centuries. Alexandria, could it have been transported in its former
+splendor to our modern world, would be a great capital in these times.
+
+And all these cities were connected with one another and with Rome by
+magnificent roads, perfectly straight, and paved with large blocks of
+stone. They were originally constructed for military purposes, but were
+used by travellers, and on them posts were regularly established; they
+crossed valleys upon arches, and penetrated mountains; in Italy,
+especially, they were great works of art, and connected all the
+provinces. There was an uninterrupted communication from the wall of
+Antoninus through York, London, Sandwich, Boulogne, Rheims, Lyons,
+Milan, Rome, Brundusium, Dyrrachium, Byzantium, Ancyra, Tarsus,
+Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem,--a distance of thirty-seven hundred and forty
+miles; and these roads were divided by milestones, and houses for
+travellers erected upon them at points of every five or six miles.
+
+Commerce under the Roman emperors was not what it now is, but still was
+very considerable, and thus united the various provinces together. The
+most remote countries were ransacked to furnish luxuries for Rome; every
+year a fleet of one hundred and twenty vessels sailed from the Red Sea
+for the islands of the Indian Ocean. But the Mediterranean, with the
+rivers which flowed into it, was the great highway of the ancient
+navigator. Navigation by the ancients was even more rapid than in modern
+times before the invention of steam, since oars were employed as well as
+sails. In summer one hundred and sixty-two Roman miles were sailed over
+in twenty-four hours; this was the average speed, or about seven knots.
+From the mouth of the Tiber vessels could usually reach Africa in two
+days, Massilia in three, and the Pillars of Hercules in seven; from
+Puteoli the passage to Alexandria had been effected, with moderate
+winds, in nine days. These facts, however, apply only to the summer, and
+to favorable winds. The Romans did not navigate in the inclement
+seasons; but in summer the great inland sea was white with sails. Great
+fleets brought corn from Gaul, Spain, Sardinia, Africa, Sicily, and
+Egypt. This was the most important trade; but a considerable commerce
+was carried on also in ivory, tortoise-shell, cotton and silk fabrics,
+pearls and precious stones, gums, spices, wines, wool, and oil. Greek
+and Asiatic wines, especially the Chian and Lesbian, were in great
+demand at Rome. The transport of earthenware, made generally in the
+Grecian cities, of wild animals for the amphitheatre, of marble, of the
+spoils of eastern cities, of military engines and stores, and of horses,
+required very large fleets and thousands of mariners, which probably
+belonged chiefly to great maritime cities. These cities with their
+dependencies required even more vessels for communication with one
+another than for Rome herself,--the great central object of enterprise
+and cupidity.
+
+In this survey of ancient cities I have not yet spoken of the great
+central city,--the City of the Seven Hills, to which all the world was
+tributary. Whatever was costly or rare or beautiful, in Greece or Asia
+or Egypt, was appropriated by her citizen kings, since citizens were
+provincial governors. All the great highways, from the Atlantic to the
+Tigris, converged to the capital,--all roads led to Rome; all the ships
+of Alexandria and Carthage and Tarentum, and other commercial capitals,
+were employed in furnishing her with luxuries or necessities. Never was
+there so proud a city as this "Epitome of the Universe." London, Paris,
+Vienna, Constantinople, St. Petersburg, Berlin, are great centres of
+fashion and power; but they are rivals, and excel only in some great
+department of human enterprise and genius, as in letters, or fashions,
+or commerce, or manufactures,--centres of influence and power in the
+countries of which they are capitals, yet they do not monopolize the
+wealth and energies of the world. London may contain more people than
+did ancient Rome, and may possess more commercial wealth; but London
+represents only the British monarchy, not a universal empire. Rome,
+however, monopolized every thing, and controlled all nations and
+peoples; she could shut up the schools of Athens, or disperse the ships
+of Alexandria, or regulate the shops of Antioch. What Lyons and Bordeaux
+are to Paris, Corinth and Babylon were to Rome,--mere dependent cities.
+Paul, condemned at Jerusalem, stretched out his arms to Rome, and Rome
+protected him. The philosophers of Greece were the tutors of Roman
+nobility. The kings of the East resorted to the palaces of Mount
+Palatine for favors or safety; the governors of Syria and Egypt,
+reigning in the palaces of ancient kings, returned to Rome to squander
+the riches they had accumulated. Senators and nobles took their turn as
+sovereign rulers of all the known countries of the world. The halls in
+which Darius and Alexander and Pericles and Croesus and Solomon and
+Cleopatra had feasted, became the witness of the banquets of Roman
+proconsuls. Babylon, Thebes, and Athens were only what Delhi and
+Calcutta are to the English of our day,--cities to be ruled by the
+delegates of the imperial Senate. Rome was the only "home" of the proud
+governors who reigned on the banks of the Thames, of the Seine, of the
+Rhine, of the Nile, of the Tigris. After they had enriched themselves
+with the spoils of the ancient monarchies they returned to their estates
+in Italy, or to their palaces on the Aventine. What a concentration of
+works of art on the hills, and around the Forum, and in the Campus
+Martius, and other celebrated quarters! There were temples rivalling
+those of Athens and Ephesus; baths covering more ground than the
+Pyramids, surrounded with Corinthian columns, and filled with the
+choicest treasures ransacked from the cities of Greece and Asia; palaces
+in comparison with which the Tuileries and Versailles are small;
+theatres which seated a larger audience than any present public
+buildings in Europe; amphitheatres more extensive and costly than
+Cologne, Milan, and York Minster cathedrals combined, and seating eight
+times as many spectators as could be crowded into St. Peter's Church;
+circuses where, it is said, three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+persons could witness the games and chariot-races at a time; bridges,
+still standing, which have furnished models for the most beautiful at
+Paris and London; aqueducts carried over arches one hundred feet in
+height, through which flowed the surplus water of distant lakes; drains
+of solid masonry in which large boats could float; pillars more than one
+hundred feet in height, coated with precious marbles or plates of brass,
+and covered with bas-reliefs; obelisks brought from Egypt; fora and
+basilicas connected together, and extending more than three thousand
+feet in length, every part of which was filled with "animated busts" of
+conquerors, kings, statesmen, poets, publicists, and philosophers;
+mausoleums greater and more splendid than that Artemisia erected to the
+memory of her husband; triumphal arches under which marched in stately
+procession the victorious armies of the Eternal City, preceded by the
+spoils and trophies of conquered empires.
+
+Such was the proud capital,--a city of palaces, a residence of nobles
+who were virtually kings, enriched with the accumulated treasures of
+ancient civilization. Great were the capitals of Greece and Asia, but
+how pre-eminent was Rome, since all were subordinate to her! How
+bewildering and bewitching to a traveller must have been the varied
+wonders of the city! Go where he would, his eye rested on something
+which was both a study and a marvel. Let him drive or walk about the
+suburbs,--there were villas, tombs, aqueducts looking like our railroads
+on arches, sculptured monuments, and gardens of surpassing beauty and
+luxury. Let him approach the walls,--they were great fortifications
+extending twenty-one miles in circuit, according to the measurement of
+Ammon as adopted by Gibbon, and forty-five miles according to other
+authorities. Let him enter any of the various gates that opened into the
+city from the roads which radiated to all parts of Italy and the
+world,--they were of monumental brass covered with bas-reliefs, on which
+the victories of generals for a thousand years were commemorated. Let
+him pass through any of the crowded thoroughfares,--he saw houses
+towering scarcely ever less than seventy feet, as tall as those of
+Edinburgh in its oldest sections. Most of the houses in which this vast
+population lived, according to Strabo, possessed pipes which gave a
+never-failing supply of water from the rivers that flowed into the city
+through the aqueducts and out again through the sewers into the Tiber.
+Let the traveller walk up the Via Sacra,--that short street, scarcely
+half a mile in length,--and he passed the Flavian Amphitheatre, the
+Temple of Venus and Rome, the Arch of Titus, the Temples of Peace, of
+Vesta, and of Castor, the Forum Romanum, the Basilica Julia, the Arch
+of Severus, the Temple of Saturn, and stood before the majestic ascent
+to the Capitoline Jupiter, with its magnificent portico and ornamented
+pediment, surpassing the façade of any modern church. On his left, as he
+emerged from beneath the sculptured Arch of Titus, was the Palatine
+Mount, nearly covered by the palace of the Caesars, the magnificent
+residences of the higher nobility, and various temples, of which that of
+Apollo was the most magnificent, built by Augustus, of solid white
+marble from Luna. Here were the palaces of Vaccus, of Flaccus, of
+Cicero, of Catiline, of Scaurus, of Antoninus, of Clodius, of Agrippa,
+and of Hortensius. Still on his left, in the valley between the Palatine
+and the Capitoline, though he could not see it, concealed from view by
+the great Temples of Vesta and of Castor, and the still greater edifice
+known as the Basilica Julia, was the quarter called the Velabrum,
+extending to the river, where the Pons Aemilius crossed it,--a low
+quarter of narrow streets and tall houses where the rabble lived and
+died. On his right, concealed from view by the Aedes Divi Julii and the
+Forum Romanum, was that magnificent series of edifices extending from
+the Temple of Peace to the Temple of Trajan, including the Basilica
+Pauli, the Forum Julii, the Forum Augusti, the Forum Trajani, the
+Basilica Ulpia,--a space more than three thousand feet in length, and
+six hundred in breadth, almost entirely surrounded by porticos and
+colonnades, and filled with statues and pictures,--displaying on the
+whole probably the grandest series of public buildings clustered
+together ever erected, especially if we include the Forum Romanum and
+the various temples and basilicas which connected the whole,--a forest
+of marble pillars and statues. Ascending the steps which led from the
+Temple of Concord to the Temple of Juno Moneta upon the Arx, or Tarpeian
+Rock, on the southwestern summit of the hill, itself one of the most
+beautiful temples in Rome, erected by Camillus on the spot where the
+house of M. Manlius Capitolinus had stood, and one came upon the Roman
+mint. Near this was the temple erected by Augustus to Jupiter Tonans,
+and that built by Domitian to Jupiter Custos. But all the sacred
+edifices which crowned the Capitoline were subordinate to the Templum
+Jovis Capitolini, standing on a platform of eight thousand square feet,
+and built of the richest materials. The portico which faced the Via
+Sacra consisted of three rows of Doric columns, the pediment profusely
+ornamented with the choicest sculptures, the apex of the roof surmounted
+by the bronze horses of Lysippus, and the roof itself covered with
+gilded tiles. The temple had three separate cells, though covered with
+one roof; in front of each stood colossal statues of the three deities
+to whom it was consecrated. Here were preserved what was most sacred in
+the eyes of Romans, and it was itself the richest of all the temples
+of the city.
+
+What a beautiful panorama was presented to the view from the summit of
+this consecrated hill, only mounted by a steep ascent of one hundred
+steps! To the south was the Via Sacra extending to the Colosseum, and
+beyond it the Appia Via, lined with monuments as far as the eye could
+reach. A little beyond the fora to the east was the Carinae, a
+fashionable quarter of beautiful shops and houses, and still farther off
+were the Baths of Titus, extending from the Carinae to the Esquiline
+Mount. To the northeast were the Viminal and Quirinal hills, after the
+Palatine the most ancient part of the city, the seat of the Sabine
+population, abounding in fanes and temples, the most splendid of which
+was the Temple of Quirinus, erected originally to Romulus by Numa, but
+rebuilt by Augustus, with a double row of columns on each of its sides,
+seventy-six in number. Near by was the house of Atticus, and the gardens
+of Sallust in the valley between the Quirinal and Pincian, afterward the
+property of the Emperor. Far back on the Quirinal, near the wall of
+Servius, were the Baths of Diocletian, and still farther to the east the
+Pretorian Camp established by Tiberius, and included within the wall of
+Aurelian. To the northeast the eye lighted on the Pincian Hill covered
+with the gardens of Lucullus, to possess which Messalina caused the
+death of Valerius Asiaticus, into whose possession they had fallen. In
+the valley which lay between the fora and the Quirinal was the
+celebrated Subura, the quarter of shops, markets, and artificers,--a
+busy, noisy, vulgar section, not beautiful, but full of life and
+enterprise and wickedness. The eye then turned to the north, and the
+whole length of the Via Flamina was exposed to view, extending from the
+Capitoline to the Flaminian gate, perfectly straight, the finest street
+in Rome, and parallel to the modern Corso; it was the great highway to
+the north of Italy. Monuments and temples and palaces lined this
+celebrated street; it was spanned by the triumphal arches of Claudius
+and Marcus Aurelius. To the west of it was the Campus Martius, with its
+innumerable objects of interest,--the Baths of Agrippa, the Pantheon,
+the Thermae Alexandrinae, the Column of Marcus Aurelius, and the
+Mausoleum of Augustus. Beneath the Capitoline on the west, toward the
+river, was the Circus Flaminius, the Portico of Octavius, the Theatre of
+Balbus, and the Theatre of Pompey, where forty thousand spectators were
+accommodated. Stretching beyond the Thermae Alexandrinae, near the
+Pantheon, was the magnificent bridge which crossed the Tiber, built by
+Hadrian when he founded his Mausoleum, to which it led, still standing
+under the name of the Ponte S. Angelo. The eye took in eight or nine
+bridges over the Tiber, some of wood, but generally of stone, of
+beautiful masonry, and crowned with statues. In the valley between the
+Palatine and the Aventine, was the great Circus Maximus, founded by the
+early Tarquin; it was the largest open space, inclosed by walls and
+porticos, in the city; it seated three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+spectators. How vast a city, which could spare nearly four hundred
+thousand of its population to see the chariot-races! Beyond was the
+Aventine itself. This also was rich in legendary monuments and in the
+palaces of the great, though originally a plebeian quarter. Here dwelt
+Trajan before he was emperor, and Ennius the poet, and Paula the friend
+of Saint Jerome. Beneath the Aventine, and a little south of the Circus
+Maximus, were the great Baths of Caracalla, the ruins of which, next to
+those of the Colosseum, made on my mind the strongest impression of all
+I saw that pertains to antiquity, though these were not so large as
+those of Diocletian. The view south took in the Caelian Hill, the
+ancient residence of Tullus Hostilius. This hill was the residence of
+many distinguished Romans, among whose palaces was that of Claudius
+Centumalus, which towered ten or twelve stories into the air. But
+grander than any of these palaces was that of Plautius Lateranus, on
+whose site now stands the basilica of St. John Lateran,--the gift of
+Constantine to the bishop of Rome,--one of the most ancient of the
+Christian churches, in which, for fifteen hundred years, daily services
+have been performed.
+
+Such were the objects of interest and grandeur that met the eye as it
+was turned toward the various quarters of the city, which contained
+between three and four millions of people. Lipsius estimates four
+millions as the population, including slaves, women, children, and
+strangers. Though this estimate is regarded as too large by Merivale and
+others, yet how enormous must have been the number of the people when
+there were nine thousand and twenty-five baths, and when those of
+Diocletian could accommodate thirty-two hundred bathers at a time! The
+wooden theatre of Scaurus contained eighty thousand seats; that of
+Marcellus twenty thousand; the Colosseum would seat eighty-seven
+thousand persons, and give standing space for twenty-two thousand more.
+The Circus Maximus would hold three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+spectators. If only one person out of four of the free population
+witnessed the games and spectacles at a time, we thus must have four
+millions of people altogether in the city. The Aurelian walls are now
+only thirteen miles in circumference, but Lipsius estimates the
+original circumference at forty-five miles, and Vopiscus at nearly
+fifty. The diameter of the city must have been eleven miles, since
+Strabo tells us that the actual limit of Rome was at a place between the
+fifth and sixth milestone from the column of Trajan in the Forum,--the
+central and most conspicuous object in the city except the capitol.
+
+Modern writers, taking London and Paris for their measure of material
+civilization, seem unwilling to admit that Rome could have reached such
+a pitch of glory and wealth and power. To him who stands within the
+narrow limits of the Forum, as it now appears, it seems incredible that
+it could have been the centre of a much larger city than Europe can now
+boast of. Grave historians are loath to compromise their dignity and
+character for truth by admitting statements which seem, to men of
+limited views, to be fabulous, and which transcend modern experience.
+But we should remember that most of the monuments of ancient Rome have
+entirely disappeared. Nothing remains of the Palace of the Caesars,
+which nearly covered the Palatine Hill; little of the fora which,
+connected together, covered a space twice as large as that inclosed by
+the palaces of the Louvre and Tuileries, with all their galleries and
+courts; almost nothing of the glories of the Capitoline Hill; and little
+comparatively of those Thermae which were a mile in circuit. But what
+does remain attests an unparalleled grandeur,--the broken pillars of the
+Forum; the lofty columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius; the Pantheon,
+lifting its spacious dome two hundred feet into the air; the mere
+vestibule of the Baths of Agrippa; the triumphal arches of Titus and
+Trajan and Constantine; the bridges which span the Tiber; the aqueducts
+which cross the Campagna; the Cloaca Maxima, which drained the marshes
+and lakes of the infant city; and, above all, the Colosseum. What glory
+and shame are associated with that single edifice! That alone, if
+nothing else remained of Pagan antiquity, would indicate a grandeur and
+a folly such as cannot now be seen on earth. It reveals a wonderful
+skill in masonry and great architectural strength; it shows the wealth
+and resources of rulers who must have had the treasures of the world at
+their command; it shows the restless passions of the people for
+excitement, and the necessity on the part of government of yielding to
+this taste. What leisure and indolence marked a city which could afford
+to give up so much time to the demoralizing sports! What facilities for
+transportation were afforded, when so many wild beasts could be brought
+to the capitol from the central parts of Africa without calling out
+unusual comment! How imperious a populace that compels the government to
+provide such expensive pleasures! The games of Titus, on the dedication
+of the Colosseum, lasted one hundred days, and five thousand wild beasts
+were slaughtered in the arena. The number of the gladiators who fought
+surpasses belief. At the triumph of Trajan over the Dacians, ten
+thousand gladiators were exhibited, and the Emperor himself presided
+under a gilded canopy, surrounded by thousands of his lords. Underneath
+the arena, strewed with yellow sand and sawdust, was a solid pavement,
+so closely cemented that it could be turned into an artificial lake, on
+which naval battles were fought. But it was the conflict of gladiators
+which most deeply stimulated the passions of the people. The benches
+were crowded with eager spectators, and the voices of one hundred
+thousand were raised in triumph or rage as the miserable victims sank
+exhausted in the bloody sport.
+
+Yet it was not the gladiatorial sports of the amphitheatre which most
+strikingly attested the greatness and splendor of the city; nor the
+palaces, in which as many as four hundred slaves were sometimes
+maintained as domestic servants for a single establishment,--twelve
+hundred in number according to the lowest estimate, but probably five
+times as numerous, since every senator, every knight, and every rich man
+was proud to possess a residence which would attract attention; nor the
+temples, which numbered four hundred and twenty-four, most of which
+were of marble, filled with statues, the contributions of ages, and
+surrounded with groves; nor the fora and basilicas, with their porticos,
+statues, and pictures, covering more space than any cluster of public
+buildings in Europe, a mile and a half in circuit; nor the baths, nearly
+as large, still more completely filled with works of art; nor the Circus
+Maximus, where more people witnessed the chariot races at a time than
+are nightly assembled in all the places of public amusement in Paris,
+London, and New York combined,--more than could be seated in all the
+cathedrals of England and France. It is not these which most
+impressively make us feel the amazing grandeur of the old capital of the
+world. The triumphal processions of the conquering generals were still
+more exciting to behold, for these appealed more directly to the
+imagination, and excited those passions which urged the Romans to a
+career of conquest from generation to generation. No military review of
+modern times equalled those gorgeous triumphs, even as no scenic
+performance compares with the gladiatorial shows; the sun has never
+shone upon any human assemblage so magnificent and so grand, so imposing
+and yet so guilty. Not only were displayed the spoils of conquered
+kingdoms, and the triumphal cars of generals, but the whole military
+strength of the capital; an army of one hundred thousand men, flushed
+with victory, followed the gorgeous procession of nobles and princes.
+The triumph of Aurelian, on his return from the East, gives us some idea
+of the grandeur of that ovation to conquerors. "The pomp was opened by
+twenty elephants, four royal tigers, and two hundred of the most curious
+animals from every climate, north, south, east, and west. These were
+followed by sixteen hundred gladiators, devoted to the cruel amusement
+of the amphitheatre. Then were displayed the arms and ensigns of
+conquered nations, the plate and wardrobe of the Syrian queen. Then
+ambassadors from all parts of the earth, all remarkable in their rich
+dresses, with their crowns and offerings. Then the captives taken in the
+various wars,--Goths, Vandals, Samaritans, Alemanni, Franks, Gauls,
+Syrians, and Egyptians, each marked by their national costume. Then the
+Queen of the East, the beautiful Zenobia, confined by fetters of gold,
+and fainting under the weight of jewels, preceding the beautiful chariot
+in which she had hoped to enter the gates of Rome. Then the chariot of
+the Persian king. Then the triumphal car of Aurelian himself, drawn by
+elephants. Finally the most illustrious of the Senate and the army
+closed the solemn procession, amid the acclamations of the people, and
+the sound of musical instruments. It took from dawn of day until the
+ninth hour for the procession to pass to the capitol; and the festival
+was protracted by theatrical representations, the games of the circus,
+the hunting of wild beasts, combats of gladiators, and naval
+engagements."
+
+Such were the material wonders of the ancient civilizations, culminating
+in their latest and greatest representative, and displayed in its proud
+capital,--nearly all of which became later the spoil of barbarians, who
+ruthlessly marched over the classic world, having no regard for its
+choicest treasures. Those old glories are now indeed succeeded by a
+prouder civilization,--the work of nobler races after sixteen hundred
+years of new experiments. But why such an eclipse of the glory of man?
+The reason is apparent if we survey the internal state of the ancient
+empires, especially of society as it existed under the Roman emperors.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Titus Livius,
+Pausanias, on the geography and resources of the ancient nations. See an
+able chapter on Mediterranean prosperity in Louis Napoleon's History of
+Caesar. Smith's Dictionary of Ancient Geography is exhaustive. Wilkinson
+has revealed the civilization of ancient Egypt. Professor Becker's
+Handbook of Rome, as well as his Gallus and Charicles shed much light on
+manners and customs. Dyer's History of the City of Rome is the fullest
+description of its wonders that I have read. Niebuhr, Bunsen, and
+Platner, among the Germans, have written learnedly, but also have
+created much doubt about things supposed to be established. Mommsen,
+Curtius, and Merivale are also great authorities. Nor are the
+magnificent chapters of Gibbon to be disregarded by the student of Roman
+history, notwithstanding his elaborate and inflated style.
+
+
+
+
+THE MILITARY ART.
+
+
+WEAPONS, ENGINES, DISCIPLINE.
+
+1300-100 A.D.
+
+
+In surveying the nations of antiquity nothing impresses us more forcibly
+than the perpetual wars in which they were engaged, and the fact that
+military art and science seem to have been among the earliest things
+that occupied the thoughts of men. Personal strife and tribal warfare
+are coeval with the earliest movements of humanity.
+
+The first recorded act in the Hebraic history of the world after the
+expulsion of Adam from Paradise is a murder. In patriarchal times we
+read of contentions between the servants of Abraham and of Lot, and
+between the petty kings and chieftains of the countries where they
+journeyed. Long before Abraham was born, violence was the greatest evil
+with which the world was afflicted. Before his day mighty conquerors
+arose and founded kingdoms. Babylon and Egypt were powerful military
+States in pre-historic times. Wars more or less fierce were waged before
+nations were civilized. The earliest known art, therefore, was the art
+of destruction, growing out of the wicked and brutal passions of
+men,--envy and hatred, ambition and revenge; in a word, selfishness.
+Race fought with race, kingdom with kingdom, and city with city, in the
+very infancy of society. In secular history the greatest names are those
+of conquerors and heroes in every land under the sun; and it was by
+conquerors that those grand monuments were erected the ruins of which
+astonish every traveller, especially in Egypt and Assyria.
+
+But wars in the earliest ages were not carried on scientifically, or
+even as an art. There was little to mark them except brute force. Armies
+were scarcely more than great collections of armed men, led by kings,
+either to protect their States from hostile invaders, or to acquire new
+territory, or to exact tribute from weaker nations. We do not read of
+military discipline, or of skill in strategy and tactics. A battle was
+lost or won by individual prowess; it was generally a hand-to-hand
+encounter, in which the strongest and bravest gained the victory.
+
+One of the earliest descriptions of war is to be found in the Iliad of
+Homer, where individual heroes fought with one another, armed with the
+sword, the lance, and the javelin, protected by shields, helmets, and
+coats of mail. They fought on foot, or from chariots, which were in use
+before cavalry. The war-horse was driven before he was ridden in Egypt
+or Palestine; but the Aryan barbarians in their invasion rode their
+horses, and fought on horseback, like the modern Cossacks.
+
+Until the Greeks became familiar with war as an art, armies were usually
+very large, as if a great part of the population of a country followed
+the sovereign who commanded them. Rameses the Great, the Sesostris of
+the Greeks, according to Herodotus led nearly a million of men in his
+expeditions. He was the most noted of ancient warriors until Cyrus the
+Persian arose, and was nearly contemporaneous with Moses. The Trojan war
+is supposed to have taken place during the period when the Israelites
+were subject to the Ammonites; and about the time that the Philistines
+were defeated by David, the Greeks were forced by war to found colonies
+in Asia Minor.
+
+After authentic history begins, war is the main subject with which it
+has to deal; and for three thousand years history is simply the record
+of the feats of warriors and generals, of their conquests and defeats,
+of the rise and fall of kingdoms and cities, of the growth or decline of
+military virtues. No arts of civilization have preserved nations from
+the sword of the conqueror, and war has been both the amusement and the
+business of kings. From the earliest ages, the most valued laurels have
+been bestowed for success in war, and military fame has eclipsed all
+other glories. The cry of the mourner has been unheeded in the blaze of
+conquest; even the aspirations of the poet and the labors of the artist
+have been as nought, except to celebrate the achievements of heroes.
+
+It is interesting then to inquire how far the ancients advanced in the
+arts of war, which include military weapons, movements, the structure of
+camps, the discipline of armies, the construction of ships and of
+military engines, and the concentration and management of forces under a
+single man. What was that mighty machinery by which nations were
+subdued, or rose to greatness on the ruin of States and Empires? The
+conquests of Rameses, of David, of Nebuchadnezzar, of Cyrus, of
+Alexander, of Hannibal, of Caesar, and other heroes are still the
+subjects of contemplation among statesmen and schoolboys. The exploits
+of heroes are the pith of history.
+
+The art of war must have made great progress in the infancy of
+civilization, when bodily energies were most highly valued, when men
+were fierce, hardy, strong, and uncorrupted by luxury; when mere
+physical forces gave law alike to the rich and the poor, to the learned
+and the ignorant; and when the avenue to power led across the field
+of battle.
+
+We must go to Egypt for the earliest development of art and science in
+all departments; and so far as the art of war consists in the
+organization of physical forces for conquest or defence, under the
+direction of a single man, it was in Egypt that this was first
+accomplished, about seventeen hundred years before Christ, as
+chronologists think, by Rameses the Great.
+
+This monarch, according to Wilkinson, the greatest and most ambitious of
+the Egyptian kings, to whom the Greeks gave the name of Sesostris,
+showed great ability in collecting together large bodies of his
+subjects, and controlling them by a rigid military discipline. He
+accustomed them to heat and cold, hunger and thirst, fatigue, and
+exposure to danger. With bodies thus rendered vigorous by labor and
+discipline, they were fitted for distant expeditions. Rameses first
+subdued the Arabians and Libyans, and annexed them to the Egyptian
+monarchy. While he inured his subjects to fatigue and danger, he was
+careful to win their affections by acts of munificence and clemency. He
+then made his preparations for the conquest of the known world, and
+collected an army, according to Diodorus Siculus, of six hundred
+thousand infantry, twenty-four thousand cavalry, and twenty-seven
+thousand war-chariots. It is difficult to understand how a small country
+like Egypt could furnish such an immense force. If the account of the
+historian be not exaggerated, Rameses must have enrolled the conquered
+Libyans and Arabians and other nations among his soldiers. He subjected
+his army to a stern discipline and an uncomplaining obedience to
+orders,--the first principle in the science of war, which no successful
+general in the world's history has ever disregarded, from Alexander to
+Napoleon. With this powerful army his march was irresistible. Ethiopia
+was first subdued, and an exaction made from the conquered of a tribute
+of gold, ivory, and ebony. In those ancient times a conquering army did
+not resettle or colonize the territories it had subdued, but was
+contented with overrunning the country and exacting tribute from the
+people. Such was the nature of the Babylonian and Persian conquests.
+After overrunning Ethiopia and some other countries near the Straits of
+Babelmandeb, the conqueror proceeded to India, which he overran beyond
+the Ganges, and ascended the high table-land of Central Asia; then
+proceeding westward, he entered Europe, nor halted in his devastating
+career until he reached Thrace. From thence he marched to Asia Minor,
+conquering as he went, and invaded Assyria, seating himself on the
+throne of Ninus and Semiramis. Then, laden with booty from the Eastern
+world, he returned to Egypt after an absence of thirty years and
+consolidated his empire, building those vast structures at Thebes, which
+for magnitude have never been surpassed. Thus was Egypt enriched with
+the spoil of nations, and made formidable for a thousand years. Rameses
+was the last of the Pharaohs who pursued the phantom of military renown,
+or sought glory in distant expeditions.
+
+We are in ignorance as to the details of the conquests and the generals
+who served under Rameses. There is doubtless some exaggeration in the
+statements of the Greek historian, but there is no doubt that this
+monarch was among the first of the great conquerors to establish a
+regular army, and to provide a fleet to co-operate with his land forces.
+
+The strength of the Egyptian army consisted mainly in archers. They
+fought either on foot or in chariots; cavalry was not much relied upon,
+although mention is frequently made of horsemen as well as of chariots.
+The Egyptian infantry was divided into regiments, and Wilkinson tells us
+that they were named according to the arms they bore,--as "bowmen,
+spearmen, swordsmen, clubmen, slingers." These regiments were divided
+into battalions and companies, commanded by their captains. The
+infantry, heavily armed with spears and shields, formed a phalanx almost
+impenetrable of twelve men deep, who marched with great regularity. Each
+company had its standard-bearer, who was an officer of approved valor;
+the royal standards were carried by the royal princes or by persons of
+the royal household. The troops were summoned by the sound of trumpet,
+and also by the drum, both used from the earliest period. The offensive
+weapons were the bow, the spear, the javelin, the sword, the club, or
+mace, and the battle-axe. The chief defensive weapon was the shield,
+about three feet in length, covered with bull's hide, having the hair
+outward and studded with nails. The shape of the bow was not essentially
+different from that used in Europe in the Middle Ages, being about five
+feet and a half long, round, and tapering at the ends; the bowstring was
+of hide or catgut. The arrows of the archers averaged about thirty
+inches in length, and were made of wood or reeds, tipped with a metal
+point, or flint, and winged with feathers. Each bowman was furnished
+with a plentiful supply of arrows. When arrows were exhausted, the
+bowman fought with swords and battle-axes; his defensive armor was
+confined chiefly to the helmet and a sort of quilted coat. The spear was
+of wood, with a metal head, was about five or six feet in length, and
+used for thrusting. The javelin was lighter, for throwing. The sling was
+a thong of plaited leather, broad in the middle, with a loop at the end.
+The sword was straight and short, between two and three feet in length,
+with a double edge, tapering to a sharp point, and used for either cut
+or thrust; the handle was frequently inlaid with precious stones. The
+metal used in the manufacture of swords and spear-heads was bronze,
+hardened by a process unknown to us. The battle-axe had a handle about
+two-and a-half feet in length, and was less ornamented than other
+weapons. The cuirass, or coat of armor, was made of horizontal rows of
+metal plate, about an inch in breadth, well secured together by bronze
+pieces. The Egyptian chariot held two persons,--the charioteer, and the
+warrior armed with his bow-and-arrow and wearing a cuirass, or coat of
+mail. The warrior carried also other weapons for close encounter, when
+he should descend from his chariot to fight on foot. The chariot was of
+wood, the body of which was light, strengthened with metal; the pole was
+inserted in the axle; the two wheels usually had six spokes, but
+sometimes only four; the wheel revolved on the axle, and was secured by
+a lynch-pin. The leathern harness and housings were simple, and the
+bridles, or reins, were nearly the same as are now in use.
+
+"The Egyptian chariot corps, like the infantry," says Wilkinson, "were
+divided into light and heavy troops, both armed with bows,--the former
+chiefly employed in harassing the enemy with missiles; the latter called
+upon to break through opposing masses of infantry." The infantry, when
+employed in the assault of fortified towns, were provided with shields,
+under cover of which they made their approaches to the place to be
+attacked. In their attack they advanced under cover of the arrows of the
+bowmen, and instantly applied the scaling-ladder to the ramparts. The
+testudo, a wooden shelter, was also used, large enough to contain
+several men. The battering-ram and movable towers resembled those of the
+Romans a thousand years later.
+
+It would thus appear that the ancient Egyptians, in the discipline of
+armies, in military weapons offensive and defensive, in chariots and
+horses, and in military engines for the reduction of fortified towns,
+were scarcely improved upon by the Greeks and Romans, or by the
+Europeans in the Middle Ages. Yet the Egyptians were an ingenious rather
+than a warlike people, fond of peace, and devoted to agricultural
+pursuits.
+
+More warlike than they were the Assyrians and the Persians, although we
+fail to discover any essential difference in the organization of armies,
+or in military weapons. The great difference between the Persian and the
+Egyptian armies was in the use of cavalry. From their earliest
+settlements the Persians were skilful horsemen, and these formed the
+guard of their kings. Under Cyrus, the Persians became the masters of
+the world, but they rapidly degenerated, not being able to withstand the
+luxurious life of the conquered Babylonians; and when they were
+marshalled against the Greeks, and especially against the disciplined
+forces of Alexander, they were disgracefully routed in spite of their
+enormous armies, which could not be handled, and became mere mobs of
+armed men.
+
+The art of war made a great advance under the Greeks, although we do
+not notice any striking superiority of arms over the Eastern armies led
+by Sesostris or Cyrus. The Greeks were among the most warlike of all the
+races of men; they had a genius for war. The Grecian States were engaged
+in perpetual strifes with one another, and constant contention developed
+military strength; and yet the Greeks, until the time of Philip, had no
+standing armies. They relied for offence and defence on the volunteer
+militia, which was animated by intense patriotic ideas. All armies in
+the nature of things are more or less machines, moved by one commanding
+will; but the Greek armies owed much of their success to the individual
+bravery of their troops, who were citizens of States under
+constitutional forms of government.
+
+The most remarkable improvement in the art of war was made by the
+Spartans, who, in addition to their strict military discipline,
+introduced the _phalanx_,--files of picked soldiers, eight deep, heavily
+armed with spear, sword, and shield, placed in ranks of eight, at
+intervals of about six feet apart. This phalanx of eight files and eight
+ranks,--sixty-four men,--closely locked when the soldiers received or
+advanced to attack, proved nearly impregnable and irresistible. It
+combined solidity and the power of resistance with mobility. The picked
+men were placed in the front and rear; for in skilful evolutions the
+front often became the rear, and the rear became the front. Armed with
+spears projecting beyond the front, and with their shields locked
+together, the phalanx advanced to meet the enemy with regular step, and
+to the cadence of music; if beaten, it retired in perfect order. After
+battle, each soldier was obliged to produce his shield as a proof that
+he had fought or retired as a soldier should. The Athenian phalanx was
+less solid than that of Sparta,--Miltiades having decreased the depth to
+four ranks, in order to lengthen his front,--but was more efficient in a
+charge against the enemy. The Spartan phalanx was stronger in defence,
+the Athenian more agile in attack. The attack was nearly irresistible,
+as the soldiers advanced with accelerated motion, corresponding to the
+double-quick time of modern warfare. This was first introduced by
+Miltiades at Marathon.
+
+Philip of Macedon adopted the Spartan phalanx, but made it sixteen deep,
+which gave it greater solidity, and rendered it still more effective. He
+introduced the large oval buckler and a larger and heavier spear. When
+the phalanx was closed for action, each man occupied but three square
+feet of ground: as the pikes were twenty-four feet in length, and
+projected eighteen feet beyond the front, the formation presented an
+array of points such as had never been seen before. The greatest
+improvement effected by Philip, however, was the adoption of standing
+armies instead of the militia heretofore in use throughout the Grecian
+States. He also attached great importance to his cavalry, which was
+composed of the flower of the nobility, about twelve hundred in number,
+all covered with defensive armor; these he formed into eight squadrons,
+and constituted them his body-guard. The usual formation of the regular
+cavalry was in the form of a wedge, so as to penetrate and break the
+enemy's line,--a manoeuvre probably learned from Epaminondas of Thebes,
+a great master in the art of war, who defeated the Spartan phalanx by
+forming his columns upon a front less than their depth, thus enabling
+him to direct his whole force against a given point. By these tactics he
+gained the great victory at Leuctra, as Napoleon likewise prevailed over
+the Austrians in his Italian campaign. In like manner Philip's son
+Alexander, following the example of Epaminondas, concentrated his forces
+upon the enemy's centre, and easily defeated the Persian hosts by
+creating a panic. There was no resisting a phalanx sixteen files deep,
+with their projecting pikes, aided by the heavily armed cavalry, all
+under the strictest military discipline and animated by patriotic ardor.
+This terrible Macedonian phalanx was a great advance over the early
+armies of the Greeks, who fought without discipline in a hand to hand
+encounter, with swords and spears, after exhausting their arrows. They
+had learned two things of great importance,--a rigid discipline, and a
+concentration of forces which made an army a machine. Under Alexander,
+the grand phalanx consisted of 16,384 men, made up of four divisions and
+smaller phalanxes.
+
+In Roman armies we see a still further advance in the military art, as
+it existed in the time of Augustus, which required centuries to perfect.
+The hardy physique and stern nature of the Romans, exercised and
+controlled by their organizing genius, evolved the Roman legion, which
+learned to resist the impetuous assaults of the elephants of the East,
+the phalanx of the Greeks, and the Teutonic barbarians. The indomitable
+courage of the Romans, trained under severest discipline and directed by
+means of an organization divided and subdivided and officered almost as
+perfectly as our modern corps and divisions and brigades and regiments
+and companies and squads, marched over and subdued the world.
+
+The Roman soldier was trained to march twenty miles a day, under a
+burden of eighty pounds; to swim rivers, to climb mountains, to
+penetrate forests, and to encounter every kind of danger. He was taught
+that his destiny was to die in battle: death was at once his duty and
+his glory. He enlisted in the army with little hope of revisiting his
+home; he crossed seas and deserts and forests with the idea of spending
+his life in the service of his country. His pay was only a denarius
+daily, equal to about sixteen cents of our money. Marriage for him was
+discouraged or forbidden. However insignificant the legionary was as a
+man, he gained importance from the great body with which he was
+identified: he was both the servant and the master of the State. He had
+an intense _esprit de corps_; he was bound up in the glory of his
+legion. Both religion and honor bound him to his standards; the golden
+eagle which glittered in his front was the object of his fondest
+devotion. Nor was it possible to escape the penalty of cowardice or
+treachery or disobedience; he could be chastised with blows by his
+centurion, and his general could doom him to death. Never was the
+severity of military discipline relaxed; military exercises were
+incessant, in winter as in summer. In the midst of peace the Roman
+troops were familiarized with the practice of war.
+
+It was the spirit which animated the Roman legions, and the discipline
+to which they were inured that gave them their irresistible strength.
+When we remember that they had not our firearms, we can but be surprised
+at their efficiency, especially in taking strongly fortified cities.
+Jerusalem was defended by a triple wall, the most elaborate
+fortifications, and twenty-four thousand soldiers, besides the aid
+received from the citizens; and yet it fell in little more than four
+months before an army of eighty thousand under Titus. How great must
+have been the military science that could reduce a place of such
+strength, in so short a time, without the aid of other artillery than
+the ancient catapult and battering-ram! Whether the military science of
+the Romans was superior or inferior to our own, no one can question that
+it was as perfect as it could be, lacking any knowledge of gunpowder; we
+surpass them only in the application of this great invention, especially
+in artillery. There can be no doubt that a Roman army was superior to a
+feudal army in the brightest days of chivalry. The world has produced no
+generals greater than Caesar, Pompey, Sulla, and Marius. No armies ever
+won greater victories over superior numbers than the Roman, and no
+armies of their size ever retained in submission so vast an empire, and
+for so long a time. At no period in the history of the Roman empire were
+the armies so large as those sustained by France in time of peace. Two
+hundred thousand legionaries, and as many more auxiliaries, controlled
+diverse nations and powerful monarchies. The single province of Syria
+once boasted of a military force equal in the number of soldiers to that
+wielded by the Emperor Tiberius. Twenty-five Roman legions made the
+conquest of the world, and retained that conquest for five hundred
+years. The self-sustained energy of Caesar in Gaul puts to the blush
+the efforts of all modern generals, unless we except Frederic II.,
+Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Grant, Sherman, and a few other great
+geniuses whom warlike crises have developed; nor is there a better
+text-book on the art of war than that furnished by Caesar himself in his
+Commentaries. The great victories of the Romans over barbarians, over
+Gauls, over Carthaginians, over Greeks, over Syrians, over Persians,
+were not the result of a short-lived enthusiasm, like those of Attila
+and Tamerlane, but extended over a thousand years.
+
+The Romans were essentially military in all their tastes and habits.
+Luxurious senators and nobles showed the greatest courage and skill in
+the most difficult campaigns. Antony, Caesar, Pompey, and Lucullus at
+home were enervated and self-indulgent, but at the head of their legions
+they were capable of any privation and fatigue.
+
+The Roman legion was a most perfect organization, a great mechanical
+force, and could sustain furious attacks after vigor, patriotism, and
+public spirit had fled. For three hundred years a vast empire was
+sustained by mechanism alone. The legion is coeval with the foundation
+of Rome, but the number of the troops of which it was composed varied at
+different periods. It rarely exceeded six thousand men; Gibbon estimates
+the number at six thousand eight hundred and twenty-six men. For many
+centuries it was composed exclusively of Roman citizens. Up to the year
+B.C. 107, no one was permitted to serve among the regular troops except
+those who were regarded as possessing a strong personal interest in the
+stability of the republic. Marius admitted all orders of citizens; and
+after the close of the Social War, B.C. 87, the whole free population of
+Italy was allowed to serve in the regular army. Claudius incorporated
+with the legion the vanquished Goths, and after him the barbarians
+filled up the ranks on account of the degeneracy of the times. But
+during the period when the Romans were conquering the world every
+citizen was trained to arms, like the Germans of the present day, and
+was liable to be called upon to serve in the armies. In the early age of
+the republic the legion was disbanded as soon as the special service was
+performed, and was in all essential respects a militia. For three
+centuries we have no record of a Roman army wintering in the field; but
+when Southern Italy became the seat of war, and especially when Rome was
+menaced by foreign enemies, and still more when a protracted foreign
+service became inevitable, the same soldiers remained in activity for
+several years. Gradually the distinction between the soldier and the
+civilian was entirely obliterated. The distant wars of the
+republic--such as the prolonged operations of Caesar in Gaul, and the
+civil contests--made a standing army a necessity. During the civil wars
+between Caesar and Pompey the legions were forty in number; under
+Augustus, but twenty-five. Alexander Severus increased them to
+thirty-two. This was the standing force of the empire,--from one hundred
+and fifty thousand to two hundred and forty thousand men, stationed in
+the various provinces.
+
+The main dependence of the legion was on the infantry, which wore heavy
+armor consisting of helmet, breastplate, greaves on the right leg, and
+on the left arm a buckler, four feet in length and two and a half in
+width. The helmet was originally made of leather or untanned skin,
+strengthened and adorned by bronze or gold, and surmounted by a crest
+which was often of horse-hair, and so made as to give an imposing look.
+The crests served not only for ornament, but to distinguish the
+different centurions. The breastplate, or cuirass, was generally made of
+metal, and sometimes was highly ornamented. Chain-mail was also used.
+The greaves were of bronze or brass, with a lining of leather or felt,
+and reached above the knees. The shield worn by the heavy-armed infantry
+was not round, like that of the early Greeks, but oval or oblong,
+adapted to the shape of the body, such as was adopted by Philip and
+Alexander, and was made of wood or wicker-work. The weapons were a light
+spear, a pilum, or javelin, over six feet long, terminated by a steel
+point, and a short cut-and-thrust sword with a double edge. Besides the
+armor and weapons of the legionary, he usually carried on the marches
+provisions for two weeks, three or four stakes used in forming the
+palisade of the camp, besides various tools,--altogether a burden of
+sixty or eighty pounds per man. The legion was drawn up eight deep, and
+three feet intervened between rank and file, which disposition gave
+great activity, and made it superior to the Macedonian phalanx, the
+strength of which depended on sixteen ranks of long pikes wedged
+together. The general period of service for the infantry was twenty
+years, after which the soldier received a discharge, together with a
+bounty in money or land.
+
+The cavalry attached to each legion consisted of three hundred men, who
+originally were selected from the leading men in the State. They were
+mounted at the expense of the State, and formed a distinct order. The
+cavalry was divided into ten squadrons. To each legion was attached also
+a train of ten military engines of the largest size, and fifty-five of
+the smaller,--all of which discharged stones and darts with great
+effect. This train corresponded with our artillery.
+
+The Roman legion--whether it was composed of four thousand men, as in
+the early ages of the republic, or six thousand, as in the time of
+Augustus--was divided into ten cohorts, and each cohort was composed of
+Hastati (raw troops), Principes (trained troops), Triarii (veterans),
+and Velites (light troops, or skirmishers). The soldiers of the first
+line, called Hastati, consisted of youths in the bloom of manhood, who
+were distributed into fifteen companies, or maniples. Each company
+contained sixty privates, two centurions, and a standard-bearer. Two
+thirds were heavily armed, and bore the long shield; the remainder
+carried only a spear and light javelins. The second line, the Principes,
+was composed of men in the full vigor of life, divided also into fifteen
+companies, all heavily armed, and distinguished by the splendor of their
+equipments. The third body, the Triarii, was composed of tried veterans,
+in fifteen companies, the least trustworthy of which were placed in the
+rear; these formed three lines. The Velites were light-armed troops,
+employed on out-post duty, and mingled with the horsemen. The Hastati
+were so called because they were armed with the _hasta_, or spear; the
+Principes for being placed so near to the front; the Triarii, from
+having been arrayed behind the first two lines as a body of reserve. The
+Triarii were armed with the pilum, thicker and stronger than the Grecian
+lance, four and a half feet long, of wood, with a barbed head of
+iron,--so that the whole length of the weapon was six feet nine inches.
+It was used either to throw or thrust with, and when it pierced the
+enemy's shield the iron head was bent, and the spear, owing to the twist
+in the iron, still held to the shield. Each soldier carried two of these
+weapons, and threw the heavy pilum over the heads of their comrades in
+front, in order to break the enemy's line. In the time of the empire,
+when the legion was modified, the infantry wore cuirasses and helmets,
+and carried a sword and dagger. The select infantry were armed with a
+long spear and a shield; the rest, with a pilum. Each man carried a saw,
+a basket, a mattock, a hatchet, a leather strap, a hook, a chain, and
+provisions for three days. The Equites (cavalry) wore helmets and
+cuirasses, like the infantry, having a broadsword at the right side, and
+in the hand a long pole. A buckler swung at the horse's flank. They were
+also furnished with a quiver containing three or four javelins.
+
+The artillery were used both for hurling missiles in battle, and for the
+attack on fortresses. The _tormentum_, which was an elastic instrument,
+discharged stones and darts, and was held in general use until the
+discovery of gunpowder. In besieging a city, the ram was employed for
+destroying the lower part of a wall, and the _balista,_ which discharged
+stones, was used to overthrow the battlements. The balista would project
+a stone weighing from fifty to three hundred pounds. The _aries_, or
+battering-ram, consisted of a large beam made of the trunk of a tree,
+frequently one hundred feet in length, to one end of which was fastened
+a mace of iron or bronze resembling in form the head of a ram; it was
+often suspended by ropes from a beam fixed transversely over it, so that
+the soldiers were relieved from supporting its weight, and were able to
+give it a rapid and forcible swinging motion backward and forward. When
+this machine was further perfected by rigging it upon wheels, and
+constructing over it a roof, so as to form a _testudo_, which protected
+the besieging party from the assaults of the besieged, there was no
+tower so strong, no wall so thick, as to resist a long-continued attack,
+the great length of the beam enabling the soldiers to work across the
+defensive ditch, and as many as one hundred men being often employed
+upon it. The Romans learned from the Greeks the art of building this
+formidable engine, which was used with great effect by Alexander, but
+with still greater by Titus in the siege of Jerusalem; it was first used
+by the Romans in the siege of Syracuse. The _vinea_ was a sort of roof
+under which the soldiers protected themselves when they undermined
+walls. The _helepolis_, also used in the attack on cities, was a square
+tower furnished with all the means of assault. This also was a Greek
+invention; and the one used by Demetrius at the siege of Rhodes, B. C.
+306, was one hundred and thirty-five feet high and sixty-eight wide,
+divided into nine stories. The _turris_, a tower of the same class, was
+used both by Greeks and Romans, and even by Asiatics. Mithridates used
+one at the siege of Cyzicus one hundred and fifty feet in height. These
+most formidable engines were generally made of beams of wood covered on
+three sides with iron and sometimes with rawhides. They were higher than
+the walls and all the other fortifications of a besieged place, and
+divided into stories pierced with windows; in and upon them were
+stationed archers and slingers, and in the lower story was a
+battering-ram. The soldiers in the turris were also provided with
+scaling-ladders, sometimes on wheels; so that when the top of the wall
+was cleared by means of the turris, it might be scaled by means of the
+ladders. It was impossible to resist these powerful engines except by
+burning them, or by undermining the ground upon which they stood, or by
+overturning them with stones or iron-shod beams hung from a mast on the
+wall, or by increasing the height of the wall, or by erecting temporary
+towers on the wall beside them.
+
+Thus there was no ancient fortification capable of withstanding a long
+siege when the besieged city was short of defenders or provisions. With
+forces equal between the combatants an attack was generally a failure,
+for the defenders had always a great advantage; but when the number of
+defenders was reduced, or when famine pressed, the skill and courage of
+the assailants would ultimately triumph. Some ancient cities made a most
+obstinate resistance, like Tarentum; like Carthage, which stood a siege
+of four years; like Numantia in Spain, and like Jerusalem. When cities
+were of immense size, population, and resources, like Rome when besieged
+by Alaric, it was easier to take them by cutting off all ingress and
+egress, so as to produce famine. Tyre was taken by Alexander only by
+cutting off the harbor. Cyrus could not have taken Babylon by assault,
+since the walls were of such enormous height, and the ditch was too wide
+for the use of battering-rams; he resorted to an expedient of which the
+blinded inhabitants of that doomed city never dreamed, which rendered
+their impregnable fortifications useless. Nor probably would the Romans
+have prevailed against Jerusalem had not famine decimated and weakened
+its defenders. Fortified cities, though scarcely ever impregnable, were
+yet more in use in ancient than modern times, and greatly delayed the
+operations of advancing armies; and it was probably the fortified camp
+of the Romans, which protected an army against surprises and other
+misfortunes, that gave such permanent efficacy to the legions.
+
+The chief officers of the legion were the Tribunes; and originally
+there was one in each legion from the three tribes,--the Ramnes,
+Luceres, and Tities. In the time of Polybius the number in each legion
+was six. Their authority extended equally over the whole legion; but to
+prevent confusion, it was the custom for them to divide into three
+sections of two, and each pair undertook the routine duties for two
+months out of six; they nominated the centurions, and assigned each to
+the company to which he belonged. These tribunes at first were chosen
+the commanders-in-chief, by the kings and consuls; but during the palmy
+days of the republic, when the patrician power was pre-eminent, they
+were elected by the people, that is, the citizens. Later they were
+named, half by the Senate and half by the consuls. No one was eligible
+to this great office who had not served ten years in the infantry or
+five in the cavalry. The tribunes were distinguished by their dress from
+the common soldier. Next in rank to the tribunes, who corresponded to
+the rank of brigadiers and colonels in our times, were the Centurions,
+of whom there were sixty in each legion,--men who were more remarkable
+for calmness and sagacity than for courage and daring valor; men who
+would keep their posts at all hazards. It was their duty to drill the
+soldiers, to inspect arms, clothing, and food, to visit the sentinels
+and regulate the conduct of the men. They had the power of inflicting
+corporal punishment. They were chosen for merit solely, until the later
+ages of the empire, when their posts were bought, as is the case to some
+extent to-day in the English army. The centurions were of unequal
+rank,--those of the Triarii before those of the Principes, and those of
+the Principes before those of the Hastati. The first centurion of the
+first maniple of the Triarii stood next in rank to the tribunes, and had
+a seat in the military councils. His office was very lucrative. To his
+charge was intrusted the eagle of the legion. As the centurion might
+rise from the ranks by regular gradation through the different maniples
+of the Hastati, Principes, and Triarii, there was great inducement held
+out to the soldiers. It would, however, appear that the centurion
+received only twice the pay of the ordinary legionary. There was not
+therefore so much difference in rank between a private and a captain as
+there is in our day. There were no aristocratic distinctions in the
+ancient world so marked as those existing in the modern. In the Roman
+legion there was nevertheless a regular gradation of rank, although
+there were but few distinct offices. The gradation was determined not by
+length of service, but for merit alone, of which the tribunes were the
+sole judges; hence the tribune in a Roman legion had more power than
+that of a modern colonel. As the tribunes named the centurions, so the
+centurions appointed their lieutenants, who were called sub-centurions.
+Still below these were two sub-officers, or sergeants, and the
+_decanus_, or corporal, to every ten men.
+
+There was a change in the constitution and disposition of the legion
+after the time of Marius, until the fall of the republic. The legions
+were thrown open to men of all grades; they were all armed and equipped
+alike; the lines were reduced to two, with a space between every two
+cohorts, of which there were five in each line; the young soldiers were
+placed in the rear; the distinction between Hastati, Principes, and
+Triarii ceased; the Velites disappeared, their work being done by the
+foreign mercenaries; the cavalry ceased to be part of the legion, and
+became a distinct body; and the military was completely severed from the
+rest of the State. Formerly no one could aspire to office who had not
+completed ten years of military service, but in the time of Cicero a man
+could pass through all the great dignities of the State with a very
+limited experience of military life. Cicero himself did military service
+in but one campaign.
+
+Under the emperors there were still other changes. The regular army
+consisted of legions and supplementa,--the latter being subdivided into
+the imperial guards and the auxiliary troops.
+
+The Auxiliaries (_Socii_) consisted of troops from the States in
+alliance with Rome, or those compelled to furnish subsidies. The
+infantry of the allies was generally more numerous than that of the
+Romans, while the cavalry was three times as numerous. All the
+auxiliaries were paid by the State; their infantry received the same pay
+as the Roman infantry, but their cavalry received only two thirds of
+what was paid to the Roman cavalry. The common foot-soldier received in
+the time of Polybius three and a half asses a day, equal to about three
+cents; the horseman three times as much. The praetorian cohorts received
+twice as much as the legionaries. Julius Caesar allowed about six asses
+a day as the pay of the legionary, and under Augustus the daily pay was
+raised to ten asses,--little more than eight cents per day. Domitian
+raised the stipend still higher. The soldier, however, was fed and
+clothed by the government.
+
+The Praetorian Cohort was a select body of troops instituted by Augustus
+to protect his person, and consisted of ten cohorts, each of one
+thousand men, chosen from Italy. This number was increased by Vitellius
+to sixteen thousand, and they were assembled by Tiberius in a permanent
+camp, which was strongly fortified. They had peculiar privileges, and
+when they had served sixteen years received twenty thousand sesterces,
+or more than one hundred pounds sterling. Each praetorian had the rank
+of a centurion in the regular army. Like the body-guard of Louis XIV.
+they were all gentlemen, and formed gradually a great power, like the
+Janissaries at Constantinople, and frequently disposed of the
+purple itself.
+
+Our notice of the Roman legion would be incomplete without some
+description of the camp in which the soldier virtually lived. A Roman
+army never halted for a single night without forming a regular
+intrenchment capable of holding all the fighting men, the beasts of
+burden, and the baggage. During the winter months, when the army could
+not retire into some city, it was compelled to live in the camp, which
+was arranged and fortified according to a uniform plan, so that every
+company and individual had a place assigned. We cannot tell when this
+practice of intrenchment began; it was matured gradually, like all other
+things pertaining to all arts. The system was probably brought to
+perfection during the wars with Hannibal. Skill in the choice of ground,
+giving facilities for attack and defence, and for procuring water and
+other necessities, was of great account with the generals. An area of
+about five thousand square feet was allowed for a company of infantry,
+and ten thousand feet for a troop of thirty dragoons. The form of a camp
+was an exact square, the length of each side being two thousand and
+seventeen feet; there was a space of two hundred feet between the
+ramparts and the tents to facilitate the marching in and out of
+soldiers, and to guard the cattle and booty; the principal street was
+one hundred feet wide, and was called Principia. The defences of the
+camp consisted of a ditch, the earth from which was thrown inward, and
+of strong palisades of wooden stakes driven into the top of the
+earthwork so formed; the ditch was sometimes fifteen feet deep, and the
+_vallum_, or rampart, ten feet in height. When the army encamped for the
+first time the tribunes administered an oath to each individual,
+including slaves, to the effect that they would steal nothing out of the
+camp. Every morning at daybreak the centurions and the equites presented
+themselves before the tents of the tribunes, and the tribunes in like
+manner presented themselves before the praetorian, to learn the orders
+of the consuls, which through the centurions were communicated to the
+soldiers. Four companies took charge of the principal street, to see
+that it was properly cleaned and watered; one company took charge of the
+tent of the tribune; a strong guard attended to the horses, and another
+of fifty men stood beside the tent of the general, that he might be
+protected from open danger and secret treachery. The _velites_ mounted
+guard the whole night and day along the whole extent of the vallum, and
+each gate was guarded by ten men; the _equites_ were intrusted with the
+duty of acting as sentinels during the night, and most ingenious
+measures were adopted to secure their watchfulness and fidelity. The
+watchword for the night was given by the commander-in-chief. "On the
+first signal being given by the trumpet, the tents were all struck and
+the baggage packed; at the second signal, the baggage was placed upon
+the beasts of burden; and at the third, the whole army began to move.
+Then the herald, standing at the right hand of the general, demands
+thrice if they are ready for war, to which they all respond with loud
+and repeated cheers that they are ready, and for the most part, being
+filled with martial ardor, anticipate the question, 'and raise their
+right hands on high with a shout.'" [3]
+
+[Footnote 3: Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, article "Castra."]
+
+From what has come down to us of Roman military life, it appears to have
+been full of excitement, toil, danger, and hardship. The pecuniary
+rewards of the soldier were small; he was paid in glory. No profession
+brought so much honor as the military; and it was from the undivided
+attention of a great people to this profession, that it was carried to
+all the perfection which could be attained before the great invention of
+gunpowder changed the art of war. It was not the number of men employed
+in the Roman armies which particularly arrests attention, but the genius
+of organization which controlled and the spirit which animated them.
+The Romans loved war, but so reduced it to a science that it required
+comparatively small armies to conquer the world. Sulla defeated
+Mithridates with only thirty thousand men, while his adversary
+marshalled against him over one hundred thousand. Caesar had only ten
+legions to effect the conquest of Gaul, and none of these were of
+Italian origin. At the great decisive battle of Pharsalia, when most of
+the available forces of the empire were employed on one side or the
+other, Pompey commanded a legionary army of forty-five thousand men, and
+his cavalry amounted to seven thousand more, but among them were
+included the flower of the Roman nobility; the auxiliary force has not
+been computed, although it was probably numerous. In the same battle
+Caesar had under him only twenty-two thousand legionaries and one
+thousand cavalry. But every man in both armies was prepared to conquer
+or die. The forces were posted on the open plain, and the battle was
+really a hand-to-hand encounter, in which the soldiers, after hurling
+their lances, fought with their swords chiefly; and when the cavalry of
+Pompey rushed upon the legionaries of Caesar, no blows were wasted on
+the mailed panoply of the mounted Romans, but were aimed at the face
+alone, as that only was unprotected. The battle was decided by the
+coolness, bravery, and discipline of Caesar's veterans, inspired by the
+genius of the greatest general of antiquity. Less than one hundred
+thousand men, in all probability, were engaged in one of the most
+memorable conflicts which the world has seen.
+
+Thus it was by blended art and heroism that the Roman legions prevailed
+over the armies of the ancient world. But this military power was not
+gained in a say; it took nearly two hundred years, after the expulsion
+of the kings, to regain supremacy over the neighboring people, and
+another century to conquer Italy. The Romans did not contend with
+regular armies until they were brought in conflict with the king of
+Epirus and the phalanx of the Greeks, "which improved their military
+tactics, and introduced between the combatants those mutual regards of
+civilized nations which teach men to honor their adversaries, to spare
+the vanquished, and to lay aside wrath when the struggle is ended."
+
+After the consolidation of Roman power in Italy, it took but one hundred
+and fifty years more to complete the conquest of the world,--of Northern
+Africa, Spain, Gaul, Illyria, Epirus, Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor,
+Pontus, Syria, Egypt, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pergamus, and the islands of
+the Mediterranean. The conquest of Carthage left Rome without a rival in
+the Mediterranean, and promoted intercourse with the Greeks. The
+Illyrian wars opened to the Romans the road to Greece and Asia, and
+destroyed the pirates of the Adriatic. The invasion of Cisalpine Gaul,
+now that part of Italy which is north of the Apennines, protected Italy
+from the invasion of barbarians. The Macedonian War against Philip put
+Greece under the protection of Rome, and that against Antiochus laid
+Syria at her mercy; when these kingdoms were reduced to provinces, the
+way was opened to further conquests in the East, and the Mediterranean
+became a Roman lake.
+
+But these conquests introduced luxury, wealth, pride, and avarice, which
+degrade while they elevate. Successful war created great generals, and
+founded great families; increased slavery, and promoted inequalities.
+Meanwhile the great generals struggled for supremacy; civil wars
+followed in the train of foreign conquests; Marius, Sulla, Pompey,
+Caesar, Antony, Augustus, sacrificed the State to their own ambitions.
+Good men lamented and protested, and hid themselves; Cato, Cicero,
+Brutus, spoke in vain. Degenerate morals kept pace with civil contests.
+Rome revelled in the spoils of all kingdoms and countries, was
+intoxicated with power, became cruel and tyrannical, and after
+sacrificing the lives of citizens to fortunate generals, yielded at last
+her liberties, and imperial despotism began its reign. War had added
+empire, but undermined prosperity; it had created a great military
+monarchy, but destroyed liberty; it had brought wealth, but introduced
+inequalities; it had filled the city with spoils, but sown the vices of
+self-interest. The machinery remained perfect, but life had fled. It
+henceforth became the labor of Emperors to keep together their vast
+possessions with this machinery, which at last wore out, since there was
+neither genius to repair it nor patriotism to work it. It lasted three
+hundred years, but was broken to pieces by the barbarians.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Wilkinson is the best authority pertaining to Egyptian armies. The
+highest authority in relation to the construction of an army is
+Polybius, contemporary with Scipio, when Roman discipline was most
+perfect. The eighth chapter of Livy is also very much prized. Salmasius
+and Lepsius wrote learned treatises. Tacitus, Sallust, Livy, Dion
+Cassius, Pliny, and Caesar reveal incidentally much that we wish to
+know, the last giving us the liveliest idea of the military habits and
+tactics of the Romans. Gibbon gives some important facts. The subject of
+ancient machines is treated by Folard's Commentary attached to his
+translation of Polybius. Josephus describes with great vividness the
+siege of Jerusalem. Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities is full of details
+in everything pertaining to the weapons, the armor, the military
+engines, the rewards and punishments of the soldiers. The articles
+"Exercitus," in Smith's Dictionary, and "Army," in the Encyclopedia
+Britannica, give a practical summary of the best writers.
+
+
+
+
+CICERO.
+
+
+106-43 B.C.
+
+ROMAN LITERATURE.
+
+
+Marcus Tullius Cicero is one of the great lights of history, because his
+genius and influence were directed to the conservation of what was most
+precious in civilization among the cultivated nations of antiquity.
+
+He was not a warrior, like so many of the Roman Senators, but his
+excellence was higher than that of a conqueror. "He was doomed, by his
+literary genius, to an immortality," and was confessedly the most
+prominent figure in the political history of his time, next to Caesar
+and Pompey. His influence was greater than his power, reaching down to
+our time; and if his character had faults, let us remember that he was
+stained by no crimes and vices, in an age of violence and wickedness.
+Until lately he has received almost unmixed praise. The Fathers of the
+Church revered him. To Erasmus, as well as to Jerome and Augustine, he
+was an oracle.
+
+In presenting this immortal benefactor, I have no novelties to show.
+Novelties are for those who seek to upturn the verdicts of past ages by
+offering something new, rather than what is true.
+
+Cicero was born B.C. 106, in the little suburban town of Arpinum, about
+fifty miles from Rome,--the town which produced Marius. The period of
+his birth was one of marked national prosperity. Great military roads
+were built, which were a marvel of engineering skill; canals were dug;
+sails whitened the sea; commerce was prosperous; the arts of Greece were
+introduced, and its literature also; elegant villas lined the shores of
+the Mediterranean; pictures and statues were indefinitely
+multiplied,--everything indicated an increase of wealth and culture.
+With these triumphs of art and science and literature, we are compelled
+to notice likewise a decline in morals. Money had become the god which
+everybody worshipped. Religious life faded away; there was a general
+eclipse of faith. An Epicurean life produced an Epicurean philosophy.
+Pleasure-seeking was universal, and even revolting in the sports of the
+Amphitheatre. Sensualism became the convertible word for utilities. The
+Romans were thus rapidly "advancing" to a materialistic millennium,--an
+outward progress of wealth and industries, but an inward decline in
+"those virtues on which the strength of man is based," accompanied with
+seditions among the people, luxury and pride among the nobles, and
+usurpations on the part of successful generals,--when Cicero began his
+memorable career.
+
+He was well-born, but not of noble ancestors. The great peculiarity of
+his youth was his precocity. He was an intellectual prodigy,--like Pitt,
+Macaulay, and Mill. Like them, he had a wonderful memory. He early
+mastered the Greek language; he wrote poetry, studied under eminent
+professors, frequented the Forum, listened to the speeches of different
+orators, watched the posture and gestures of actors, and plunged into
+the mazes of literature and philosophy. He was conscious of his
+marvellous gifts, and was, of course, ambitious of distinction.
+
+There were only three ways at Rome in which a man could rise to eminence
+and power. One was by making money, like army contractors and merchants,
+such as the Equites, to whose ranks he belonged; the second was by
+military service; and the third by the law,--an honorable profession.
+Like Caesar, a few years younger than he, Cicero selected the law. But
+he was a _new man_,--not a patrician, as Caesar was,--and had few
+powerful friends. Hence his progress was not rapid in the way of
+clients. He was twenty-five years of age before he had a case. He was
+twenty-seven when he defended Roscius, which seems to have brought him
+into notice,--even as the fortune of Erskine was made in the Greenwich
+Hospital case and that of Daniel Webster in the case of Dartmouth
+College. To have defended Roscius against all the influence of Sulla,
+then the most powerful man in Rome, was considered bold and audacious.
+His fame for great logical power rests on his defence of Milo,--the
+admiration of all lawyers.
+
+Cicero was not naturally robust. His figure was tall and spare, his neck
+long and slender, and his mouth anything but sensual. He looked more
+like an elegant scholar than a popular public speaker. Yet he was
+impetuous, ardent, and fiery, like Demosthenes, resorting to violent
+gesticulations. The health of such a young man could not stand the
+strain on his nervous system, and he was obliged to leave Rome for
+recreation; he therefore made the tour of Greece and Asia Minor, which
+every fashionable and cultivated man was supposed to do. Yet he did not
+abandon himself to the pleasures of cities more fascinating than Rome
+itself, but pursued his studies in rhetoric and philosophy under eminent
+masters, or "professors" as we should now call them. He remained abroad
+two years, returning when he was thirty years of age and settling down
+in his profession, taking at first but little part in politics. He
+married Terentia, with whom he lived happily for thirty years.
+
+But the Roman lawyer was essentially a politician, looking ultimately to
+political office, since only through the great public offices could he
+enter the Senate,--the object of ambition to all distinguished Romans,
+as a seat in Parliament is the goal of an Englishman. The Roman lawyer
+did not receive fees, like modern lawyers, but derived his support from
+presents and legacies. When he became a political leader, a man of
+influence with the great, his presents were enormous. Cicero
+acknowledged, late in life, to have received what would now be equal to
+more than a million of dollars from legacies alone. The great political
+leaders and orators were the stipendiaries of Eastern princes and nobles
+who wanted favors from the Senate, and who knew as well how to reward
+such services as do the railway kings in our times.
+
+Before Cicero, then, could be a Senator, he must pass through those
+great public offices which were in the gift of the people. The first
+step on the ladder of advancement was the office of quaestor, which
+entailed the duty of collecting revenues in one of the provinces. This
+office he was sufficiently influential to secure, being sent to Sicily,
+where he distinguished himself for his activity and integrity. At the
+end of a year he renewed his practice in the courts at Rome,--being
+hardly anything more than a mere lawyer for five years, when he was
+elected an Aedile, to whom the care of the public buildings was
+intrusted.
+
+It was while he was aedile-elect that Cicero appeared as the public
+prosecutor of Verres. This was one of the great cases of antiquity, and
+the one from which the orator's public career fairly dates. His
+residence in Sicily had prepared him for this duty; and he secured the
+conviction of this great criminal, whose peculations and corruptions
+would amaze our modern New Yorkers and all the "rings" of our great
+cities combined. But the Praetor of Sicily was a provincial
+governor,--more like Warren Hastings than Tweed. For this public service
+Cicero gained more _éclat_ than Burke did for his prosecution of
+Hastings; since Hastings, though a corrupt man, laid, after Clive, the
+foundation of the English empire in India, and was a man of immense
+talents,--greater than those of any who has since filled his place.
+Hence the nation screened Hastings. But Verres had no virtues and no
+great abilities; he was an outrageous public robber, and hoped, from his
+wealth and powerful connections, to purchase immunity for his crimes. In
+the hands of such an orator as Cicero he could not escape the penalty of
+the law, powerful as he was, even at Rome. This case placed Cicero above
+Hortensius, hitherto the leader of the Roman bar.
+
+It was at this period that the extant correspondence of Cicero began,
+which is the best picture we have of the manners and habits of the Roman
+aristocracy at the time. History could scarcely spare those famous
+letters, especially to Atticus, in which also the private life and
+character of Cicero shine to the most advantage, revealing no vices, no
+treacheries,--only egotism, vanity, and vacillation, and a way that some
+have of speaking about people in private very differently from what they
+say in public, which looks like insincerity. In these letters Cicero
+appears as a very frank man, genial, hospitable, domestic, witty, whose
+society and conversation must have been delightful. In no modern
+correspondence do we see a higher perfection in the polished courtesies
+and urbanities of social life, with the alloy of vanity, irony, and
+discontent. But in these letters he also evinces a friendship which is
+immortal; and what is nobler than the capacity of friendship? In these
+he not only shines as a cultivated scholar, but as a great statesman and
+patriot, living for the good of his country, though not unmindful of the
+luxuries of home and the charms of country retirement, and those
+enjoyments which are ever associated with refined and favored life. We
+read here of pictures, books, medals, statues, curiosities of every
+kind, all of which adorned his various villas, as well as his
+magnificent palace on Mount Palatine, which cost him what would be equal
+in our money to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. To keep up this
+town house, and some fifteen villas in different parts of Italy, and to
+feast the greatest nobles, like Pompey and Caesar, would imply that his
+income was enormous, much greater than that of any modern professional
+man. And yet he seems to have lived, like Bacon and our Webster, beyond
+his income, and was in debt the greater part of his life,--another flaw
+in his character; for I do not wish to paint him without faults, but
+only as a good as well as a great man, for his times. His private
+character was as lofty as that of Chatham or Canning,--if we could
+forget his vanity, which after all is not so offensive as the
+intellectual pride of Burke and Pitt, and of sundry other great lights
+who might be mentioned, conscious of their gifts and attainments. There
+is something very different in the egotism of a silly and self-seeking
+aristocrat from that of a great benefactor who has something to be proud
+of, and with whose private experiences the greatest national deeds are
+connected. I speak of this fault because it has been handled too
+severely by modern critics. What were the faults of Cicero, compared
+with those of Theodosius or Constantine, to say nothing of his
+contemporaries, like Caesar, before whom so much incense has
+been burned?
+
+At the age of forty Cicero became Praetor, or Supreme Judge. This
+office, when it expired, entitled him to a provincial government,--the
+great ultimate ambition of a senator; since the administration of a
+province, even for a single year, usually secured an enormous fortune.
+But this tempting offer he resigned, since he felt he could not be
+spared from Rome in such a crisis of public affairs, when the fortunate
+generals were grasping power and the demagogues were almost preparing
+the way for despotism. Some might say he was a far-sighted and ambitious
+statesman, who could not afford to weaken his chances of being made
+Consul by absence from the capital.
+
+This great office, the consulship, the highest in the gift of the
+people,--which gave supreme executive control,--was rarely conferred,
+although elective, upon any but senators of ancient family and enormous
+wealth. It was as difficult for a "new man" to reach this dignity, under
+an aristocratic Constitution, as for a commoner a hundred years ago to
+become prime minister of England. Transcendent talents and services
+scarcely sufficed. Only generals who had won great military fame, or the
+highest of the nobles, stood much chance. For a lawyer to aim at the
+highest office in the State, without a great family to back him, would
+have been deemed as audacious as for such a man as Burke to aspire to a
+seat in the cabinet during the reign of George III. A lawyer at Rome,
+like a lawyer in London, might become a lord chancellor or praetor, but
+not easily a prime minister: he would be defeated by aristocratic
+influence and jealousies. Although the people had the right of election,
+they voted at the dictation of those who had money and power. Yet Cicero
+obtained the consulship, probably with the aid of senators, which he
+justly regarded as a great triumph. It was a very unusual thing. It was
+more marvellous than for a Jew to reign in Great Britain, or, like
+Mordecai, in the court of a Persian king.
+
+The most distinguished service of Cicero as consul was to ferret out the
+conspiracy of Catiline. Now, this traitor belonged to the very highest
+rank in a Senate of nobles; he was like an ancient duke in the British
+House of Peers. It was no easy thing for a plebeian consul to bring to
+justice so great a culprit. He was more formidable than Essex in the
+reign of Elizabeth, or Bassompierre in the time of Richelieu. He was a
+man of profligate life, but of marked ability and boundless ambition. He
+had a band of numerous and faithful followers, armed and desperate. He
+was also one of those oily and aristocratic demagogues who bewitch the
+people,--not, as in our times, by sophistries, but by flatteries. He was
+as debauched as Mirabeau, but without his patriotism, though like him he
+aimed to overturn the Constitution by allying himself with the
+democracy. The people, whom he despised, he gained by his money and
+promises; and he had powerful confederates of his own rank, so that he
+was on the point of deluging Rome with blood, his aim being nothing less
+than the extermination of the Senate and the magistrates by
+assassination, and a general division of the public treasure, with
+personal assumption of public power.
+
+But all his schemes were foiled by Cicero, who added unwearied activity
+to extraordinary penetration. For this great and signal service Cicero
+received the highest tribute the State could render. He was called the
+savior of his country; and he succeeded in staving off for a time the
+fall of his country's liberties. It was a mournful sight to him to see
+the ascendency which demagogues had already gained, since it betokened
+the approaching destruction of the Constitution, which, good or bad, was
+dear to him, and which as an aristocrat he sought to conserve.
+
+Cicero's evil star was not Catiline, but Clodius,--another aristocratic
+demagogue whose crimes he exposed, although he failed to bring him to
+justice. Clodius was shielded by his powerful connections; and he was,
+besides, a popular favorite, as well as a petted scion of one of the
+greatest families. Clodius showed his hostility to Cicero, and sought
+revenge by artfully causing the people to pass or revive a law that
+whoever had inflicted capital punishment on a citizen without a trial
+should be banished. This seemed to the people to be a protection to
+their liberties. Now Cicero, when consul, had executed some of the
+conspirators associated with Catiline, for which he was called the
+savior of his country. But by the law which was now passed or revived by
+the influence of Clodius, Cicero was himself a culprit, and it would
+seem that all the influence of the Senate and his friends could not
+prevent his exile. He appealed to his friend Pompey, but Pompey turned a
+deaf ear; and also to Caesar, but Caesar was then outside the walls of
+the city in command of an army. In fact, both these generals wished him
+out of the way, although they equally admired and feared him; for each
+of them was bent on being the supreme ruler of Rome.
+
+So it was permitted for the most illustrious patriot which Rome then
+held to go into exile. What a comment on the demoralization of the
+times! Here was the best, the most gifted, and the most accomplished man
+of the Republic,--a man who had rendered invaluable and acknowledged
+services, that man of consular dignity and one of the leaders of the
+Senate,--sent into inglorious banishment, on a mere technicality and for
+an act which saved the State. And the "magnanimous" Caesar and the
+"illustrious" Pompey allowed him to go! Where was salvation to a
+Republic which banished its savior, and for having saved it? The heart
+sickens over such a fact, although it occurred two thousand years ago.
+When the citizens of Rome saw that great man depart mournfully from
+among them, and to all appearance forever, for having rescued them from
+violence and slaughter, and by their own act,--they ought to have known
+that the days of the Republic were numbered. But this only a few
+far-seeing patriots felt. And not only was Cicero banished, but his
+palace was burned and his villas confiscated. He was not only disgraced,
+but ruined; he was an exile and a pauper. What a fall! What an unmerited
+treatment!
+
+Very few people conceive what a dreadful punishment it was in Greece and
+Rome to be banished; or, as the formula went, "to be interdicted from
+fire and water,"--the sacred fire of the hearth, the lustral water which
+served for sacrifices. The exile was deprived of these by being forced
+to extinguish the hearth-fire,--the elemental, fundamental religion of a
+Greek and Roman. "He could not, deprived of this, hold property; having
+no longer a worship, he had no longer a family. He ceased to be a
+husband and father; his sons were no longer in his power, his wife was
+no longer his wife, and when he died he had not the right to be buried
+in the tombs of his ancestors." [4]
+
+[Footnote 4: Coulanges: Ancient City.]
+
+Is it to be wondered at that even so good and great a man as Cicero
+should bitterly feel his disgrace and misfortunes? Is it surprising
+that, philosopher as he was, he should have given way to grief and
+despondency. He would have been more than human not to have lost his
+spirits and his hopes. How natural were grief and despair, in such
+complicated miseries, especially to a religious man! Chrysostom could
+support _his_ exile with dignity; for Christianity had abolished the
+superstitions of Greece and Rome as to household gods. Cicero could not:
+he was not great enough for such a martyrdom. It is true we should have
+esteemed him higher, had he accepted his fate with resignation: no man
+should yield to despair. Had he been as old as Socrates, and had he
+accomplished his mission, possibly he would have shown more equanimity.
+But his work was not yet done. He was cut off in his prime and in the
+midst of usefulness from his home, his religion, his family, his honor,
+and his influence; he was utterly ruined. I think the critics make too
+much of the grief and misery of Cicero in his banishment. We may be
+disappointed that Cicero was not equal to his circumstances; but we need
+not be hard on him. My surprise is, not that he was overwhelmed with
+grief, but that he did not attempt to drown his grief in books and
+literature. His sole relief was in pathetic and unmanly letters.
+
+The great injustice of this punishment naturally produced a reaction.
+Nor could the Romans afford to lose the services of their greatest
+orator. They also craved the excitement of his speeches, more thrilling
+and delightful than the performance of any actor. So he was recalled.
+Cicero ought to have anticipated this; it seems, however, he had that
+unfortunate temperament which favors alternate depression and
+exhilaration of spirits, without measure or reason.
+
+His return was a triumph,--a grand ovation, an unbounded tribute to his
+vanity. His palace was rebuilt at the expense of the State, and his
+property was restored. His popularity was regained. In fact, his
+influence was never lost; and, because it was so great, his enemies
+wished him out of the way. He was one of the few who retain influence
+after they have lost power.
+
+The excess of his joy on his restoration to home and friends and
+property and fame and position, was as great as the excess of his grief
+in his short exile. But this is a defect in temperament, in his mental
+constitution, rather than a flaw in his character. We could have wished
+more placidity and equanimity; but to condemn him because he was not
+great in everything is unjust.
+
+On his return to Rome Cicero resumed his practice in the courts with
+greater devotion than ever. He was now past fifty years of age, in the
+prime of his strength and in the height of his forensic fame. But,
+notwithstanding his success and honors, his life was saddened by the
+growing dissensions between Caesar and Pompey, the decline of public
+spirit, and the approaching fall of the institutions in which he
+gloried. It was clear that one or the other of these fortunate generals
+would soon become the master of the Roman world, and that liberty was
+about to perish. His eloquence now became sad; he sings the death-song
+of departing glories; he wails his Jeremiads over the demoralization
+which was sweeping away not merely liberty, but religion, and
+extinguishing faith in the world. To console himself he retired to one
+of his beautiful villas and wrote that immortal essay, "De Oratore,"
+which has come down to us entire. His literary genius now blazed equally
+with his public speeches in the Forum and in the Senate. Literature was
+his solace and amusement, not a source of profit, or probably of
+contemporary fame. He wrote treatises on the same principles that he
+talked with friends, or that Fra Angelico painted pictures. He renewed
+his attempts in poetry, but failed. His poetry is in the transcendent
+rhythm of his prose compositions, like that of Madame de Staël, and
+Macaulay, and Rousseau.
+
+But he was dragged from his literary and forensic life to accept the
+office of a governor of a province. It was forced upon him,--an honor to
+him without a charm. Had he been venal and unscrupulous, he would have
+seized it with avidity. He was too conscientious to enrich himself by
+public corruption, as other Senators did, and unless he could accumulate
+a fortune the command of a distant province was an honorable exile. He
+was fifty-six years of age when he became Proconsul of Cilicia, an
+Eastern province; and all historians have united in praising his
+proconsulate for its justice, its integrity, and its ability. He
+committed no extortions, and returned home, when his term of office
+expired, as poor as when he went. One of the highest praises which can
+be given to a public man who has chances of enriching himself is, that
+he remains poor. When a member of Congress, known not to be worth ten
+thousand dollars, returns to his home worth one hundred thousand
+dollars, the public have an instinct that he has, somehow or other, been
+untrue to himself and his country. When a great man returns home from
+Washington poorer than when he went, his influence is apt to survive his
+power; and this perpetuated influence is the highest glory of a public
+man,--the glory of Jefferson, of Hamilton, of Washington, like the voice
+of Gladstone during his retirement. Now Cicero had pre-eminently this
+influence as long as he lived; and it was ever exerted for the good of
+his country. Had his country been free, he would have died in honor. But
+his country was enslaved, and his voice was drowned, and he had to pay
+the penalty of speaking the truth about those unscrupulous men who
+usurped authority.
+
+On his return to Rome the state of public affairs was most alarming.
+Caesar and Pompey were in antagonism. He must choose between them, and
+he distrusted both. Caesar was the more able, accomplished, and
+magnanimous, but he was the more unscrupulous and dangerous. He had
+ventured to cross the Rubicon,--the first general who ever dared thus
+openly to assail his country's liberties. Pompey was pompous, overrated,
+and proud, and had been fortunate in the East. But then he sided with
+the Constitutional authorities,--that is, with the Senate,--so far as
+his ambition allowed. So Cicero took his side feebly, reluctantly, as
+the least of the evils he had to choose, but not without vacillation,
+which is one of the popular charges against him. "His distraction almost
+took the form of insanity." "His inconsistency was an incoherence."
+Never did a more wretched man than Cicero resort to Pompey's camp, where
+he remained until his cause was lost. He returned, after the battle of
+Pharsalia, a suppliant at the feet of Caesar, the conqueror. This, to
+me, is one of his weakest acts. It would have been more lofty and heroic
+to have perished in the camp of Pompey's sons.
+
+In the midst of these public misfortunes which saddened his soul, his
+private miseries began. He was now prematurely an old man, under sixty
+years of age, almost broken down with grief. His beloved daughter
+Tullia, with whom his life was bound up, died; and he was divorced from
+his wife Terentia,--a proceeding the cause of which remains a mystery.
+Neither in his most confidential letters, nor in his conversations with
+most intimate friends, does it appear that he ever unbosomed himself,
+although he was the frankest and most social of men. In his impressive
+silence he has set one of the noblest examples of a man afflicted with
+domestic infelicities. He buries his conjugal troubles in eternal
+silence; although he is forced to give vent to sorrows, so plaintive and
+bitter that both friend and foe were constrained to pity. He expects no
+sympathy, even at Rome, for the sundering of conjugal relations, and he
+communicates no secrets. In his grief and sadness he does, however, a
+most foolish thing: he marries a young lady one-third his age. She
+accepted him for his name and rank; he sought her for her beauty, her
+youth, and her fortune. This union of May with December was of course a
+failure. Both parties were soon disenchanted and disappointed. Neither
+party found happiness, only discontent and chagrin. The everlasting
+incongruities of such a relation--he sixty and she nineteen--soon led to
+another divorce. _He_ expected his young wife to mourn with him the loss
+of his daughter Tullia. _She_ expected that her society and charms
+would be a compensation for all that he had lost; yea, more, enough to
+make him the most fortunate and happy of mortals. In truth, he was too
+old a man to have married a young woman whatever were the inducements.
+It was the great folly of his life; an illustration of the fact that, as
+a general thing, the older a man grows the greater fool he becomes, so
+far as women are concerned; a folly that disgraced and humiliated the
+two wisest and greatest men who ever sat on the Jewish throne.
+
+In his accumulated sorrows Cicero now plunged for relief into literary
+labors. It was thus that his private sorrows were the means which
+Providence employed to transmit his precious thoughts and experiences to
+future ages, as the most valued inheritance he could bestow on
+posterity. What a precious legacy to the mind of the world was the book
+of "Ecclesiastes," yet by what bitter experiences was its wisdom earned!
+
+It was in the short period when Caesar rejoiced in the mighty power
+which he transmitted to the Roman Emperors that Cicero wrote, in
+comparative retirement, his history of "Roman Eloquence," his inquiry as
+to the "Greatest Good and Evil," his "Cato," his "Orator," his "Nature
+of the Gods," and his treatises on "Glory," on "Fate," on "Friendship,"
+on "Old Age," and his grandest work of all, the "Offices."--the best
+manual in ethics which has come down to us from heathen antiquity. In
+his studious retirement he reminds us of Bacon after his fall, when on
+his estate, surrounded with friends, and in the enjoyment of elegant
+leisure, he penned the most valued of his immortal compositions. And in
+those degenerate days at Rome, when liberty was crushed under foot
+forever, it is beautiful to see the greatest of Roman statesmen and
+lawyers consoling himself and instructing posterity by his exhaustive
+treatises on the fundamental principles of law, of morality, and of
+philosophy.
+
+The assassination of Caesar by Roman senators, which Cicero seems to
+have foreseen, and in which he rejoiced, at this time shocked and
+disturbed the world. For nearly two thousand years the verdict of the
+civilized world respecting this great conqueror has been unanimous. But
+Mr. Froude has attempted to reverse this verdict, as he has in reference
+to Henry VIII., and as Carlyle--another idolater of force--has attempted
+in the cases of Oliver Cromwell and Frederick II. This remarkable
+word-painter, in his Life of Caesar,--which is, however, interesting
+from first to last, as everything he writes is interesting,--has
+presented him as an object of unbounded admiration, as I have already
+noticed in my lecture on Caesar. Whether in his eagerness to say
+something new, or from an ill-concealed hostility to aristocratic and
+religious institutions, or from an admiration of imperialism, or disdain
+of the people in their efforts at self-government, this able special
+pleader seems to hail the Roman conqueror as a benefactor to the cause
+of civilization. But imperialism crushed all alike,--the people, no
+longer able to send their best men to the Senate through the higher
+offices perchance to represent their interests, and the nobles, shorn of
+the administration of the Empire. Soldiers, not civilians, henceforth
+were to rule the world,--a dreary thought to a great lawyer like Cicero,
+or a landed proprietor like Brutus. Even if such a terrible revolution
+as occurred in Rome under Caesar may have been ordered wisely by a
+Superintending Power for those degenerate times, and as a preservation
+of the peace of the world, that Christianity might take root and spread
+in countries where all religions were dead,--still, the prostration of
+what was dearest to the hearts of all true citizens by the sword was a
+crime; and men are not to be commended for crime, even if those crimes
+may be palliated. "It must need be that offences come, but woe to those
+by whom they come."
+
+Cicero was now sixty-three, prematurely old, discouraged, and
+heart-broken. And yet he braced himself up for one more grand
+effort,--for a life and death struggle with Antony, one of the ablest
+of Caesar's generals; a demagogue, eloquent and popular, but
+outrageously cruel and unscrupulous, and with unbridled passions. Had it
+not been for his infatuated love of Cleopatra, he probably would have
+succeeded to the imperial sceptre, for it was by the sword that he too
+sought to suppress the liberties of the Senate and people. Against him,
+as the enemy of his country, Cicero did not scruple to launch forth the
+most terrible of his invectives. In thirteen immortal philippics--some
+of which, however, were merely written and never delivered, after the
+fashion of Demosthenes, with whom as an orator and a patriot he can
+alone be compared--he denounced the unprincipled demagogue and general
+with every offensive epithet the language afforded,--unveiling his
+designs, exposing his forgeries, and proving his crimes. Nobler
+eloquence was never uttered, and wasted, than that with which Cicero
+pursued, in passionate vengeance, the most powerful and the most
+unscrupulous man in the Roman Empire. And Cicero must have anticipated
+the fate which impended over him if Antony were not decreed a public
+enemy. But the protests of the orator were in vain. He lived to utter
+them, as a witness of truth; and nothing was left to him but to die.
+
+Of course Antony, when he became Triumvir,--when he made a bargain that
+he never meant to keep with Octavius and Lepidus for a division of the
+Empire between them,--would not spare such an enemy as Cicero. The
+broken-hearted patriot fled mechanically, with a vacillating mind, when
+his proscription became known to him,--now more ready to die than live,
+since all hope in his country's liberties was utterly crushed. Perhaps
+he might have escaped to some remote corner of the Empire. But he did
+not wish for life, any more than did Socrates when summoned before his
+judges. Desponding, uncertain, pursued, he met his fate with the heroism
+of an ancient philosopher. He surrendered his wearied and exhausted body
+to the hand of the executioner, and his lofty soul to the keeping of
+that personal and supreme God in whom he believed as firmly as any man,
+perhaps, of Pagan antiquity. And surely of him, more than of any other
+Roman, could it be said,--as Sir Walter Scott said of Pitt, and as
+Gladstone quoted, and applied to Sir Robert Peel,--
+
+     "Now is the stately column broke,
+     The _beacon light_ is quenched in smoke;
+     The trumpet's silver voice is still,
+     The warder silent on the hill."
+
+With the death--so sad--of the most illustrious of the Romans whose fame
+was not earned on the battlefield, I should perhaps close my lecture.
+Yet it would be incomplete without a short notice of those services
+which--as statesman, orator, and essayist--he rendered to his country
+and to future ages and nations.
+
+In regard to his services as a statesman, they were rendered chiefly to
+his day and generation, for he elaborated no system of political wisdom
+like Burke, which bears (except casually and indirectly) on modern
+governments and institutions. It was his aim, as a statesman, to
+continue the Roman Constitution and keep the people from civil war. Nor
+does he seem to have held, like Rousseau, the _vox populi_ as the voice
+of God. He could find no language sufficiently strong to express his
+abhorrence of those who led the people for their own individual
+advancement. He was equally severe on corrupt governors and venal
+judges. He upheld morality and justice as the only guides in public
+affairs. He loved popularity, but he loved his country better. He hated
+anarchy as much as did Burke. Like Bright, he looked upon civil war as
+the greatest of national calamities. He advocated the most enlightened
+views, based on the principles of immutable justice. He wished to
+preserve his country equally from unscrupulous generals and unprincipled
+politicians.
+
+As for his orations, they also were chiefly designed for his own
+contemporaries. They are not particularly valuable to us, except as
+models of rhetorical composition and transcendent beauty and grace of
+style. They are not so luminous with fundamental principles as they are
+vivid with invective, sarcasm, wit, and telling exaggeration,--sometimes
+persuasive and working on the sensibilities, and at other times full of
+withering scorn. They are more like the pleadings of an advocate than an
+appeal to universal reason. He lays down no laws of political
+philosophy, nor does he soar into the region of abstract truth, evolving
+great deductions in morals. But as an orator he was transcendently
+effective, like Demosthenes, though not equal to the Greek in force. His
+sentences are perhaps too involved for our taste; yet he always swayed
+an audience, whether the people from the rostrum, or the judges at the
+bar, or the senators in the Curia. He seldom lost a case; no one could
+contend with him successfully. He called out the admiration of critics,
+and even of actors. He had a wonderful electrical influence; his very
+tones and gestures carried everything before him; his action was superb;
+and his whole frame quivered from real (or affected) emotion, like
+Edward Everett in his happiest efforts. He was vehement in gesture, like
+Brougham and Mirabeau. He was intensely earnest and impressive, like
+Savonarola. He had exceeding tact, and was master of the passions of his
+audience. There was an irresistible music in his tones of voice, like
+that of St. Bernard when he fanned crusades. He was withering in his
+denunciations, like Wendell Phillips, whom in person he somewhat
+resembled. He was a fascination like Pericles, and the people could not
+long spare him from the excitement he produced. It was their desire to
+hear him speak which had no small share in producing his recall from
+banishment. They crowded around him as the people did around Chrysostom
+in Antioch. He amused like an actor, and instructed like a sage. His
+sentences are not short, terse, epigrammatic, and direct, but elaborate
+and artificial. Yet with all his arts of eloquence his soul, fired with
+great sentiments, rose in its inspired fervor above even the melody of
+voice, the rhythm of language, and the vehemence of action. A listener,
+who was not a critic, might fancy it was gesture, voice, and language
+combined; but, after all, it was the _man_ communicating his soul to
+those who hung upon his lips, and securing conviction by his sincerity
+and appeals to conscience. He must have had a natural gift for oratory,
+aside from his learning and accomplishments and rhetorical arts,--a
+talent very rare and approaching to creative genius. But to his natural
+gifts--like Luther, or Henry Clay, born an orator--he added marvellous
+attainments. He had a most retentive memory. He was versed in the whole
+history of the world. He was always ready with apt illustrations, which
+gave interest and finish to his discourses. He was the most industrious
+and studious man of his age. His attainments were prodigious. He was
+master of all the knowledge then known, like Gladstone of our day. He
+was not so learned a man as Varro; but Varro's works have perished, as
+the great monuments of German scholars are perhaps destined to perish,
+for lack of style. Cicero's style embalmed his thoughts and made them
+imperishable. No writer is immortal who is not an artist; Cicero was a
+consummate artist, and studied the arrangement of sentences, like the
+historian Tacitus and the Grecian Thucydides.
+
+But greater than as an artist was he in the loftiness of his mind. He
+appealed to what is noblest in the soul. Transcendent eloquence ever
+"raises mortals to the skies" and never "pulls angels down." Love of
+country, love of home, love of friends, love of nature, love of law,
+love of God, is brought out in all his discourses, exalting the noblest
+sentiments which move the human soul. He was the first to give to the
+Latin language beauty and artistic finish. He added to its richness,
+copiousness, and strength; he gave it music. For style alone he would be
+valued as one of the immortal classics. All men of culture have admired
+it, from Augustine to Bossuet, and acknowledged their obligations to
+him. We accord to the great poets the formation of languages,--Homer,
+Dante, Chaucer, Shakspeare; but I doubt if either Virgil or Horace
+contributed to the formation of the Latin language more than Cicero.
+Certainly they have not been more studied and admired. In every
+succeeding age the Orations of Cicero have been one of the first books
+which have been used as textbooks in colleges. Is it not something to
+have been one of the acknowledged masters of human composition? What a
+great service did Cicero render to the education of the Teutonic races!
+Whatever the Latin language has done for the modern world, Cicero comes
+in for a large share of the glory. More is preserved of his writings
+than of any other writer of antiquity.
+
+But not for style alone--seen equally in his essays and in his
+orations--is he admirable. His most enduring claim on the gratitude of
+the world is the noble tribute he rendered to those truths which save
+the world. His testimony, considering he was a pagan, is remarkable in
+reference to what is sound in philosophy and morals. His learning, too,
+is seen to most advantage in his ethical and philosophical writings. It
+is true he did not originate, like Socrates and Plato; but he condensed
+and sifted the writings of the Greeks, and is the best expounder of
+their philosophy. Who has added substantially to what the Greeks worked
+out of their creative brain? I know that no Roman ever added to the
+domain of speculative thought, yet what Roman ever showed such a
+comprehension and appreciation of Greek philosophy as did Cicero? He was
+profoundly versed in all the learning the Grecians ever taught. Like
+Socrates, he had a contempt for physical science, because science in his
+day was based on imperfect inductions. There were not facts enough known
+of the material world to construct sound theories. Physical science at
+that time was the most uncertain of all knowledge, although there were
+great pretenders then, as now, who maintained it was the only certainty.
+But the speculations of scientists disgusted him, for he saw nothing in
+them upon which to base incontrovertible truth. They were mere dreams
+and baseless theories on the origin of the universe. They were even
+puerile; and they were then, as now, atheistic in their tendency. They
+mocked the consciousness of mankind. They annihilated faith and
+Providence. At best, they made all things subject to necessity, to an
+immutable fate, not to an intelligent and ever-present Creator. But
+Cicero, like Socrates, believed in God and in providential
+interference,--in striking contrast with Caesar, who believed nothing.
+He taught moral obligation, on the basis of accountability to God. He
+repudiated expediency as the guide in life, and fell back on the
+principles of eternal right. As an ethical writer he was profounder and
+more enlightened than Paley. He did not seek to overturn the popular
+religion, like Grecian Sophists, only (like Socrates) to overturn
+ignorance, before a sound foundation could be laid for any system of
+truth. Nor did he ridicule religion, as Lucian did in after-times, but
+soared to comprehend it, like the esoteric priests of Egypt in the time
+of Moses or Pythagoras. He cherished as lofty views of God and his moral
+government as any moralist of antiquity. And all these lofty views he
+taught in matchless language,--principles of government, principles of
+law, of ethics, of theology, giving consolation not only to the men of
+his day, but to Christian sages in after-times. And there is nothing
+puerile or dreamy or demoralizing in his teachings; they all are
+luminous for learning as well as genius. He rivalled Bacon in the
+variety and profundity of his attainments. He gloried in the certitudes
+which consciousness reveals, as well as in the facts which experience
+and history demonstrate. With these he consoled himself in trouble; on
+these he reposed in the hour of danger. Like Pascal he meditated on the
+highest truths which task the intellect of man, but, unlike him, did not
+disdain those weapons which _reason_ forged, and which no one used more
+triumphantly than Pascal himself. And these great meditations he
+transmitted for all ages to ponder, as among the most precious of the
+legacies of antiquity.
+
+Thus did he live, a shining light in a corrupt and godless age, in spite
+of all the faults which modern critics have enlarged upon in their
+ambitious desire for novelties, or in their thoughtless or malignant
+desire? to show up human frailties. He was a patriot, taking the side of
+his country's highest interests; a statesman, seeking to conserve the
+wisdom of his ancestors; an orator, exposing vices and defending the
+innocent; a philosopher, unfolding the wisdom of the Greeks; a moralist,
+laying down the principles of immutable justice; a sage, pondering the
+mysteries of life; ever active, studious, dignified; the charm and
+fascination of cultivated circles; as courteous and polished as the
+ornaments of modern society; revered by friends, feared by enemies,
+adored by all good people; a kind father, an indulgent husband, a
+generous friend; hospitable, witty, magnificent,--a most accomplished
+gentleman, one of the best men of all antiquity. What if he was vain and
+egotistical and vacillating, and occasionally weak? Can you expect
+perfection in him who "is born of a woman"? We palliate the backslidings
+of Christians; we excuse the crimes of a Constantine, a Theodosius, a
+Cromwell: shall we have no toleration for the frailties of a Pagan, in
+one of the worst periods of history? I have no patience with those
+critics who would hurl him from the pedestal on which he has stood for
+two thousand years. Contrast him with other illustrious men. How few
+Romans or Greeks were better than he! How few have rendered such exalted
+services! And even if he has not perpetuated a faultless character, he
+has yet bequeathed a noble example; and, more, has transmitted a legacy
+in the richness of which we forget the faults of the testator,--a legacy
+of imperishable thought, clothed in the language of imperishable art,--a
+legacy so valuable that it is the treasured inheritance of all civilized
+nations, and one which no nation can afford to lose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Plutarch's Life of Cicero, Appian, Dion Cassius, Villeius Paterculus,
+are the original authorities,--next to the writings of Cicero himself,
+especially his Letters and Orations. Middleton's Life is full, but
+one-sided. Forsyth takes the opposite side in his Life. The last work in
+English is that of Anthony Trollope. In Smith's Biographical Dictionary
+is an able article. Dr. Vaughan has written an interesting lecture.
+Merivale has elaborately treated this great man in his valuable History
+of the Romans. Colley Cibber's Character and Conduct of Cicero,
+Drumann's Roman History, Rollin's Ancient History, Biographic
+Universelle. Mr. Froude alludes to Cicero in his Life of Caesar, taking
+nearly the same view as Forsyth.
+
+
+
+
+CLEOPATRA.
+
+
+69-30 B.C.
+
+THE WOMAN OF PAGANISM.
+
+
+It is my object in this lecture to present the condition of woman under
+the influences of Paganism, before Christianity enfranchised and
+elevated her. As a type of the Pagan woman I select Cleopatra, partly
+because she was famous, and partly because she possessed traits and
+accomplishments which made her interesting in spite of the vices which
+degraded her. She was a queen, the heir of a long line of kings, and
+ruled over an ancient and highly civilized country. She was
+intellectual, accomplished, beautiful, and fascinating. She lived in one
+of the most interesting capitals of the ancient world, and by birth she
+was more Greek than she was African or Oriental. She lived, too, in a
+great age, when Rome had nearly conquered the world; when Roman senators
+and generals had more power than kings; when Grecian arts and literature
+were copied by the imperial Romans; when the rich and fortunate were
+luxurious and ostentatious beyond all precedent; when life had reached
+the highest point of material splendor, and yet when luxury had not
+destroyed military virtues or undermined the strength of the empire. The
+"eternal city" then numbered millions of people, and was the grandest
+capital ever seen on this earth, since everything was there
+concentrated,--the spoils of the world, riches immeasurable, literature
+and art, palaces and temples, power unlimited,--the proudest centre of
+civilization which then existed, and a civilization which in its
+material aspects has not since been surpassed. The civilized world was
+then most emphatically Pagan, in both spirit and forms. Religion as a
+controlling influence was dead. Only a very few among speculative
+philosophers believed in any god, except in a degrading sense,--as a
+blind inexorable fate, or an impersonation of the powers of Nature. The
+future state was a most perplexing uncertainty. Epicurean
+self-indulgence and material prosperity were regarded as the greatest
+good; and as doubt of the darkest kind hung over the future, the body
+was necessarily regarded as of more value than the soul. In fact, it was
+only the body which Paganism recognized as a reality; the soul, God, and
+immortality were virtually everywhere ignored.
+
+It was in this godless, yet brilliant, age that Cleopatra appears upon
+the stage, having been born sixty-nine years before Christ,--about a
+century before the new revolutionary religion was proclaimed in Judea.
+Her father was a Ptolemy, and she succeeded him on the throne of Egypt
+when quite young,--the last of a famous dynasty that had reigned nearly
+three hundred years. The Ptolemies, descended from one of Alexander's
+generals, reigned in great magnificence at Alexandria, which was the
+commercial centre of the world, whose ships whitened the
+Mediterranean,--that great inland lake, as it were, in the centre of the
+Roman Empire, around whose shores were countless cities and villas and
+works of art. Alexandria was a city of schools, of libraries and
+museums, of temples and of palaces, as well as a mart of commerce. Its
+famous library was the largest in the world, and was the pride of the
+age and of the empire. Learned men from all countries came to this
+capital to study science, philosophy, and art. It was virtually a
+Grecian city, and the language of the leading people was Greek. It was
+rivalled in provincial magnificence only by Antioch, the seat of the old
+Syrian civilization, also a Greek capital, so far as the governing
+classes could make it one. Greece, politically ruined, still sent forth
+those influences which made her civilization potent in every land.
+
+Cleopatra, the last of the line of Grecian sovereigns in Egypt, was
+essentially Greek in her features, her language, and her manners. There
+was nothing African about her, as we understand the term African, except
+that her complexion may have been darkened by the intermarriage of the
+Ptolemies; and I have often wondered why so learned and classical a man
+as Story should have given to this queen, in his famous statue, such
+thick lips and African features, which no more marked her than Indian
+features mark the family of the Braganzas on the throne of Brazil. She
+was not even Coptic, like Athanasius and Saint Augustine. On the ancient
+coins and medals her features are severely classical.
+
+Nor is it probable that any of the peculiarities of the ancient Egyptian
+kings marked the dynasty of the Ptolemies. No purely Egyptian customs
+lingered in the palaces of Alexandria. The old deities of Isis and
+Osiris gave place to the worship of Jupiter, Minerva, and Venus. The
+wonders of pristine Egypt were confined to Memphis and Thebes and the
+dilapidated cities of the Nile. The mysteries of the antique Egyptian
+temples were no more known to the learned and mercantile citizen of
+Alexandria than they are to us. The pyramids were as much a wonder then
+as now. The priests and jugglers alike mingled in the crowd of Jews,
+Syrians, Romans, Greeks, Parthians, Arabs, who congregated in this
+learned and mercantile city.
+
+So we have a right to presume that Cleopatra, when she first appeared
+upon the stage of history as a girl of fourteen, was simply a very
+beautiful and accomplished Greek princess, who could speak several
+languages with fluency, as precocious as Elizabeth of England, skilled
+in music, conversant with history, and surrounded with eminent masters.
+She was only twenty-one when she was an object of attraction to Caesar,
+then in the midst of his triumphs. How remarkable must have been her
+fascinations if at that age she could have diverted, even for a time,
+the great captain from his conquests, and chained him to her side! That
+refined, intellectual old veteran of fifty, with the whole world at his
+feet, loaded down with the cares of government, as temperate as he was
+ambitious, and bent on new conquests, would not have been chained and
+enthralled by a girl of twenty-one, however beautiful, had she not been
+as remarkable for intellect and culture as she was for beauty. Nor is it
+likely that Cleopatra would have devoted herself to this weather-beaten
+old general, had she not hoped to gain something from him besides
+caresses,--namely, the confirmation of her authority as queen. She also
+may have had some patriotic motives touching the political independence
+of her country. Left by her father's will at the age of eighteen joint
+heir of the Egyptian throne with her brother Ptolemy, she soon found
+herself expelled from the capital by him and the leading generals of the
+army, because they did not relish her precocious activity in
+government. Her gathered adherents had made but little advance towards
+regaining her rights when, in August, 48, Caesar landed in pursuit of
+Pompey, whom he had defeated at Pharsalia. Pompey's assassination left
+Caesar free, and he proceeded to Alexandria to establish himself for the
+winter. Here the wily and beautiful young exile sought him, and won his
+interest and his affection. After some months of revelry and luxury,
+Caesar left Egypt in 47 to chastise an Eastern rebel, and was in 46
+followed to Rome by Cleopatra, who remained there in splendid state
+until the assassination of Caesar drove her back to Egypt. Her whole
+subsequent life showed her to be as cunning and politic as she was
+luxurious and pleasure-seeking. Possibly she may have loved so
+interesting and brilliant a man as the great Caesar, aside from the
+admiration of his position; but he never became her slave, although it
+was believed, a hundred years after his death, that she was actually
+living in his house when he was assassinated, and was the mother of his
+son Caesarion. But Froude doubts this; and the probabilities are that he
+is correct, for, like Macaulay, he is not apt to be wrong in facts, but
+only in the way he puts them.
+
+Cleopatra was twenty-eight years of age when she first met Antony,--"a
+period of life," says Plutarch, "when woman's beauty is most splendid,
+and her intellect is in full maturity." We have no account of the style
+of her beauty, except that it was transcendent,--absolutely
+irresistible, with such a variety of expression as to be called
+infinite. As already remarked, from the long residence of her family in
+Egypt and intermarriages with foreigners, her complexion may have been
+darker than that of either Persians or Greeks. It probably resembled
+that of Queen Esther more than that of Aspasia, in that dark richness
+and voluptuousness which to some have such attractions; but in grace and
+vivacity she was purely Grecian,--not like a "blooming Eastern bride,"
+languid and passive and effeminate, but bright, witty, and intellectual.
+Shakspeare paints her as full of lively sallies, with the power of
+adapting herself to circumstances with tact and good nature, like a
+Madame Récamier or a Maintenon, rather than like a Montespan or a
+Pompadour, although her nature was passionate, her manner enticing, and
+her habits luxurious. She did not weary or satiate, like a mere
+sensual beauty.
+
+     "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
+      Her infinite variety."
+
+She certainly had the power of retaining the conquests she had
+won,--which rarely happens except with those who are gifted with
+intellectual radiance and freshness. She held her hold on Antony for
+eleven years, when he was burdened with great public cares and duties,
+and when he was forty-two years of age. Such a superior man as he was
+intellectually, and, after Caesar, the leading man of the empire,--a
+statesman as well as soldier,--would not have been enslaved so long by
+Cleopatra had she not possessed remarkable gifts and attainments, like
+those famous women who reigned in the courts of the Bourbons in the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and who, by their wit and social
+fascinations, gathered around their thrones the most distinguished men
+of France, and made them friends as well as admirers. The Pompadours of
+the world have only a brief reign, and at last become repulsive. But
+Cleopatra, like Maintenon, was always attractive, although she, could
+not lay claim to the virtues of the latter. She was as politic as the
+French beauty, and as full of expedients to please her lord. She may
+have revelled in the banquets she prepared for Antony, as Esther did in
+those she prepared for Xerxes; but with the same intent, to please him
+rather than herself, and win, from his weakness, those political favors
+which in his calmer hours he might have shrunk from granting. Cleopatra
+was a politician as well as a luxurious beauty, and it may have been her
+supreme aim to secure the independence of Egypt. She wished to beguile
+Antony as she had sought to beguile Caesar, since they were the masters
+of the world, and had it in their power to crush her sovereignty and
+reduce her realm to a mere province of the empire. Nor is there
+evidence that in the magnificent banquets she gave to the Roman general
+she ever lost her self-control. She drank, and made him drink, but
+retained her wits, "laughing him out of patience and laughing him into
+patience," ascendant over him by raillery, irony, and wit.
+
+And Antony, again, although fond of banquets and ostentation, like other
+Roman nobles, and utterly unscrupulous and unprincipled, as Roman
+libertines were, was also general, statesman, and orator. He grew up
+amid the dangers and toils and privations of Caesar's camp. He was as
+greedy of honors as was his imperial master. He was a sunburnt and
+experienced commander, obliged to be on his guard, and ready for
+emergencies. No such man feels that he can afford to indulge his
+appetites, except on rare occasions. One of the leading peculiarities of
+all great generals has been their temperance. It marked Caesar,
+Charlemagne, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederic the Great, Cromwell, and
+Napoleon. When Alexander gave himself up to banquets, his conquests
+ended. Even such a self-indulgent, pleasure-seeking man as Louis XIV.
+always maintained the decencies of society amid his dissipated
+courtiers. We feel that a man who could discourse so eloquently as
+Antony did over the dead body of Caesar was something more than a
+sensualist or a demagogue. He was also the finest-looking man in Rome,
+reminding the people, it is said, of the busts of Hercules. He was
+lavish, like Caesar, but, like him, sought popularity, and cared but
+little what it cost. It is probable that Cicero painted him, in his
+famous philippics, in darker colors than he deserved, because he aimed
+to be Caesar's successor, as he probably would have been but for his
+infatuation for Cleopatra. Caesar sent him to Rome as master of the
+horse,--a position next in power to that of dictator. When Caesar was
+assassinated, Antony was the most powerful man of the empire. He was
+greater than any existing king; he was almost supreme. And after
+Caesar's death, when he divided his sovereignty of the world with
+Octavius and Lepidus, he had the fairest chance of becoming imperator.
+He had great military experience, the broad Orient as his domain, and
+half the legions of Rome under his control.
+
+It was when this great man was Triumvir, sharing with only two others
+the empire of the world, and likely to overpower them, when he was in
+Asia consolidating and arranging the affairs of his vast department,
+that he met the woman who was the cause of all his calamities. He was
+then in Cilicia, and, with all the arrogance of a Roman general, had
+sent for the Queen of Egypt to appear before him and answer to an
+accusation of having rendered assistance to Cassius before the fatal
+battle of Philippi. He had already known and admired Cleopatra in Rome,
+and it is not improbable that she divined the secret of his judicial
+summons. His envoy, struck with her beauty and intelligence, advised her
+to appear in her best attire. Such a woman scarcely needed such a hint.
+So, making every preparation for her journey,--money, ornaments,
+gifts,--a kind of Queen of Sheba, a Zenobia in her pride and glory, a
+Queen Esther when she had invited the king and his minister to a
+banquet,--she came to the Cydnus, and ascended the river in a
+magnificent barge, such as had never been seen before, and prepared to
+meet her judge, not as a criminal, but as a conqueror, armed with those
+weapons that few mortals can resist.
+
+     "The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
+     Burn'd on the water; the poop was beaten gold;
+     Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
+     The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver,
+     Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
+     The water, which they beat, to follow faster,
+     As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
+     It beggar'd all description: she did lie
+     In her pavilion (cloth-of-gold of tissue)
+     O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see
+     The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
+     Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
+     With diverse-color'd fans....
+     Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
+     So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes.
+     ... At the helm
+     A seeming mermaid steers....
+     ... From the barge
+     A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
+     Of the adjacent wharves. The city cast
+     Her people out upon her; and Antony,
+     Enthroned i' the market-place, did sit alone,
+     Whistling to th' air; which, but for vacancy,
+     Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
+     And made a gap in nature."
+
+On the arrival of this siren queen, Antony had invited her to
+supper,--the dinner of the Romans,--but she, with woman's instinct, had
+declined, till he should come to her; and he, with the urbanity of a
+polished noble,--for such he probably was,--complied, and found a
+banquet which astonished even him, accustomed as he was to senatorial
+magnificence, and which, with all the treasures of the East, he could
+not rival. From that fatal hour he was enslaved. She conquered him, not
+merely by her display and her dazzling beauty, but by her wit. Her very
+tones were music. So accomplished was she in languages, that without
+interpreters she conversed not only with Greeks and Latins, but with
+Ethiopians, Jews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes, and Parthians. So dazzled
+and bewitched was Antony, that, instead of continuing the duties of his
+great position, he returned with Cleopatra to Alexandria, there to keep
+holiday and squander riches, and, still worse, his precious time, to the
+shame and scandal of Rome, inglorious and without excuse,--a Samson at
+the feet of Delilah, or a Hercules throwing away his club to seize the
+distaff of Omphale, confessing to the potency of that mysterious charm
+which the sage at the court of an Eastern prince pronounced the
+strongest power on earth. Never was a strong man more enthralled than
+was Antony by this bewitching woman, who exhausted every art to please
+him. She played at dice with him, drank with him, hunted with him,
+rambled with him, jested with him, angled with him, flattering and
+reproving him by turn, always having some new device of pleasure to
+gratify his senses or stimulate his curiosity. Thus passed the winter of
+41-40, and in the spring he was recalled to Borne by political
+dissensions there.
+
+At this stage, however, it would seem that ambition was paramount with
+him, not love; for his wife Fulvia having died, he did not marry
+Cleopatra, but Octavia, sister of Octavius, his fellow-triumvir and
+general rival. It was evidently from political considerations that he
+married Octavia, who was a stately and noble woman, but tedious in her
+dignity, and unattractive in her person. And what a commentary on Roman
+rank! The sister of a Roman grandee seemed to the ambitious general a
+greater match than the Queen of Egypt. How this must have piqued the
+proud daughter of the Ptolemies,--that she, a queen, with all her
+charms, was not the equal in the eyes of Antony to the sister of
+Caesar's heir! But she knew her power, and stifled her resentment, and
+waited for her time. She, too, had a political end to gain, and was too
+politic to give way to anger and reproaches. She was anything but the
+impulsive woman that some suppose,--but a great actress and artist, as
+some women are when they would conquer, even in their loves, which, if
+they do not feign, at least they know how to make appear greater than
+they are. For about three years Antony cut loose from Cleopatra, and
+pursued his military career in the East, as the rival of Octavius might,
+having in view the sovereignty that Caesar had bequeathed to the
+strongest man.
+
+But his passion for Cleopatra could not long be suppressed, neither from
+reasons of state nor from the respect he must have felt for the
+admirable conduct of Octavia, who was devoted to him, and who was one of
+the most magnanimous and reproachless women of antiquity. And surely he
+must have had some great qualities to call out the love of the noblest
+and proudest woman of the age, in spite of his many vices and his
+abandonment to a mad passion, forgetful alike both of fame and duty. He
+had not been two years in Athens, the headquarters of his Eastern
+Department, before he was called upon to chastise the Parthians, who had
+thrown off the Roman yoke and invaded other Roman provinces. But hardly
+had he left Octavia, and set foot again in Asia, before he sent for his
+Egyptian mistress, and loaded her with presents; not gold, and silver,
+and precious stones, and silks, and curious works of art merely, but
+whole provinces even,--Phoenicia, Syria, Cilicia, and a part of Judea
+and Arabia,--provinces which belonged not to him, but to the Roman
+Empire. How indignant must have been the Roman people when they heard of
+such lavish presents, and presents which he had no right to give! And
+when the artful Cleopatra feigned illness on the approach of Octavia,
+pretending to be dying of love, and wasting her body by fasting and
+weeping by turns, and perhaps tearing her hair in a seeming paroxysm of
+grief,--for an actress can do even this,--Antony was totally disarmed,
+and gave up his Parthian expedition altogether, which was treason to the
+State, and returned to Alexandria more submissive than ever. This
+abandonment of duty and official trust disgusted and incensed the
+Romans, so that his cause was weakened. Octavius became stronger every
+day, and now resolved on reigning alone. This meant another civil war.
+How strong the party of Antony must have been to keep together and
+sustain him amid such scandals, treasons, and disgrace!
+
+Antony, perceiving a desperate contest before him, ending in his
+supremacy or ruin, put forth all his energies, assisted by the
+contributions of Cleopatra, who furnished two hundred ships and twenty
+thousand talents,--about twenty million dollars. He had five hundred
+war-vessels, beside galleys, one hundred thousand foot and twelve
+thousand horse,--one of the largest armies that any Roman general had
+ever commanded,--and he was attended by vassal kings from the East. The
+forces of Octavius were not so large, though better disciplined; nor was
+he a match for Antony in military experience. Antony with his superior
+forces wished to fight upon the land, but against his better judgment
+was overruled by Cleopatra, who, having reinforced him with sixty
+galleys, urged him to contend upon the sea. The rivals met at Actium,
+where was fought one of the great decisive battles of the world. For a
+while the fortunes of the day were doubtful, when Cleopatra, from some
+unexplained motive, or from panic, or possibly from a calculating
+policy, was seen sailing away with her ships for Egypt. And what was
+still more extraordinary, Antony abandoned his fleet and followed her.
+Had he been defeated on the sea, he still had superior forces on the
+land, and was a match for Octavius. His infatuation ended in a weakness
+difficult to comprehend in a successful Roman general. And never was
+infatuation followed by more tragic consequences. Was this madness sent
+upon him by that awful Power who controls the fate of war and the
+destinies of nations? Who sent madness upon Nebuchadnezzar? Who blinded
+Napoleon at the very summit of his greatness? May not that memorable
+defeat have been ordered by Providence to give consolidation and peace
+and prosperity to the Roman Empire, so long groaning under the
+complicated miseries of anarchy and civil war? If an imperial government
+was necessary for the existing political and social condition of the
+Roman world,--and this is maintained by most historians,--how fortunate
+it was that the empire fell into the hands of a man whose subsequent
+policy was peace, the development of resources of nations, and a
+vigorous administration of government!
+
+It is generally conceded that the reign of Octavius--or, as he is more
+generally known, Augustus Caesar--was able, enlightened, and efficient.
+He laid down the policy which succeeding emperors pursued, and which
+resulted in the peace and prosperity of the Roman world until vices
+prepared the way for violence. Augustus was a great organizer, and the
+machinery of government which he and his ministers perfected kept the
+empire together until it was overrun by the New Germanic races. Had
+Antony conquered at Actium, the destinies of the empire might have been
+far different. But for two hundred years the world never saw a more
+efficient central power than that exercised by the Roman emperors or by
+their ministers. Imperialism at last proved fatal to genius and the
+higher interests of mankind; but imperialism was the creation of Julius
+Caesar, as a real or supposed necessity; it was efficiently and
+beneficently continued by his grand-nephew Augustus; and its
+consolidated strength became an established institution which the
+civilized world quietly accepted.
+
+The battle of Actium virtually settled the civil war and the fortunes of
+Antony, although he afterwards fought bravely and energetically; but all
+to no purpose. And then, at last, his eyes were opened, and Shakspeare
+makes him bitterly exclaim,--
+
+         "All is lost!
+     This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me.
+         ... Betray'd I am:
+     O this false soul of Egypt!"
+
+And with his ruin the ruin of his paramour was also settled; yet her
+resources were not utterly exhausted. She retired into a castle or
+mausoleum she had prepared for herself in case of necessity, with her
+most valuable treasures, and sent messengers to Antony, who reported to
+him that she was dead,--that she had killed herself in despair. He
+believed it all. His wrath now vanished in his grief. He could not live,
+or did not wish to live, without her; and he fell upon his own sword.
+The wound was mortal, but death did not immediately follow. He lived to
+learn that Cleopatra had again deceived him,--that she was still alive.
+Even amid the agonies of the shadow of death, and in view of this last
+fatal lie of hers, he did not upbraid her, but ordered his servants to
+bear him to her retreat. Covered with blood, the dying general was
+drawn up by ropes and through a window--the only entrance to the queen's
+retreat that was left unbarred--into her presence, and soon expired.
+Shakspeare has Antony greet Cleopatra with the words, "I am dying,
+Egypt, dying!" This suggestive theme has been enlarged in a modern song
+of pathetic eloquence:--
+
+     I am dying, Egypt, dying,
+       Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast,
+     And the dark Plutonian shadows
+       Gather on the evening blast;
+     Let thine arms, O Queen, enfold me,
+       Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear,
+     Listen to the great heart-secrets
+       _Thou_, and thou _alone_, must hear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Should the base plebeian rabble
+       Dare assail my name at Rome,
+     Where my noble spouse Octavia
+       Weeps within her widow'd home,
+     Seek her; say the gods bear witness--
+       Altars, augurs, circling wings--
+     That her blood, with mine commingled,
+       Yet shall mount the throne of kings.
+
+     As for thee, star-ey'd Egyptian!
+       Glorious sorceress of the Nile!
+     Light the path to Stygian horrors
+       With the splendors of thy smile
+     I can scorn the Senate's triumphs,
+       Triumphing in love like thine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Ah! no more amid the battle
+       Shall my heart exulting swell:
+     Isis and Osiris guard thee!
+       Cleopatra--Rome--farewell!
+
+Thus perished the great Triumvir, dying like a Roman, whose blinded but
+persistent love, whatever were its elements, ever shall make his name
+memorable. All the ages will point to him as a man who gave the world
+away for the caresses of a woman, and a woman who deceived and
+ruined him.
+
+As for her,--this selfish, heartless sorceress, gifted and beautiful as
+she was,--what does she do when she sees her lover dead,--dying for her?
+Does she share his fate? Not she. What selfish woman ever killed
+herself for love?
+
+     "Some natural tears she shed, but wiped them soon."
+
+She may have torn her clothes, and beaten her breast, and disfigured her
+face, and given vent to mourning and lamentations. But she does not seek
+death, nor surrender herself to grief, nor court despair. She renews her
+strength. She reserves her arts for another victim. She hopes to win
+Octavius as she had won Julius and Antony; for she was only thirty-nine,
+and still a queen. And for what? That she might retain her own
+sovereignty, or the independence of Egypt,--still the most fertile of
+countries, rich, splendid, and with grand traditions which went back
+thousands of years; the oldest, and once the most powerful of
+monarchies. _Her_ love was ever subservient to her interests. Antony
+gave up ambition for love,--whatever that love was. It took possession
+of his whole being, not pure and tender, but powerful, strange;
+doubtless a mad infatuation, and perhaps something more, since it never
+passed away,--admiration allied with desire, the worship of dazzling
+gifts, though not of moral virtues. Would such a love have been
+permanent? Probably not, since the object of it did not shine in the
+beauty of the soul, but rather in the graces and adornments of the body,
+intensified indeed by the lustre of bewitching social qualities and the
+brightness of a cultivated intellect. It is hard to analyze a passionate
+love between highly gifted people who have an intense development of
+both the higher and the lower natures, and still more difficult when the
+idol is a Venus Polyhymnia rather than a Venus Urania. But the love of
+Antony, whether unwise, or mysterious, or unfortunate, was not feigned
+or forced: it was real, and it was irresistible; he could not help it.
+He was enslaved, bound hand and foot. His reason may have rallied to his
+support, but his will was fettered. He may have had at times dark and
+gloomy suspicions,--that he was played with, that he was cheated, that
+he would be deserted, that Cleopatra was false and treacherous. And yet
+she reigned over him; he could not live without her. She was all in all
+to him, so long as the infatuation lasted; and it had lasted fourteen
+years, with increasing force, in spite of duty and pressing labors, the
+calls of ambition and the lust of power. In this consuming and abandoned
+passion, for fourteen years,--so strange and inglorious, and for a woman
+so unworthy, even if he were no better than she,--we see one of the
+great mysteries of our complex nature, not uncommon, but insoluble.
+
+I have no respect for Antony, and but little admiration. I speak of such
+mad infatuation as a humiliating exhibition of human weakness. Any one
+under its fearful spell is an object of pity. But I have more sympathy
+for him than for Cleopatra, although she was doubtless a very gifted
+woman. He was her victim; she was not his. If extravagant and reckless
+and sensual, he was frank, generous, eloquent, brave, and true to her.
+She was artful, designing, and selfish, and used him for her own ends,
+although we do not know that she was perfidious and false to him. But
+for her he would have ruled the world. He showed himself capable of an
+enormous sacrifice. She made no sacrifices for him. She could even have
+transferred her affections, since she afterwards sought to play her
+blandishments upon his rival. Conceive of Antony, if you can, as loving
+any one else than her who led him on to ruin. In the very degradation
+of love we see its sacredness. In his fidelity we find some palliation.
+Nor does it seem that Octavia, the slighted wife of Antony, gave way to
+vengeance. Her sense of injury was overshadowed by her pity. This lofty
+and dignified matron even took his six surviving children, three of whom
+were Cleopatra's, and brought them up in her own house as her own. Can
+Paganism show a greater magnanimity?
+
+The fate of Cleopatra was tragic also. She too destroyed herself, not
+probably by the bite of asps, as is the popular opinion, but by some
+potent and subtile poison that she ever carried with her, and which had
+the effect of benumbing the body and making her insensible to pain. Yet
+she does not kill herself because she cannot survive the death of
+Antony, but because she is too proud to be carried to Rome to grace the
+triumph of the new Caesar. She will not be led a captive princess up the
+Capitoline Hill. She has an overbearing pride. "Know, sir," says she to
+Proculeius, "that I
+
+     "Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court,
+     Nor once be chastis'd with the sober eye
+     Of dull Octavia....
+      ... Rather a ditch in Egypt
+     Be gentle grave to me!"
+
+But whether pride or whether shame was the more powerful motive in
+committing suicide, I do not read that she was a victim of remorse. She
+had no moral sense. Nor did she give way to sentimental grief on the
+death of Antony. Her grief was blended with disappointment and rage. Nor
+did she hide her head, but wore a face of brass. She used all her arts
+to win Octavius. Her resources did not fail her; but she expended them
+on one of the coldest, most politic, and most astute men that ever
+lived. And the disappointment that followed her defeat--that she could
+not enslave another conqueror--was greater than the grief for Antony.
+Nor during her whole career do we see any signs of that sorrow and
+humility which, it would seem, should mark a woman who has made so great
+and fatal a mistake,--cut off hopelessly from the respect of the world
+and the peace of her own soul. We see grief, rage, despair, in her
+miserable end, as we see pride and shamefacedness in her gilded life,
+but not remorse or shame. And when she dies by her own hand, it is not
+in madness, but to escape humiliation. Suicide was one of the worst
+features of Pagan antiquity. It was a base and cowardly reluctance to
+meet the evils of life, as much as indifference to the future and a
+blunted moral sense.
+
+So much for the woman herself, her selfish spirit, her vile career; but
+as Cleopatra is one of the best known and most striking examples of a
+Pagan woman, with qualities and in circumstances peculiarly
+characteristic of Paganism, I must make a few remarks on these points.
+
+One of the most noticeable of these is that immorality seems to have
+been no bar to social position. Some of those who were most attractive
+and sought after were notoriously immoral. Aspasia, whom Socrates and
+Pericles equally admired, and whose house was the resort of poets,
+philosophers, statesmen, and artists, and who is said to have been one
+of the most cultivated women of antiquity, bore a sullied name. Sappho,
+who was ever exalted by Grecian poets for the sweetness of her verses,
+attempted to reconcile a life of pleasure with a life of letters, and
+threw herself into the sea because of a disappointed passion. Lais, a
+professional courtesan, was the associate of kings and sages as well as
+the idol of poets and priests. Agrippina, whose very name is infamy, was
+the admiration of courtiers and statesmen. Lucilla, who armed her
+assassins against her own brother, seems to have ruled the court of
+Marcus Aurelius.
+
+And all these women, and more who could be mentioned, were--like
+Cleopatra--cultivated, intellectual, and brilliant. They seem to have
+reigned for their social fascinations as much as by their physical
+beauty. Hence, that class of women who with us are shunned and excluded
+from society were not only flattered and honored, but the class itself
+seems to have been recruited by those who were the most attractive for
+their intellectual gifts as well as for physical beauty. No woman, if
+bright, witty, and beautiful, was avoided because she was immoral. It
+was the immoral women who often aspired to the highest culture. They
+sought to reign by making their homes attractive to distinguished men.
+Their houses seem to have been what the _salons_ of noble and
+fascinating duchesses were in France in the last two centuries. The
+homes of virtuous and domestic women were dull and wearisome. In fact,
+the modest wives and daughters of most men were confined to monotonous
+domestic duties; they were household slaves; they saw but little of what
+we now call society. I do not say that virtue was not held in honor. I
+know of no age, however corrupt, when it was not prized by husbands and
+fathers. I know of no age when virtuous women did not shine at home, and
+exert a healthful influence upon men, and secure the proud regard of
+their husbands. But these were not the women whose society was most
+sought. The drudgeries and slaveries of domestic life among the ancients
+made women unattractive to the world. The women who were most attractive
+were those who gave or attended sumptuous banquets, and indulged in
+pleasures that were demoralizing. Not domestic women, but bright women,
+carried away those prizes which turned the brain. Those who shone were
+those that attached themselves to men through their senses, and
+possibly through their intellects, and who were themselves strong in
+proportion as men were weak. For a woman to appear in public assemblies
+with braided and decorated hair and ostentatious dress, and especially
+if she displayed any gifts of eloquence or culture, was to proclaim
+herself one of the immoral, leisurely, educated, dissolute class. This
+gives point to Saint Paul's strict injunctions to the women of Corinth
+to dress soberly, to keep silence in the assemblies, etc. The modest
+woman was to "be in subjection." Those Pagan converts to the "New Way"
+were to avoid even the appearance of evil.
+
+Thus under Paganism the general influence of women was to pull men down
+rather than to elevate them, especially those who were attractive in
+society. Virtuous and domestic women were not sufficiently educated to
+have much influence except in a narrow circle. Even they, in a social
+point of view, were slaves. They could be given in marriage without
+their consent; they were restricted in their intercourse with men; they
+were confined to their homes; they had but few privileges; they had no
+books; they led a life of terror from the caprices of their lords and
+masters, and hence inspired no veneration. The wives and daughters of
+the rich tyrannized over their servants, decked themselves with costly
+ornaments, and were merely gilded toys, whose society was vapid and
+uninteresting. The wives and daughters of the poor were drudges and
+menials, without attraction or influence; noisy, quarrelsome, garrulous
+women, who said the least when they talked the most.
+
+Hence under Paganism home had none of those attractions which, in
+Christian countries, invest it with such charms. The home of the poor
+was squalid and repulsive; the home of the rich was gaudy and tinselled
+enough, but was dull and uninspiring. What is home when women are
+ignorant, stupid, and slavish? What glitter or artistic splendor can
+make home attractive when women are mere butterflies or slaves with
+gilded fetters? Deprive women of education, and especially of that
+respect which Christian chivalry inspires, and they cannot rise to be
+the equal companions of men. They are simply their victims or their
+slaves. What is a home where women are treated as inferiors? Paganism
+never recognized their equality with men; and if they ever ruled men, it
+was by appealing to their lower qualities, or resorting to arts and
+devices which are subversive of all dignity of character. When their
+personal beauty fled, their power also departed. A faded or homely
+woman, without intelligence or wit, was a forlorn object in a Pagan
+home,--to be avoided, derided, despised,--a melancholy object of pity or
+neglect, so far as companionship goes. She may have been valued as a
+cook or drudge, but she was only a menial. Of all those sins of omission
+of which Paganism is accused, the worst was that it gave to women no
+mental resources to assist them in poverty, or neglect, or isolation,
+when beauty or fortune deserted them. No home can be attractive where
+women have no resources; and women can have no resources outside of
+domestic duties, unless educated to some art or something calculated to
+draw out their energies and higher faculties by which they win the
+respect and admiration, not of men only, but of their own sex.
+
+It was this lack of education which Paganism withheld from women which
+not only destroyed the radiance of home, but which really made women
+inferior to men. All writers, poets, and satirists alike speak of the
+inferiority of women to men,--not physically only, but even
+intellectually; and some authors made them more vicious than men in
+natural inclination. And when the mind was both neglected and
+undervalued, how could respect and admiration be kindled, or continue
+after sensual charms had passed away? Paganism taught the inequality of
+the sexes, and produced it; and when this inequality is taught, or
+believed in, or insisted upon, then farewell to the glory of homes, to
+all unbought charms, to the graces of domestic life, to everything that
+gilds our brief existence with the radiance of imperishable joy.
+
+Nor did Paganism offer any consolations to the down-trodden, injured,
+neglected, uninteresting woman of antiquity. She could not rise above
+the condition in which she was born. No sympathetic priest directed her
+thoughts to another and higher and endless life. Nobody wiped away her
+tears; nobody gave encouragement to those visions of beauty and serenity
+for which the burdened spirit will, under any oppressions, sometimes
+aspire to enjoy. No one told her of immortality and a God of
+forgiveness, who binds up the bleeding heart and promises a future peace
+and bliss. Paganism was merciful only in this,--that it did not open
+wounds it could not heal; that it did not hold out hopes and promises it
+could not fulfil; that it did not remind the afflicted of miseries from
+which they could not rise; that it did not let in a vision of glories
+which could never be enjoyed; that it did not provoke the soul to
+indulge in a bitterness in view of evils for which there was no remedy;
+that it did not educate the mind for enjoyments which could never be
+reached; that it did not kindle a discontent with a condition from which
+there is no escape. If one cannot rise above debasement or misery, there
+is no use in pointing it out. If the Pagan woman was not seemingly aware
+of the degradation which kept her down, and from which it was impossible
+to rise, Paganism did not add stings to her misery by presenting it as
+an accident which it was easy to surmount. There would be no
+contentment or submission among animals if they were endowed with the
+reason of men. Give to a healthy, but ignorant, coarse, uncultivated
+country girl, surrounded only with pigs and chickens, almost without
+neighbors, a glimpse of the glories of cities, the wonders of art, the
+charms of social life, the triumphs of mind, the capacities of the soul,
+and would she be any happier, if obliged to remain for life in her
+rustic obscurity and labor, and with no possible chance of improving her
+condition? Such was woman under Paganism. She could rise only so far as
+men lifted her up; and they lifted her up only further to consummate her
+degradation.
+
+But there was another thing which kept women in degradation. Paganism
+did not recognize the immaterial and immortal soul: it only had regard
+to the wants of the body. Of course there were exceptions. There were
+sages and philosophers among the men who speculated on the grandest
+subjects which can elevate the mind to the regions of immortal
+truth,--like Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius,--even as there
+were women who rose above all the vile temptations which surrounded
+them, and were poets, heroines, and benefactors,--like Telessa, who
+saved Argos by her courage; and Volumnia, who screened Rome from the
+vengeance of her angry son; and Lucretia, who destroyed herself rather
+than survive the dishonor of her house. There are some people who rise
+and triumph over every kind of oppression and injury. Under Paganism
+there was the possibility of the emancipation of the soul, but not the
+probability. Its genius was directed to the welfare of the body,--to
+utilitarian ends of life, to ornaments and riches, to luxury and
+voluptuousness, to the pleasures which are brief, to the charms of
+physical beauty and grace. It could stimulate ambition and inculcate
+patriotism and sing of love, if it coupled the praises of Venus with the
+praises of wine. But everything it praised or honored had reference to
+this life and to the mortal body. It may have recognized the mind, but
+not the soul, which is greater than the mind. It had no aspirations for
+future happiness; it had no fears of future misery. Hence the frequency
+of suicide under disappointment, or ennui, or satiated desire, or fear
+of poverty, or disgrace, or pain.
+
+And thus, as Paganism did not take cognizance of the soul in its future
+existence, it disregarded man's highest aspirations. It did not
+cultivate his graces; it set but a slight value on moral beauty; it
+thought little of affections; it spurned gentleness and passive virtues;
+it saw no lustre in the tender eye; it heard no music in the tones of
+sympathy; it was hard and cold. That which constitutes the richest
+beatitudes of love it could not see, and did not care for. Ethereal
+blessedness it despised. That which raises woman highest, it was
+indifferent to. The cold atmosphere of Paganism froze her soul, and made
+her callous to wrongs and sufferings. It destroyed enthusiasm and poetic
+ardor and the graces which shine in misfortune. Woman was not kindled by
+lofty sentiments, since no one believed in them. The harmonies of home
+had no poetry and no inspiration, and they disappeared. The face of
+woman was not lighted by supernatural smiles. Her caresses had no
+spiritual fervor, and her benedictions were unmeaning platitudes. Take
+away the soul of woman, and what is she? Rob her of her divine
+enthusiasm, and how vapid and commonplace she becomes! Destroy her
+yearnings to be a spiritual solace, and how limited is her sphere! Take
+away the holy dignity of the soul, and how impossible is a lofty
+friendship! Without the amenities of the soul there can be no real
+society. Crush the soul of a woman, and you extinguish her life, and
+shed darkness on all who surround her. She cannot rally from pain, or
+labor, or misfortune, if her higher nature is ignored. Paganism ignored
+what is grandest and truest in a woman, and she withered like a stricken
+tree. She succumbed before the cold blasts that froze her noblest
+impulses, and sunk sullenly into obscurity. Oh, what a fool a man is to
+make woman a slave! He forgets that though he may succeed in keeping her
+down, chained and fettered by drudgeries, she will be revenged; that
+though powerless, she will instinctively learn to hate him; and if she
+cannot defy him she will scorn him,--for not even a brute animal will
+patiently submit to cruelty, still less a human soul become reconciled
+to injustice. And what is the possession of a human body without the
+sympathy of a living soul?
+
+And hence women, under Paganism,--having no hopes of future joy, no
+recognition of their diviner attributes, no true scope for energies, no
+field of usefulness but in a dreary home, no ennobling friendships, no
+high encouragements, no education, no lofty companionship; utterly
+unappreciated in what most distinguishes them, and valued only as
+household slaves or victims of guilty pleasure; adorned and bedecked
+with trinkets, all to show off the graces of the body alone, and with
+nothing to show their proud equality with men in influence, if not in
+power, in mind as well as heart,--took no interest in what truly
+elevates society. What schools did they teach or even visit? What
+hospitals did they enrich? What miseries did they relieve? What
+charities did they contribute to? What churches did they attend? What
+social gatherings did they enliven? What missions of benevolence did
+they embark in? What were these to women who did not know what was the
+most precious thing they had, or when this precious thing was allowed to
+run to waste? What was there for a woman to do with an unrecognized
+soul but gird herself with ornaments, and curiously braid her hair, and
+ransack shops for new cosmetics, and hunt for new perfumes, and recline
+on luxurious couches, and issue orders to attendant slaves, and join in
+seductive dances, and indulge in frivolous gossip, and entice by the
+display of sensual charms? Her highest aspiration was to adorn a
+perishable body, and vanity became the spring of life.
+
+And the men,--without the true sanctities and beatitudes of married
+life, without the tender companionship which cultivated women give,
+without the hallowed friendships which the soul alone can keep alive,
+despising women who were either toys or slaves,--fled from their dull,
+monotonous, and dreary homes to the circus and the theatre and the
+banqueting hall for excitement or self-forgetfulness. They did not seek
+society, for there can be no high society where women do not preside and
+inspire and guide. Society is a Christian institution. It was born among
+our German ancestors, amid the inspiring glories of chivalry. It was
+made for women as well as men of social cravings and aspirations, which
+have their seat in what Paganism ignored. Society, under Paganism, was
+confined to men, at banquets or symposia, where women seldom entered,
+unless for the amusement of men,--never for their improvement, and still
+less for their restraint.
+
+It was not until Christianity permeated the old Pagan civilization and
+destroyed its idols, that the noble Paulas and Marcellas and Fabiolas
+arose to dignify human friendships, and give fascination to reunions of
+cultivated women and gifted men; that the seeds of society were sown. It
+was not until the natural veneration which the Gothic nations seem to
+have had for women, even in their native forests, had ripened into
+devotion and gallantry under the teachings of Christian priests, that
+the true position of women was understood. And after their equality was
+recognized in the feudal castles of the Middle Ages, the _salons_ of the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries established their claims as the
+inspiring geniuses of what we call society. Then, and not till then, did
+physical beauty pale before the brilliancy of the mind and the radiance
+of the soul,--at last recognized as the highest charm of woman. The
+leaders of society became, not the ornamented and painted _heterae_
+which had attracted Grecian generals and statesmen and men of letters,
+but the witty and the genial and the dignified matrons who were capable
+of instructing and inspiring men superior to themselves, with eyes
+beaming with intellectual radiance, and features changing with perpetual
+variety. Modern society, created by Christianity,--since only
+Christianity recognizes what is most truly attractive and ennobling
+among women--is a great advance over the banquets of imperial Romans
+and the symposia of gifted Greeks.
+
+But even this does not satisfy woman in her loftiest aspirations. The
+soul which animates and inspires her is boundless. Its wants cannot be
+fully met even in an assemblage of wits and beauties. The soul of Madame
+de Staël pined amid all her social triumphs. The soul craves
+friendships, intellectual banquetings, and religious aspirations. And
+unless the emancipated soul of woman can have these wants gratified, she
+droops even amid the glories of society. She is killed, not as a hero
+perishes on a battle-field; but she dies, as Madame de Maintenon said
+that she died, amid the imposing splendors of Versailles. It is only the
+teachings and influences of that divine religion which made Bethany the
+centre of true social banquetings to the wandering and isolated Man of
+Sorrows, which can keep the soul alive amid the cares, the burdens, and
+the duties which bend down every son and daughter of Adam, however
+gilded may be the outward life. How grateful, then, should women be to
+that influence which has snatched them from the pollutions and heartless
+slaveries of Paganism, and given dignity to their higher nature! It is
+to them that it has brought the greatest boon, and made them triumphant
+over the evils of life. And how thoughtless, how misguided, how
+ungrateful is that woman who would exchange the priceless blessings
+which Christianity has brought to her for those ornaments, those
+excitements, and those pleasures which ancient Paganism gave as the only
+solace fox the loss and degradation of her immortal soul!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Plutarch's Lives; Froude's Caesar; Shakspeare's Antony and Cleopatra;
+Plato's Dialogues; Horace, Martial, and Juvenal, especially among the
+poets; Lord's Old Roman World; Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars; Dion
+Cassius; Rollin's Ancient History; Merivale's History of the Romans;
+Biographic Universelle; Rees's Encyclopedia has a good article.
+
+
+
+
+PAGAN SOCIETY.
+
+
+GLORY AND SHAME.
+
+50 B.C.
+
+
+We have now surveyed what was most glorious in the States of antiquity.
+We have seen a civilization which in many respects rivals all that
+modern nations have to show. In art, in literature, in philosophy, in
+laws, in the mechanism of government, in the cultivated face of Nature,
+in military strength, in aesthetic culture, the Greeks and Romans were
+our equals. And this high civilization was reached by the native and
+unaided strength of man; by the power of will, by courage, by
+perseverance, by genius, by fortunate circumstances. We are filled with
+admiration by all these trophies of genius, and cannot but feel that
+only superior races could have accomplished such mighty triumphs.
+
+Yet all this splendid exterior was deceptive; for the deeper we
+penetrate the social condition of the people, the more we feel disgust
+and pity supplanting all feelings of admiration and wonder. The Roman
+empire especially, which had gathered into its strong embrace the whole
+world, and was the natural inheritor of all the achievements of all the
+nations, in its shame and degradation suggests melancholy feelings in
+reference to the destiny of man, so far as his happiness and welfare
+depend upon his own unaided efforts.
+
+It is a sad picture of oppression, injustice, crime, and wretchedness
+which I have now to present. Glory is succeeded by shame, strength by
+weakness, and virtue by vice. The condition of the mass is deplorable,
+and even the great and fortunate shine in a false and fictitious light.
+We see laws, theoretically good, practically perverted, and selfishness
+and egotism the mainsprings of life; we see energies misdirected, and
+art corrupted. All noble aspirations have fled, and the good and the
+wise retire from active life in despair and misanthropy. Poets flatter
+the tyrants who trample on human rights, while sensuality and luxurious
+pleasure absorb the depraved thoughts of a perverse generation.
+
+The first thing which arrests our attention as we survey the civilized
+countries of the old world, is the imperial despotism of Rome. The
+empire indeed enjoyed quietude, and society was no longer rent by
+factions and parties. Demagogues no longer disturbed the public peace,
+nor were the provinces ransacked and devastated to provide for the
+means of carrying on war. So long as men did not oppose the government
+they were safe from molestation, and were left to pursue their business
+and pleasure in their own way. Imperial cruelty was not often visited on
+the humble classes. It was the policy of the emperors to amuse and
+flatter the people, while depriving them of political rights. Hence
+social life was free. All were at liberty to seek their pleasures and
+gains; all were proud of their metropolis, with its gilded glories and
+its fascinating pleasures. Outrages, extortions, and disturbances were
+punished. Order reigned, and all classes felt secure; they could sleep
+without fear of robbery or assassination. In short, all the arguments
+which can be adduced in favor of despotism in contrast with civil war
+and violence, show that it was beneficial in its immediate effects.
+
+Nevertheless, it was a most lamentable change from that condition of
+things which existed before the civil wars. Roman liberties were
+prostrated forever; noble sentiments and aspirations were rebuked. Under
+the Emperors we read of no more great orators like Cicero, battling for
+human rights and defending the public weal. Eloquence was suppressed.
+Nor was there liberty of speech even in the Senate. It was treason to
+find fault with any public acts. From the Pillars of Hercules to the
+Caspian Sea one stern will ruled all classes and orders. No one could
+fly from the agents and ministers of the Emperor; he controlled the
+army, the Senate, the judiciary, the internal administration of the
+empire, and the religious worship of the people; all offices, honors,
+and emoluments emanated from him. All influences conspired to elevate
+the man whom no one could hope successfully to rival. Revolt was
+madness, and treason absurdity. Nor did the Emperors attempt to check
+the gigantic social evils of the empire. They did not seek to prevent
+irreligion, luxury, slavery, and usury, the encroachments of the rich
+upon the poor, the tyranny of foolish fashions, demoralizing sports and
+pleasures, money-making, and all the follies which lax principles of
+morality allowed; they fed the rabble with corn, oil, and wine, and thus
+encouraged idleness and dissipation. The world never saw a more rapid
+retrogression in human rights, or a greater prostration of liberties.
+Taxes were imposed according to the pleasure or necessities of the
+government. Provincial governors became still more rapacious and cruel;
+judges hesitated to decide against the government. Patriotism, in its
+most enlarged sense, became an impossibility; all lofty spirits were
+crushed. Corruption in all forms of administration fearfully increased,
+for there was no safeguard against it.
+
+Theoretically, absolutism may be the best government, if rulers are
+wise and just; but practically, as men are, despotisms are generally
+cruel and revengeful. Despotism implies slavery, and slavery is the
+worst condition of mankind.
+
+It cannot be questioned that many virtuous princes reigned at Rome, who
+would have ornamented any age or country. Titus, Hadrian, Marcus
+Aurelius, Antoninus Pius, Alexander Severus, Tacitus, Probus, Carus,
+Constantine, Theodosius, were all men of remarkable virtues as well as
+talents. They did what they could to promote public prosperity. Marcus
+Aurelius was one of the purest and noblest characters of antiquity.
+Theodosius for genius and virtue ranks with the most illustrious
+sovereigns that ever wore a crown,--with Charlemagne, with Alfred, with
+William III., with Gustavus Adolphus.
+
+But it matters not whether the Emperors were good or bad, if the régime
+to which they consecrated their energies was exerted to crush the
+liberties of mankind. The imperial despotism, whether brilliant or
+disgraceful, was a mournful retrograde step in civilization; it implied
+the extinction of patriotism and the general degradation of the people,
+and would have been impossible in the days of Cato, Scipio, or Metellus.
+
+If we turn from the Emperors to the class which before the dictatorship
+of Julius Caesar had the ascendency in the State, and for several
+centuries the supreme power, we shall find but little that is
+flattering to a nation or to humanity. Under the Emperors the
+aristocracy had degenerated in morals as well as influence. They still
+retained their enormous fortunes, originally acquired as governors of
+provinces, and continually increased by fortunate marriages and
+speculations. Indeed, nothing was more marked and melancholy at Rome
+than the vast disproportion in fortunes. In the better days of the
+republic, property was more equally divided; the citizens were not
+ambitious for more land than they could conveniently cultivate. But the
+lands, obtained by conquest, gradually fell into the possession of
+powerful families. The classes of society widened as great fortunes were
+accumulated; pride of wealth kept pace with pride of ancestry; and when
+plebeian families had obtained great estates, they were amalgamated with
+the old aristocracy. The equestrian order, founded substantially on
+wealth, grew daily in importance. Knights ultimately rivalled senatorial
+families. Even freedmen in an age of commercial speculation became
+powerful for their riches. The pursuit of money became a passion, and
+the rich assumed all the importance and consideration which had once
+been bestowed upon those who had rendered great public services.
+
+As the wealth of the world flowed naturally to the capital, Rome became
+a city of princes, whose fortunes were almost incredible. It took
+eighty thousand dollars a year to support the ordinary senatorial
+dignity. Some senators owned whole provinces. Trimalchio, a rich
+freedman whom Petronius ridiculed, could afford to lose thirty millions
+of sesterces in a single voyage without sensibly diminishing his
+fortune. Pallas, a freedman of the Emperor Claudius, possessed a fortune
+of three hundred millions of sesterces. Seneca, the philosopher, amassed
+an enormous fortune.
+
+As the Romans were a sensual, ostentatious, and luxurious people, they
+accordingly wasted their fortunes by an extravagance in their living
+which has had no parallel. The pleasures of the table and the cares of
+the kitchen were the most serious avocation of the aristocracy in the
+days of the greatest corruption. They had around them regular courts of
+parasites and flatterers, and they employed even persons of high rank as
+their chamberlains and stewards. Carving was taught in celebrated
+schools, and the masters of this sublime art were held in higher
+estimation than philosophers or poets. Says Juvenal,--
+
+     "To such perfection now is carving brought,
+      That different gestures by our curious men
+      Are used for different dishes, hare or hen."
+
+Their entertainments were accompanied with everything which could
+flatter vanity or excite the passions; musicians, male and female
+dancers, players of farce and pantomime, jesters, buffoons, and
+gladiators exhibited, while the guests reclined at table after the
+fashion of the Orientals. The tables were made of Thuja-root, with claws
+of ivory or Delian bronze. Even Cicero, in an economical age, paid six
+hundred and fifty pounds for his banqueting-table. Gluttony was carried
+to such a point that the sea and earth scarcely sufficed to set off
+their tables; they ate as delicacies water-rats and white worms. Fish
+were the chief object of the Roman epicures, of which the _mullus_, the
+_rhombus_, and the _asellus_ were the most valued; it is recorded that a
+mullus (sea barbel), weighing but eight pounds, sold for eight thousand
+sesterces. Oysters from the Lucrine Lake were in great demand; snails
+were fattened in ponds for cooking, while the villas of the rich had
+their piscinae filled with fresh or salt-water fish. Peacocks and
+pheasants were the most highly esteemed among poultry, although the
+absurdity prevailed of eating singing-birds. Of quadrupeds, the greatest
+favorite was the wild boar,--the chief dish of a grand _coena_,--coming
+whole upon the table; and the practised gourmand pretended to
+distinguish by the taste from what part of Italy it came. Dishes, the
+very names of which excite disgust, were used at fashionable banquets,
+and held in high esteem. Martial devotes two entire books of his
+"Epigrams" to the various dishes and ornaments of a Roman banquet.
+
+The extravagance of that period almost surpasses belief. Cicero and
+Pompey one day surprised Lucullus at one of his ordinary banquets, when
+he expected no guests, and even that cost fifty thousand
+drachmas,--about four thousand dollars; his table-couches were of
+purple, and his vessels glittered with jewels. The halls of Heliogabalus
+were hung with cloth of gold, enriched with jewels; his table and plate
+were of pure gold; his couches were of massive silver, and his
+mattresses, covered with carpets of cloth of gold, were stuffed with
+down found only under the wings of partridges. His suppers never cost
+less than one hundred thousand sesterces. Crassus paid one hundred
+thousand sesterces for a golden cup. Banqueting-rooms were strewed with
+lilies and roses. Apicius, in the time of Trajan, spent one hundred
+millions of sesterces in debauchery and gluttony; having only ten
+millions left, he ended his life with poison, thinking he might die of
+hunger. Things were valued for their cost and rarity rather than their
+real value. Enormous prices were paid for carp, the favorite dish of the
+Romans as of the Chinese. Drusillus, a freedman of Claudius, caused a
+dish to be made of five hundred pounds weight of silver. Vitellius had
+one made of such prodigious size that he was obliged to build a furnace
+on purpose for it; and at a feast which he gave in honor of this dish,
+it was filled with the livers of the scarrus (fish), the brains of
+peacocks, the tongues of parrots, and the roes of lampreys caught in the
+Carpathian Sea.
+
+The nobles squandered money equally on their banquets, their stables,
+and their dress; and it was to their crimes, says Juvenal, that they
+were indebted for their gardens, their palaces, their tables, and their
+fine old plate.
+
+Unbounded pride, insolence, inhumanity, selfishness, and scorn marked
+this noble class. Of course there were exceptions, but the historians
+and satirists give the saddest pictures of their cold-hearted depravity.
+The sole result of friendship with a great man was a meal, at which
+flattery and sycophancy were expected; but the best wine was drunk by
+the host, instead of by the guest. Provinces were ransacked for fish and
+fowl and game for the tables of the great, and sensualism was thought to
+be no reproach. They violated the laws of chastity and decorum; they
+scourged to death their slaves; they degraded their wives and sisters;
+they patronized the most demoralizing sports; they enriched themselves
+by usury and monopolies; they practised no generosity, except at their
+banquets, when ostentation balanced their avarice; they measured
+everything by the money-standard; they had no taste for literature, but
+they rewarded sculptors and painters who prostituted art to their vanity
+or passions; they had no reverence for religion, and ridiculed the gods.
+Their distinguishing vices were meanness and servility, the pursuit of
+money by every artifice, the absence of honor, and unblushing
+sensuality.
+
+Gibbon has eloquently abridged the remarks of Ammianus Marcellinus
+respecting these people:--
+
+"They contend with each other in the empty vanity of titles and
+surnames. They affect to multiply their likenesses in statues of bronze
+or marble; nor are they satisfied unless these statues are covered with
+plates of gold. They boast of the rent-rolls of their estates; they
+measure their rank and consequence by the loftiness of their chariots
+and the weighty magnificence of their dress; their long robes of silk
+and purple float in the wind, and as they are agitated by art or
+accident they discover the under garments, the rich tunics embroidered
+with the figures of various animals. Followed by a train of fifty
+servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move along the streets as if
+they travelled with post-horses; and the example of the senators is
+boldly imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose covered carriages are
+continually driving round the immense space of the city and suburbs.
+Whenever they condescend to enter the public baths, they assume, on
+their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and maintain a
+haughty demeanor, which perhaps might have been excused in the great
+Marcellus after the conquest of Syracuse. Sometimes these heroes
+undertake more arduous achievements: they visit their estates in Italy,
+and procure themselves, by servile hands, the amusements of the chase.
+And if at any time, especially on a hot day, they have the courage to
+sail in their gilded galleys from the Lucrine Lake to their elegant
+villas on the sea-coast of Puteoli and Cargeta, they compare these
+expeditions to the marches of Caesar and Alexander; yet should a fly
+presume to settle on the silken folds of their gilded umbrellas, should
+a sunbeam penetrate through some unguarded chink, they deplore their
+intolerable hardships, and lament, in affected language, that they were
+not born in the regions of eternal darkness. In the exercise of domestic
+jurisdiction they express an exquisite sensibility for any personal
+injury, and a contemptuous indifference for the rest of mankind. When
+they have called for warm water, should a slave be tardy in his
+obedience, he is chastised with a hundred lashes; should he commit a
+wilful murder, his master will mildly observe that he is a worthless
+fellow, and shall be punished if he repeat the offence. If a foreigner
+of no contemptible rank be introduced to these senators, he is welcomed
+with such warm professions that he retires charmed with their
+affability; but when he repeats his visit, he is surprised and mortified
+to find that his name, his person, and his country are forgotten. The
+modest, the sober, and the learned are rarely invited to their sumptuous
+banquets, only the most worthless of mankind,--parasites who applaud
+every look and gesture, who gaze with rapture on marble columns and
+variegated pavements, and strenuously praise the pomp and elegance
+which he is taught to consider as a part of his personal merit. At the
+Roman table the birds, the squirrels, the fish, which appear of uncommon
+size, are contemplated with curious attention, and notaries are summoned
+to attest, by authentic record, their real weight. Another method of
+introduction into the houses of the great is skill in games, which is a
+sure road to wealth and reputation. A master of this sublime art, if
+placed at a supper below a magistrate, displays in his countenance a
+surprise and indignation which Cato might be supposed to feel when
+refused the praetorship. The acquisition of knowledge seldom engages the
+attention of the nobles, who abhor the fatigue and disdain the
+advantages of study; and the only books they peruse are the 'Satires of
+Juvenal,' or the fabulous histories of Marius Maximus. The libraries
+they have inherited from their fathers are secluded, like dreary
+sepulchres, from the light of day; but the costly instruments of the
+theatre--flutes and hydraulic organs--are constructed for their use. In
+their palaces sound is preferred to sense, and the care of the body to
+that of the mind. The suspicion of a malady is of sufficient weight to
+excuse the visits of the most intimate friends. The prospect of gain
+will urge a rich and gouty senator as far as Spoleta; every sentiment of
+arrogance and dignity is suppressed in the hope of an inheritance or
+legacy, and a wealthy, childless citizen is the most powerful of the
+Romans. The distress which follows and chastises extravagant luxury
+often reduces the great to use the most humiliating expedients. When
+they wish to borrow, they employ the base and supplicating style of the
+slaves in the comedy; but when they are called upon to pay, they assume
+the royal and tragic declamations of the grandsons of Hercules. If the
+demand is repeated, they readily procure some trusty sycophant to
+maintain a charge of poison or magic against the insolent creditor, who
+is seldom released from prison until he has signed a discharge of the
+whole debt. And these vices are mixed with a puerile superstition which
+disgraces their understanding. They listen with confidence to the
+productions of haruspices, who pretend to read in the entrails of
+victims the signs of future greatness and prosperity; and this
+superstition is observed among those very sceptics who impiously deny or
+doubt the existence of a celestial power."
+
+Such, in the latter days of the empire, was the leading class at Rome,
+and probably also in the cities which aped the fashions of the capital.
+Frivolity and luxury loosened all the ties of society. They were bound
+up in themselves, and had no care for the people except as they might
+extract more money from them.
+
+As for the miserable class whom the patricians oppressed, their
+condition became worse every day from the accession of the Emperors. The
+plebeians had ever disdained those arts which now occupied the middle
+classes; these were intrusted to slaves. Originally, they employed
+themselves upon the lands which had been obtained by conquest; but these
+lands were gradually absorbed or usurped by the large proprietors. The
+small farmers, oppressed with debt and usury, parted with their lands to
+their wealthy creditors. Even in the time of Cicero, it was computed
+that there were only about two thousand citizens possessed of
+independent property. These two thousand persons owned the world; the
+rest were dependent and powerless, and would have perished but for
+largesses. Monthly distributions of corn were converted into daily
+allowance for bread. The people were amused with games and festivals,
+fed like slaves, and of course lost at last even the semblance of
+manliness and independence. They loitered in the public streets, and
+dissipated in gaming their miserable pittance; they spent the hours of
+the night in the lowest resorts of crime and misery; they expired in
+wretched apartments without attracting the attention of government;
+pestilence, famine, and squalid misery thinned their ranks, and they
+would have been annihilated but for constant accession to their numbers
+from the provinces.
+
+In the busy streets of Rome might be seen adventurers from all parts of
+the world, disgraced by all the various vices of their respective
+countries. They had no education, and but small religious advantages;
+they were held in terror by both priests and nobles,--the priest
+terrifying them with Egyptian sorceries, the nobles crushing them by
+iron weight; like lazzaroni, they lived in the streets, or were crowded
+into filthy tenements; a gladiatorial show delighted them, but the
+circus was their peculiar joy,--here they sought to drown the
+consciousness of their squalid degradation; they were sold into slavery
+for trifling debts; they had no homes. The poor man had no ambition or
+hope; his wife was a slave; his children were precocious demons, whose
+prattle was the cry for bread, whose laughter was the howl of
+pandemonium, whose sports were the tricks of premature iniquity, whose
+beauty was the squalor of disease and filth; he fled from a wife in whom
+he had no trust, from children in whom he had no hope, from brothers for
+whom he felt no sympathy, from parents for whom he felt no reverence;
+the circus was his home, the fights of wild beasts were his consolation;
+the future was a blank, death was the release from suffering. There were
+no hospitals for the sick and the old, except one on an island in the
+Tiber; the old and helpless were left to die, unpitied and unconsoled.
+Suicide was so common that it attracted no attention.
+
+Superstition culminated at Rome, for there were seen the priests and
+devotees of all the countries that it governed,--"the dark-skinned
+daughters of Isis, with drum and timbrel and wanton mien; devotees of
+the Persian Mithras; emasculated Asiatics; priests of Cybele, with their
+wild dances and discordant cries; worshippers of the great goddess
+Diana; barbarian captives with the rites of Teuton priests; Syrians,
+Jews, Chaldaean astrologers, and Thessalian sorcerers.... The crowds
+which flocked to Rome from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean
+brought with them practices extremely demoralizing. The awful rites of
+initiation, the tricks of magicians, the pretended virtues of amulets
+and charms, the riddles of emblematical idolatry with which the
+superstition of the East abounded, amused the languid voluptuaries who
+had neither the energy for a moral belief nor the boldness requisite for
+logical scepticism."
+
+We cannot pass by, in this enumeration of the different classes of Roman
+society, the number and condition of slaves. A large part of the
+population belonged to this servile class. Originally brought in by
+foreign conquest, it was increased by those who could not pay their
+debts. The single campaign of Regulus introduced as many captives as
+made up a fifth part of the whole population. Four hundred were
+maintained in a single palace, at a comparatively early period; a
+freedman in the time of Augustus left behind him forty-one hundred and
+sixteen; Horace regarded two hundred as the suitable establishment for a
+gentleman; some senators owned twenty thousand. Gibbon estimates the
+number of slaves at about sixty millions,--one-half of the whole
+population. One hundred thousand captives were taken in the Jewish war,
+who were sold as slaves, and sold as cheap as horses. William Blair
+supposes that there were three slaves to one freeman, from the conquest
+of Greece to the reign of Alexander Severus. Slaves often cost two
+hundred thousand sesterces, yet everybody was eager to possess a slave.
+At one time the slave's life was at the absolute control of his master;
+he could be treated at all times with brutal severity. Fettered and
+branded, he toiled to cultivate the lands of an imperious master, and at
+night was shut up in a subterranean cell. The laws hardly recognized his
+claim to be considered a moral agent,--he was _secundum hominum genus_;
+he could acquire no rights, social or political,--he was incapable of
+inheriting property, or making a will, or contracting a legal marriage;
+his value was estimated like that of a brute; he was a thing and not a
+person, "a piece of furniture possessed of life;" he was his master's
+property, to be scourged, or tortured, or crucified. If a wealthy
+proprietor died under circumstances which excited suspicion of foul
+play, his whole household was put to torture. It is recorded that on the
+murder of a man of consular dignity by a slave, every slave in his
+possession was condemned to death. Slaves swelled the useless rabbles of
+the cities, and devoured the revenues of the State. All manual labor
+was done by slaves, in towns as well as the country; they were used in
+the navy to propel the galleys. Even the mechanical arts were cultivated
+by the slaves. Nay more, slaves were schoolmasters, secretaries, actors,
+musicians, and physicians, for in intelligence they were often on an
+equality with their masters. Slaves were procured from Greece and Asia
+Minor and Syria, as well as from Gaul and the African deserts; they were
+white as well as black. All captives in war were made slaves, also
+unfortunate debtors; sometimes they could regain their freedom, but
+generally their condition became more and more deplorable. What a state
+of society when a refined and cultivated Greek could be made to obey the
+most offensive orders of a capricious and sensual Roman, without
+remuneration, without thanks, without favor, without redress! What was
+to be expected of a class who had no object to live for? They became the
+most degraded of mortals, ready for pillage, and justly to be feared in
+the hour of danger.
+
+Slavery undoubtedly proved the most destructive canker of the Roman
+State. It was this social evil, more than political misrule, which
+undermined the empire. Slavery proved at Rome a monstrous curse,
+destroying all manliness of character, creating contempt of honest
+labor, making men timorous yet cruel, idle, frivolous, weak, dependent,
+powerless. The empire might have lasted centuries longer but for this
+incubus, the standing disgrace of the Pagan world. Paganism never
+recognized what is most noble and glorious in man; never recognized his
+equality, his common brotherhood, his natural rights. It had no
+compunction, no remorse in depriving human beings of their highest
+privileges; its whole tendency was to degrade the soul, and to cause
+forgetfulness of immortality. Slavery thrives best when the generous
+instincts are suppressed, when egotism, sensuality, and pride are the
+dominant springs of human action.
+
+The same influences which tended to rob man of the rights which God has
+given him, and produce cruelty and heartlessness in the general
+intercourse of life, also tended to degrade the female sex. In the
+earlier age of the republic, when the people were poor, and life was
+simple and primitive, and heroism and patriotism were characteristic,
+woman was comparatively virtuous and respected; she asserted her natural
+equality, and led a life of domestic tranquillity, employed upon the
+training of her children, and inspiring her husband to noble deeds. But
+under the Emperors these virtues had fled. Woman was miserably educated,
+being taught by a slave, or some Greek chambermaid, accustomed to ribald
+conversation, and fed with idle tales and silly superstitions; she was
+regarded as more vicious in natural inclination than man, and was
+chiefly valued for household labors; she was reduced to dependence; she
+saw but little of her brothers or relatives; she was confined to her
+home as if it were a prison; she was guarded by eunuchs and female
+slaves; she was given in marriage without her consent; she could be
+easily divorced; she was valued only as a domestic servant, or as an
+animal to prevent the extinction of families; she was regarded as the
+inferior of her husband, to whom she was a victim, a toy, or a slave.
+Love after marriage was not frequent, since woman did not shine in the
+virtues by which love is kept alive. She became timorous or frivolous,
+without dignity or public esteem; her happiness was in extravagant
+attire, in elaborate hair-dressings, in rings and bracelets, in a
+retinue of servants, in gilded apartments, in luxurious couches, in
+voluptuous dances, in exciting banquets, in demoralizing spectacles, in
+frivolous gossip, in inglorious idleness. If virtuous, it was not so
+much from principle as from fear. Hence she resorted to all sorts of
+arts to deceive her husband; her genius was sharpened by perpetual
+devices, and cunning was her great resource. She cultivated no lofty
+friendships; she engaged in no philanthropic mission; she cherished no
+ennobling sentiments; she kindled no chivalrous admiration. Her
+amusements were frivolous, her taste vitiated, her education neglected,
+her rights violated, her sympathy despised, her aspirations scorned.
+And here I do not allude to great and infamous examples that history has
+handed down in the sober pages of Suetonius and Tacitus, or that
+unblushing depravity which stands out in the bitter satires of those
+times; I speak not of the adultery, the poisoning, the infanticide, the
+debauchery, the cruelty of which history accuses the Messalinas and
+Agrippinas of imperial Rome; I allude not to the orgies of the Palatine
+Hill, or the abominations which are inferred from the paintings of
+Pompeii,--I mean the general frivolity and extravagance and
+demoralization of the women of the Roman empire. Marriage was considered
+inexpedient unless large dowries were brought to the husband. Numerous
+were the efforts of Emperors to promote honorable marriages, but the
+relation was shunned. Courtesans usurped the privileges of wives, and
+with unblushing effrontery. A man was derided who contemplated
+matrimony, for there was but little confidence in female virtue or
+capacity, and woman lost all her fascination when age had destroyed her
+beauty; even her very virtues were distasteful to her self-indulgent
+husband. When, as sometimes happened, the wife gained the ascendency by
+her charms, she was tyrannical; her relatives incited her to despoil her
+husband; she lived amid incessant broils; she had no care for the
+future, and exceeded man in prodigality. "The government of her house is
+no more merciful," says Juvenal, "than the court of a Sicilian tyrant."
+In order to render herself attractive, she exhausted all the arts of
+cosmetics and elaborate hair-dressing; she delighted in magical
+incantations and love-potions. In the bitter satire of Juvenal we get an
+impression most melancholy and loathsome:--
+
+     "'T were long to tell what philters they provide,
+     What drugs to set a son-in-law aside,--
+     Women, in judgment weak, in feeling strong,
+     By every gust of passion borne along.
+     To a fond spouse a wife no mercy shows;
+     Though warmed with equal fires, she mocks his woes,
+     And triumphs in his spoils; her wayward will
+     Defeats his bliss and turns his good to ill.
+     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 class, 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
+mass 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 institution. 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. Titus 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 Titus, 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 passion. All
+classes alike pursued them with restless eagerness. Amusements 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 Titus, 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 passion for gambling in every
+shape, we can form some idea of the effect of these amusements 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 classes 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 classes 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 appetite; 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 Titus, Caracalla, and
+Diocletian in Rome show that they were decorated with prodigal
+magnificence, and with everything that could excite the
+passions,--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 factitious 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 godless 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
+accumulation 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
+pass 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
+certitudes 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 appetite and the _ennui_ of
+realized expectation,--all of the earth, earthy; making a wreck of the
+divine image which was made for God 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
+passion 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 passion
+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 passed away. The
+barbarians were advancing to conquer and desolate; there was no power to
+resist them but enervated and timid legions, with the accumulated 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 accumulation 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 nobler
+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 chastisement
+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 gods 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. Ammianus 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.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME
+III***
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+<html>
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Beacon Lights of History, Volume III, by John Lord</title>
+    <style type="text/css">
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+<body>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Beacon Lights of History, Volume III, by John
+Lord</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>
+
+Title: Beacon Lights of History, Volume III
+
+Author: John Lord
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2003  [eBook #10484]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME III***
+
+
+</pre>
+<center><h3>E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner,<br>
+            and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</h3></center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="full">
+<br><br>
+<center><i>LORD'S LECTURES</i></center>
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY.</h2>
+
+<h2>BY JOHN LORD, LL.D.</h2>
+
+<center>AUTHOR OF &quot;THE OLD ROMAN WORLD,&quot; &quot;MODERN EUROPE,&quot;
+ETC., ETC.</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<h2>VOLUME III.</h2>
+
+<h2>ANCIENT ACHIEVEMENTS.</h2>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p><i><a href="#GOVERNMENTS_AND_LAWS.">GOVERNMENTS AND LAWS</a></i>.
+
+<p>GREEK AND ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.</p>
+
+Governments and laws<br>
+Oriental laws<br>
+Priestly jurisprudence<br>
+The laws of Lycurgus<br>
+The laws of Solon<br>
+Cleisthenes<br>
+The Ecclesia at Athens<br>
+Struggle between patricians and plebeians at Rome<br>
+Tribunes of the people<br>
+Roman citizens<br>
+The Roman senate<br>
+The Roman constitution<br>
+Imperial power<br>
+The Twelve Tables<br>
+Roman lawyers<br>
+Jurisprudence under emperors<br>
+Labeo<br>
+Capito<br>
+Gaius<br>
+Paulus<br>
+Ulpian<br>
+Justinian<br>
+Tribonian<br>
+Code, Pandects, and Institutes<br>
+Roman citizenship<br>
+Laws pertaining to marriage<br>
+Extent of paternal power<br>
+Transfer of property<br>
+Contracts<br>
+The courts<br>
+Crimes<br>
+Fines<br>
+Penal statutes<br>
+Personal rights<br>
+Slavery<br>
+Security of property<br>
+Authorities<br>
+<br>
+
+<p><i><a href="#THE_FINE_ARTS.">THE FINE ARTS</a></i>.</p>
+
+<p>ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, PAINTING.</p>
+
+Early architecture<br>
+Egyptian monuments<br>
+The Temple of Karnak<br>
+The pyramids<br>
+Babylonian architecture<br>
+Indian architecture<br>
+Greek architecture<br>
+The Doric order<br>
+The Parthenon<br>
+The Ionic order<br>
+The Corinthian order<br>
+Roman architecture<br>
+The arch<br>
+Vitruvius<br>
+Greek sculpture<br>
+Phidias<br>
+Statue of Zeus<br>
+Praxiteles<br>
+Scopas<br>
+Lysippus<br>
+Roman sculpture<br>
+Greek painters<br>
+Polygnotus<br>
+Apollodorus<br>
+Zeuxis<br>
+Parrhasius<br>
+Apelles<br>
+The decline of art<br>
+Authorities<br>
+<br>
+
+<p><i><a href="#ANCIENT_SCIENTIFIC_KNOWLEDGE.">ANCIENT SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE</a></i>.</p>
+
+<p>ASTRONOMY, GEOGRAPHY, ETC.</p>
+
+Ancient astronomy<br>
+Chaldaean astronomers<br>
+Egyptian astronomy<br>
+The Greek astronomers<br>
+Thales<br>
+Anaximenes<br>
+Aristarchus<br>
+Archimedes<br>
+Hipparchus<br>
+Ptolemy<br>
+The Roman astronomers<br>
+Geometry<br>
+Euclid<br>
+Empirical science<br>
+Hippocrates<br>
+Galen<br>
+Physical science<br>
+Geography<br>
+Pliny<br>
+Eratosthenes<br>
+Authorities<br>
+<br>
+
+<p><i><a href="#MATERIAL_LIFE_OF_THE_ANCIENTS.">MATERIAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS.</a></i></p>
+
+<p>MECHANICAL AND USEFUL ARTS.</p>
+
+Mechanical arts<br>
+Material life in Egypt<br>
+Domestic utensils<br>
+Houses and furniture<br>
+Entertainments<br>
+Glass manufacture<br>
+Linen fabrics<br>
+Paper manufacture<br>
+Leather and tanners<br>
+Carpenters and boat-builders<br>
+Agriculture<br>
+Field sports<br>
+Ornaments of dress<br>
+Greek arts<br>
+Roman luxuries<br>
+Material wonders<br>
+Great cities<br>
+Commerce<br>
+Roman roads<br>
+Ancient Rome<br>
+Architectural wonders<br>
+Roman monuments<br>
+Roman spectacles<br>
+Gladiatorial shows<br>
+Roman triumphs<br>
+Authorities<br>
+<br>
+
+<p><i><a href="#THE_MILITARY_ART.">THE MILITARY ART</a></i>.</p>
+
+<p>WEAPONS, ENGINES, DISCIPLINE.</p>
+
+The tendency to violence and war<br>
+Early wars<br>
+Progress in the art of war<br>
+Sesostris<br>
+Egyptian armies<br>
+Military weapons<br>
+Chariots of war<br>
+Persian armies, Cyrus<br>
+Greek warfare<br>
+Spartan phalanx<br>
+Alexander the Great<br>
+Roman armies<br>
+Hardships of Roman soldiers<br>
+Military discipline<br>
+The Roman legion<br>
+Importance of the infantry<br>
+The cavalry<br>
+Military engines<br>
+Ancient fortifications<br>
+Military officers<br>
+The praetorian cohort<br>
+Roman camps<br>
+Consolidation of Roman power<br>
+Authorities<br>
+<br>
+
+<p><i><a href="#CICERO.">CICERO</a></i>.</p>
+
+<p>ROMAN LITERATURE.</p>
+
+Condition of Roman society when Cicero was born<br>
+His education and precocity<br>
+He adopts the profession of the law<br>
+His popularity as an orator<br>
+Elected Quaestor; his Aedileship<br>
+Prosecution of Verres<br>
+His letters to Atticus; his vanity<br>
+His Praetorship; declines a province<br>
+His Consulship; conspiracy of Catiline<br>
+Banishment of Cicero: his weakness; his recall<br>
+His law practice; his eloquence<br>
+His provincial government<br>
+His return to Rome<br>
+His fears in view of the rivalry between Caesar and Pompey<br>
+Sides with Pompey<br>
+Death of Tullia and divorce of Terentia<br>
+Second marriage of Cicero<br>
+Literary labors: his philosophical writings<br>
+His detestation of Imperialism<br>
+His philippics against Antony<br>
+His proscription, flight, and death<br>
+His great services<br>
+Character of his eloquence<br>
+His artistic excellence of style<br>
+His learning and attainments; his character<br>
+His immortal legacy<br>
+Authorities<br>
+<br>
+
+<p><i><a href="#CLEOPATRA.">CLEOPATRA</a></i>.</p>
+
+<p>THE WOMAN OF PAGANISM.</p>
+
+Why Cleopatra represents the woman of Paganism<br>
+Glory of Ancient Rome<br>
+Paganism recognizes the body rather than the soul<br>
+Ancestors of Cleopatra<br>
+The wonders of Alexandria<br>
+Cleopatra of Greek origin<br>
+The mysteries of Ancient Egypt<br>
+Early beauty and accomplishments of Cleopatra<br>
+Her attractions to Caesar<br>
+Her residence in Rome<br>
+Her first acquaintance with Antony<br>
+The style of her beauty<br>
+Her character<br>
+Character of Antony<br>
+Antony and Cleopatra in Cilicia<br>
+Magnificence of Cleopatra<br>
+Infatuation of Antony<br>
+Motives of Cleopatra<br>
+Antony's gifts to Cleopatra<br>
+Indignation of the Romans<br>
+Antony gives up his Parthian expedition<br>
+Returns to Alexandria<br>
+Contest with Octavius<br>
+Battle of Actium<br>
+Wisdom of Octavius<br>
+Death of Antony<br>
+Subsequent conduct of Cleopatra<br>
+Nature of her love for Antony<br>
+Immense sacrifices of Antony<br>
+Tragic fate of Cleopatra<br>
+Frequency of suicide at Rome<br>
+Immorality no bar to social position in Greece and Rome<br>
+Dulness of home in Pagan antiquity<br>
+Drudgeries of women<br>
+Influence of women on men<br>
+Paganism never recognized the equality of women with men<br>
+It denied to them education<br>
+Consequent degradation of women<br>
+Paganism without religious consolation<br>
+Did not recognize the value of the soul<br>
+And thus took no cognizance of the higher aspirations of man<br>
+The revenge of woman under degradation<br>
+Women, under Paganism, took no interest in what elevates society<br>
+Men, therefore, fled to public amusements<br>
+No true society under Paganism<br>
+Society only created by Christianity<br>
+<br>
+
+<p><i><a href="#PAGAN_SOCIETY.">PAGAN SOCIETY.</a></i></p>
+
+<p>GLORY AND SHAME.</p>
+
+Glories of the ancient civilization<br>
+A splendid external deception<br>
+Moral evils<br>
+Imperial despotism<br>
+Prostration of liberties<br>
+Some good emperors<br>
+Disproportionate fortunes<br>
+Luxurious living<br>
+General extravagance<br>
+Pride and insolence of the aristocracy<br>
+Gibbon's description of the nobles<br>
+The plebeian class<br>
+Hopelessness and disgrace of poverty<br>
+Popular superstitions<br>
+The slaves<br>
+The curse of slavery<br>
+Degradation of the female sex<br>
+Bitter satires of Juvenal<br>
+Games and festivals<br>
+Gladiatorial shows<br>
+General abandonment to pleasure<br>
+The baths<br>
+General craze for money-making<br>
+Universal corruption<br>
+Saint Paul's estimate of Roman vices<br>
+Decline and ruin a logical necessity<br>
+The Sibylline prophecy<br>
+Authorities<br>
+<br>
+
+<p>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</p>
+
+<p>VOLUME III.</p>
+
+<a href="Illus0001.jpg">Cleopatra Tests the Poison which She Intends for Her
+Own Destruction on Her Slaves....</a> <i>Frontispiece</i>
+<i>After the painting by Alexander Cabanel</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0002.jpg">Justinian Orders the Compilation of the Pandects</a>
+<i>After the painting by Benjamin Constant</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0003.jpg">The Temple of Karnak</a>
+<i>After a photograph</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0004.jpg">The Laoco&ouml;n</a>
+<i>After the photograph from the statue in the Vatican, Rome</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0005.jpg">The Death of Archimedes</a>
+<i>After the painting by E. Vimont</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0006.jpg">Race of Roman Chariots</a>
+<i>After the painting by V. Checa</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0007.jpg">Sale of Slaves in a Roman Camp</a>
+<i>After the painting by R. Coghe</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0008.jpg">Marcus Tullius Cicero</a>
+<i>From the bust in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0009.jpg">Cleopatra Obtains an Interview with Caesar</a>
+<i>After the painting by J.L. Gerome</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0010.jpg">Death of Cleopatra</a>
+<i>After the painting by John Collier</i>.<br>
+
+<a href="Illus0011.jpg">A Roman Bacchanal</a>
+<i>After the painting by W. Kotarbinski</i>.<br>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<h2><a name="GOVERNMENTS_AND_LAWS."></a>GOVERNMENTS AND LAWS.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>GREEK AND ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.</p>
+
+<p>624 B.C.-550 A.D.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>There is not much in ancient governments and laws to interest us, except
+such as were in harmony with natural justice, and were designed for the
+welfare of all classes in the State. A jurisprudence founded on the
+edicts of absolute kings, or on the regulations of a priestly caste, is
+necessarily partial, and may be unenlightened. But those laws which are
+gradually enacted for the interests of the whole body of the
+people,--for the rich and poor, the powerful and feeble alike,--have
+generally been the result of great and diverse experiences, running
+through centuries, the work of wise men under constitutional forms of
+government. The jurisprudence of nations based on equity is a growth or
+development according to public wants and necessities, especially in
+countries having popular liberty and rights, as in England and the
+United States.</p>
+
+<p>We do not find in the history of ancient nations such a jurisprudence,
+except in the free States of Greece and among the Romans, who had a
+natural genius or aptitude for government, and where the people had a
+powerful influence in legislation, until even the name of liberty was
+not invoked.</p>
+
+<p>Among the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians the only laws were the
+edicts of kings or the regulations of priests, mostly made with a view
+of cementing their own power, except those that were dictated by
+benevolence or the pressing needs of the people, who were ground down
+and oppressed, and protected only as slaves were once protected in the
+Southern States of America. Wise and good monarchs doubtless issued
+decrees for the benefit of all classes, such as conscience or knowledge
+dictated, whenever they felt their great responsibilities, as in some of
+the absolute monarchies of Europe; but they never issued their decrees
+at the suggestions or demands of those classes for whom the laws were
+made. The voice of the people was ignored, except so far as it moved the
+pity or appealed to the hearts and consciences of their rulers; the
+people had, and claimed, no <i>rights</i>. The only men to whom rulers
+listened, or by whom they were controlled, were those whom they chose as
+counsellors and ministers, who were supposed to advise with a view to
+the sovereign's benefit, and that of the empire generally.</p>
+
+<p>The same may be said in general of other Oriental monarchies,
+especially when embarked in aggressive wars, where the will of the
+monarch was supreme and unresisted, as in Persia. In India and China the
+government was not so absolute, since it was checked by feudatory
+princes, almost independent like the feudal barons and dukes of
+mediaeval Europe.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was there probably among Oriental nations any elaborate codification
+of the decrees and laws as in Greece and Rome, except by the priests for
+their ritual service, like that which marked the jurisprudence of the
+Israelites. There were laws against murder, theft, adultery, and other
+offences, since society cannot exist anywhere without such laws; but
+there was no complicated jurisprudence produced by the friction of
+competing classes striving for justice and right, or even for the
+interests of contending parties. We do not look to Egypt or to China for
+wise punishment of ordinary crimes; but we do look to Greece and Rome,
+and to Rome especially, for a legislation which shall balance the
+complicated relations of society on principles of enlightened reason.
+Moreover, those great popular rights which we now most zealously defend
+have generally been extorted in the strife of classes and parties,
+sometimes from kings, and sometimes from princes and nobles. Where there
+has been no opposition to absolutism these rights have not been secured;
+but whenever and wherever the people have been a power they have
+imperiously made their wants known, and so far as they have been
+reasonable they have been finally secured,--perhaps after angry
+expostulations and, disputations.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it is this kind of legislation which is remarkable in the history
+of Greece and Rome, secured by a combination of the people against the
+ruling classes in the interests of justice and the common welfare, and
+finally endorsed and upheld even by monarchs themselves. It is from this
+legislation that modern nations have learned wisdom; for a permanent law
+in a free country may be the result of a hundred years of discussion or
+contention,--a compromise of parties, a lesson in human experience. As
+the laws of Greece and Rome alone among the ancients are rich in moral
+wisdom and adapted more or less to all nations and ages in the struggle
+for equal rights and wise social regulations, I shall confine myself to
+them. Besides, I aim not to give useless and curious details, but to
+show how far in general the enlightened nations of antiquity made
+attainments in those things which we call civilization, and particularly
+in that great department which concerns so nearly all human
+interests,--that of the regulation of mutual social relations; and this
+by modes and with results which have had their direct influence upon our
+modern times.</p>
+
+<p>When we consider the native genius of the Greeks, and their marvellous
+achievements in philosophy, literature, and art, we are surprised that
+they were so inferior to the Romans in jurisprudence,--although in the
+early days of the Roman republic a deputation of citizens was sent to
+Athens to study the laws of Solon. But neither nations nor individuals
+are great in everything. Before Solon lived, Lycurgus had given laws to
+the Spartans. This lawgiver, one of the descendants of Hercules, was
+born, according to Grote, about eight hundred and eighty years before
+Christ, and was the uncle of the reigning king. There is, however, no
+certainty as to the time when he lived; it was probably about the period
+when Carthage was founded by the Phoenicians. He instituted the Spartan
+senate, and gave an aristocratic form to the constitution. But the
+senate, composed of about thirty old men who acted in conjunction with
+the two kings, did not differ materially from the council of chiefs, or
+old men, found in other ancient Grecian States; the Spartan chiefs
+simply modified or curtailed the power of the kings. In the course of
+time the senate, with the kings included in it, became the governing
+body of the State, and this oligarchical form of government lasted
+several hundred years. We know but little of the especial laws given by
+Lycurgus. We know the distinctions of society,--citizens and helots,
+and their mutual relations,--the distribution of lands to check luxury,
+the public men, the public training of youth, the severe discipline to
+which all were subjected, the cruelty exercised towards slaves, the
+attention given to gymnastic exercises and athletic sports,--in short,
+the habits and customs of the people rather than any regular system of
+jurisprudence. Lycurgus was the trainer of a military brotherhood rather
+than a law-giver. Under his r&eacute;gime the citizen belonged to the State
+rather than to his family, and all the ends of the State were warlike
+rather than peaceful,--not looking to the settlement of quarrels on
+principles of equity, or a development of industrial interests, which
+are the great aims of modern legislation.</p>
+
+<p>The influence of the Athenian Solon on the laws which affected
+individuals is more apparent than that of the Spartan Lycurgus, the
+earliest of the Grecian legislators. But Solon had a predecessor in
+Athens itself,--Draco, who in 624 was appointed to reduce to writing the
+arbitrary decisions of the archons, thus giving a form of permanent law
+and a basis for a court of appeal. Draco's laws were extraordinarily
+severe, punishing small thefts and even laziness with death. The
+formulation of any system of justice would have, as Draco's did, a
+beneficial influence on the growth of the State; but the severity of
+these bloody laws caused them to be hated and in practice neglected,
+until Solon arose. Solon was born in Athens about 638 B.C., and
+belonged to the noblest family of the State. He was contemporary with
+Pisistratus and Thales. His father having lost his property, Solon
+applied himself to merchandise,--always a respectable calling in a
+mercantile city. He first became known as a writer of love poems; then
+came into prominence as a successful military commander of volunteer
+forces in a disastrous war; and at last he gained the confidence of his
+countrymen so completely that in a period of anarchy, distress, and
+mutiny,--the poor being so grievously oppressed by the rich that a sixth
+part of the produce of land went to the landlord,--he was chosen archon,
+with authority to revise the laws, and might have made himself king. He
+abolished the custom of selling the body of a debtor for debt, and even
+annulled debts in a state of general distress,--which did not please the
+rich, nor even the poor, since they desired a redivision of lands such
+as Lycurgus had made in Sparta. He repealed the severe laws of Draco,
+which inflicted capital punishment for so many small offences, retaining
+the extreme penalty only for murder and treason. In order further to
+promote the interests of the people, he empowered any man whatever to
+enter an action for one that was injured. He left the great offices of
+state, however, in the hands of the rich, giving the people a share in
+those which were not so important. He re-established the council of the
+Areopagus, composed of those who had been archons, and nine were
+appointed annually for the general guardianship of the laws; but he
+instituted another court or senate of four hundred citizens, for the
+cognizance of all matters before they were submitted to the higher
+court. Although the poorest and most numerous class were not eligible
+for office, they had the right of suffrage, and could vote for the
+principal officers. It would at first seem that the legislation of Solon
+gave especial privileges to the rich, but it is generally understood
+that he was the founder of the democracy of Athens. He gave the
+Athenians, not the best possible code, but the best they were capable of
+receiving. He intended to give to the people as much power as was
+strictly needed, and no more; but in a free State the people continually
+encroach on the privileges of the rich, and thus gradually the chief
+power falls into their hands.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the power which Solon gave to the people, and however great
+their subsequent encroachments, it cannot be doubted that he was the
+first to lay the foundations of constitutional government,--that is, one
+in which the people took part in legislation and in the election of
+rulers. The greatest benefit which he conferred on the State was in the
+laws which gave relief to poor debtors, those which enabled people to
+protect themselves by constitutional means, and those which prohibited
+fathers from selling their daughters and sisters for slaves,--an
+abomination which had long disgraced the Athenian republic.</p>
+
+<p>Some of Solon's laws were of questionable utility. He prohibited the
+exportation of the fruits of the soil in Attica, with the exception of
+olive-oil alone,--a regulation difficult to be enforced in a mercantile
+State. Neither would he grant citizenship to immigrants; and he released
+sons from supporting their parents in old age if the parents had
+neglected to give them a trade. He encouraged all developments of
+national industries, knowing that the wealth of the State depended on
+them. Solon was the first Athenian legislator who granted the power of
+testamentary bequests when a man had no legitimate children. Sons
+succeeded to the property of their parents, with the obligation of
+giving a marriage dowry to their sisters. If there were no sons, the
+daughters inherited the property of their parents; but a person who had
+no children could bequeath his property to whom he pleased. Solon
+prohibited costly sacrifices at funerals; he forbade evil-speaking of
+the dead, and indeed of all persons before judges and archons; he
+pronounced a man infamous who took part in a sedition.</p>
+
+<p>When this enlightened and disinterested man had finished his work of
+legislation, 494 B.C, he visited Egypt and Cyprus, and devoted his
+leisure to the composition of poems. He also, it is said, when a
+prisoner in the hands of the Persians, visited Croesus, the rich king of
+Lydia, and gave to him an admonitory lesson on the vicissitudes of life.
+After a prolonged absence, Solon returned to Athens about the time of
+the usurpation of his kinsman Peisistratus (560 B.C.), who, however,
+suffered the aged legislator and patriot to go unharmed, and even
+allowed most of his laws to remain in force.</p>
+
+<p>The constitution and laws of Athens continued substantially for about a
+hundred years after the archonship of Solon, when the democratic party
+under Cleisthenes gained complete ascendency. Some modification of the
+laws was then made. The political franchise was extended to all free
+native Athenians. The command of the military forces was given to ten
+generals, one from each tribe, instead of being intrusted to one of the
+archons. The Ecclesia, a formal assembly of the citizens, met more
+frequently. The people were called into direct action as <i>dikasts</i>, or
+jurors; all citizens were eligible to the magistracy, even to the
+archonship; ostracism,--which virtually was exile without
+disgrace,--became a political necessity to check the ascendency of
+demagogues.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the main features of the constitution and jurisprudence of
+Athens when the struggle between the patricians and plebeians of Rome
+began, to which we now give our attention. It was the real beginning of
+constitutional liberty in Rome. Before this time the government was in
+the hands either of kings or aristocrats. The patricians were
+descendants of the original Latin, Sabine, and Etruscan families; the
+plebeians were the throng of common folk brought in by conquest or later
+immigration,--mostly of Latin origin. The senate was the ruling power
+after the expulsion of the kings, and senators were selected from the
+great patrician families, who controlled by their wealth and influence
+the popular elections, the army and navy, and all foreign relations.
+Consuls, the highest magistrates, who commanded the armies, were
+annually elected by the people; but for several centuries the consuls
+belonged to great families. The constitution was essentially
+aristocratic, and the aristocracy was based on wealth. Power was in the
+hands of nobles, whether their ancestors were patricians or plebeians,
+although in the early ages of the Republic they were mostly patricians
+by birth. But with the growth of Rome new families that were not
+descended from the ancient tribes became prominent,--like the Claudii,
+the Julii, and the Servilii,--and were incorporated with the nobility.
+There are very few names in Roman history before the time of Marius
+which did not belong to this noble class. The <i>plebs</i>, or common people,
+had at first no political privileges whatever, not even the right of
+suffrage, and were not allowed to marry into patrician rank. Indeed,
+they were politically and socially oppressed.</p>
+
+<p>The first great event which gave the plebs protection and political
+importance was the appointment of representatives called &quot;tribunes of
+the people,&quot;--a privilege extorted from the patricians. The tribunes had
+the right to be present at the deliberations of the senate; their
+persons were inviolable, and they had the power of veto over obnoxious
+laws. Their power continually increased, until they were finally elected
+from the senatorial body. In 421 B.C. the plebs had gained sufficient
+influence to establish the <i>connubium</i>, by which they were allowed to
+intermarry with patricians. In the same year they were admitted to the
+quaestorship, which office entitled the possessor to a seat in the
+senate. The quaestors had charge of the public money. In 336 B.C. the
+plebeians obtained the praetorship, a judicial office.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 286 B.C. the distinctions vanished between plebeians and
+patricians, and the term <i>populus</i> instead of <i>plebs</i>, was applied to
+all Roman people alike. Originally the <i>populus</i> comprised strictly
+Roman citizens, those who belonged to the original tribes, and who had
+the right of suffrage. When the plebeians obtained access to the great
+offices of the state, the senate represented the whole people as it
+formerly represented the <i>populus</i>, and the term <i>populus</i> was enlarged
+to embrace the entire community.</p>
+
+<p>The senate was an august body, and was very powerful. It was both
+judicial and legislative, and for several centuries was composed of
+patricians alone. Its members always belonged to the aristocracy,
+whether of patrician or plebeian descent, and were supposed to be rich.
+Under Augustus it required one million two hundred thousand sesterces
+annually to support the senatorial dignity. The senate, the members of
+which were chosen for life, had the superintendence of matters of
+religion and foreign relations; it commanded the levies of troops; it
+regulated duties and taxes; it gave audience to ambassadors; it
+determined upon the way that war should be conducted; it decreed to what
+provinces governors should be sent; it declared martial law in the
+appointment of dictators; and it decreed triumphs to fortunate generals.
+The senators, as a badge of distinction, wore upon their tunics a broad
+purple stripe, and they had the privilege of the best seats in the
+theatres. Their decisions were laws <i>(leges).</i> A large part of them had
+held curule offices, which entitled them to a seat in the senate for
+life. The curule officers were the consuls, the praetors, the aediles,
+the quaestors, the tribunes; so that an able senator was sure of a great
+office in the course of his life. A man could scarcely be a senator
+unless he had held a great office, nor could he often have held a great
+office unless he were a senator. Thus it would seem that the Roman
+constitution for three hundred years after the expulsion of the kings
+was essentially aristocratic. The <i>plebs</i> had but small consideration
+till the time of the Gracchi.</p>
+
+<p>But after the institution of tribunes a change in the constitution
+gradually took place, so that it was neither aristocratic nor popular
+exclusively, but was composed of both elements, and was a system of
+balance of power between the various classes. The more complete the
+balance of power, the closer is the resemblance to a constitutional
+government. When one class acted as a check against another class, as
+gradually came to pass, until the subversion of liberties by successful
+generals, the senate, the magistrates, and the people in their
+assemblies shared between them the political power, but the senate had a
+preponderating influence. The judicial, the legislative, and the
+executive authority was as well defined in Roman legislation as it is in
+English or American. No person was above the authority of the laws; no
+one class could subvert the liberties and prerogatives of another
+class,--even the senate could not override the constitution. The
+consuls, elected by the centuries, presided over the senate and over the
+assemblies of the people. There was no absolute power exercised at Rome
+until the subversion of the constitution, except by dictators chosen by
+the senate in times of imminent danger. Nor could senators elect members
+of their own body; the censors alone had the right of electing from the
+ex-magistrates, and of excluding such as were unworthy. The consuls
+could remain in office but a year, and could be called to account when
+their terms of office had expired. The tribunes of the people ultimately
+could prevent a consul from convening the senate, could seize a consul
+and imprison him, and could veto an ordinance of the senate itself. The
+nobles had no exclusive privilege like the feudal aristocracy of
+mediaeval Europe, although it was their aim to secure the high
+magistracies to the members of their own body. The term <i>nobilitas</i>
+implied that some one of a man's ancestors had filled a curule
+magistracy. A patrician, long before the reforms of the Gracchi, had
+become a man of secondary importance, but the nobles were aristocrats to
+the close of the republic, and continued to secure the highest offices;
+they prevented their own extinction by admitting into their ranks those
+who distinguished themselves,--that is, exercising their influence in
+the popular elections to secure the magistracies from among themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman constitution then, as gradually developed by the necessities
+and crises that arose, which I have not space to mention, was a
+wonderful monument of human wisdom. The nobility were very powerful from
+their wealth and influence, but the people were not ground down. There
+were no oppressive laws to reduce them to practical slavery; what rights
+they gained they retained. They constantly extorted new privileges,
+until they were sufficiently powerful to be courted by demagogues. It
+was the demagogues, generally aristocratic ones, like Catiline and
+Caesar, who subverted the liberties of the people by buying votes. But
+for nearly five hundred years not a man arose whom the Roman people
+feared, and the proud symbol &quot;SPQR,&quot; on the standards of the armies of
+the republic, bore the name of the Roman Senate and People to the ends
+of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>When, however, the senate came to be made up of men whom the great
+generals selected; when the tribunes played into the hands of the very
+men they were created to oppose; when the high-priest of a people,
+originally religious, was chosen politically and without regard to moral
+or religious consideration; when aristocratic nobles left their own
+ranks to steal the few offices which the people controlled,--then the
+constitution, under which the Romans had advanced to the conquest of the
+world, became subverted, and the empire was a consolidated despotism.</p>
+
+<p>Under the emperors there was no constitution, since they combined in
+their own persons all the great offices of state, and controlled the
+senate, the army, the tribunals of the law, the distant provinces, the
+city itself, and regulated taxes and imposed burdens as they pleased.
+The senate lost its independence, the courts their justice, the army its
+spirit, and the people their hopes. And yet the old forms remained; the
+senate met as in the days of the Gracchi, and there were consuls and
+praetors as before.</p>
+
+<p>However much we may deplore the subversion of the Roman constitution and
+the absolute reign of the emperors, in which most historians see a
+political necessity, there was yet under these emperors, whether good or
+bad, the reign of law, the bequest of five hundred years' experience.
+The emperors reigned despotically, but under the forms of legislation.
+Nor did they attempt to subvert laws which did not interfere with their
+own political power. What is called jurisprudence they even improved, as
+that later imperial despot Napoleon gave a code to the nation he ruled.
+It is this science of jurisprudence, for which the Romans had a genius,
+that gives them their highest claim to be ranked among the benefactors
+of mankind. They created legal science. Its aim was justice,--equity in
+the relations between man and man. This was the pride of the Roman
+world, even under the rule of tyrants and madmen, and this has survived
+all the calamities of fifteen hundred years. The Roman laws--founded by
+the Republic, but symmetrically completed by the Empire--have more
+powerfully affected the interests of civilization than have the
+philosophy and arts of Greece. Roman jurisprudence was not perfectly
+developed until five hundred years after the Christian era, when
+Justinian consolidated it into the Code, the Pandects, and the
+Institutes. The classical jurists, like Gaius, Ulpian, and Paulus, may
+have laid the foundation, but the superstructure was raised under the
+auspices of the imperial despots.</p>
+
+<p>The earliest code of Roman laws was called the Twelve Tables, framed
+from the report of the commissioners sent to Athens and other Greek
+States, to collect what was most useful in their legal systems. The laws
+of the Twelve Tables were the basis of all the Roman laws, civil and
+religious. But the edicts of the praetors, who were the great equity
+judges as well as the common-law magistrates, proclaimed certain changes
+which custom and the practice of the courts had introduced; and these,
+added to the <i>leges populi</i>, or laws proposed by the consul and passed
+by the centuries, the <i>plebiscita</i>, or laws proposed by the tribunes
+and passed by the tribes, and the <i>senatus consulta,</i> or decrees of the
+senate, gradually swelled the laws to a great number. Three thousand
+engraved plates of brass containing these various laws were deposited in
+the capitol.</p>
+
+<p>Subtleties and fictions were in the course of litigations introduced by
+the lawyers to defeat the written statutes, and jurisprudence became
+complicated as early as the time of Cicero. Even the opinions of eminent
+lawyers were adopted by the legal profession as authoritative, and were
+recognized by the courts. The evils of a complicated jurisprudence were
+so evident in the seventh century of the city, that Q. Mucius Scaevola,
+a great lawyer, when consul, published a scientific elaboration of the
+civil law. Cicero studied law under him, and his contemporaries, Varus
+and Aelius Gallus, wrote learned treatises, from which extracts appear
+in the Digest made under the Emperor Justinian, 528 A.D. Julius Caesar
+contemplated a complete revision of the laws, but did not live long
+enough to carry out his intentions. His legislation, so far as he
+directed his mind to it, was very just. Among other laws established by
+him was one which ordained that creditors should accept lands as payment
+for their outstanding debts, according to the value determined by
+commissioners. In his time the relative value of money had changed, and
+was greatly diminished. The most important law of Augustus, deserving of
+all praise, was that which related to the manumission of slaves; but he
+did not interfere with the social relations of the people after he had
+deprived them of political liberty. He once attempted, by his <i>Lex
+Julia</i>, to counteract the custom which then prevailed, of abstaining
+from legal marriage and substituting concubinage instead, by which the
+free population declined; but this attempt to improve the morals of the
+people met with such opposition from the tribes and centuries that the
+next emperor abolished popular assemblies altogether, which Augustus had
+feared to do. The senate in the time of the emperors, composed chiefly
+of lawyers and magistrates, and entirely dependent upon them, became the
+great fountain of law. By the original constitution the people were the
+source of power, and the senate merely gave or refused its approbation
+to the laws proposed; but under the emperors the <i>comitia</i>, or popular
+assemblies, disappeared, and the senate passed decrees which had the
+force of laws, subject to the veto of the Emperor. It was not until the
+time of Septimus Severus and Caracalla (second century A.D.) that the
+legislative action of the senate ceased, and the edicts and rescripts of
+emperors took the place of all legislation.</p>
+
+<p>The golden age of Roman jurisprudence was from the birth of Cicero to
+the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus, 222 A.D.; before this period
+it was an occult science, confined to praetors, pontiffs, and patrician
+lawyers. But in the latter days of the republic law became the
+fashionable study of Roman youth, and eminent masters arose. The first
+great lawyer who left behind him important works was Q. Mucius Scaevola,
+who wrote a treatise in eighteen books on the civil law. &quot;He was,&quot; says
+Cicero, &quot;the most eloquent of jurists and the most learned of orators.&quot;
+This work, George Long thinks, had a great influence on contemporaries
+and on subsequent jurists, who followed it as a model. It is the oldest
+work from which there are any excerpts in the Digest.</p>
+
+<p>Servius Sulpicius, the friend of Cicero and his fellow-student in
+oratory, surpassed his teachers Balbus and Gallus, and was the equal in
+reputation of the great Mucius Scaevola, the Pontifex Maximus, who said
+it was disgraceful for a patrician and a noble to be ignorant of the law
+with which he had to do. Cicero ascribes the great superiority of
+Servius as a lawyer to the study of philosophy, which disciplined and
+developed his mind, and enabled him to deduce his conclusions from his
+premises with logical precision. He left behind him one hundred and
+eighty treatises, and had numerous pupils, among whom A. Ofilius and
+Alfenus Varus, Cato, Julius Caesar, Antony, and Cicero were great
+lawyers. Labeo, in the time of Augustus, wrote four hundred books on
+jurisprudence, spending six months in the year in giving instruction to
+his pupils and in answering legal questions, and the other six months in
+the country in writing books. Like all the great Roman jurists, he was
+versed in literature and philosophy, and so devoted to his profession
+that he refused political office. His rival Capito was equally learned
+in all departments of the law, and left behind him as many treatises as
+Labeo. These two jurists were the founders of celebrated schools, like
+the ancient philosophers, and each had distinguished followers. Gaius,
+who flourished in the time of the Antonines, was a great legal
+authority; and the recent discovery of his Institutes has revealed the
+least mutilated fragment of Roman jurisprudence which exists, and one of
+the most valuable, which sheds great light on ancient Roman law; it was
+found in the library of Verona. No Roman jurist had a higher reputation
+than Papinian, who was praefectus praetorio under Septimius Severus (193
+A.D.),--an office which made him second only to the Emperor, a sort of
+grand vizier, whose power extended over all departments of the State; he
+was beheaded by Caracalla. The great commentator Cujacius declares that
+he was the first of all lawyers who have been, or who are to be; that no
+one ever surpassed him in legal knowledge, and no one will ever equal
+him. Paulus was his contemporary, and held the same office as Papinian.
+He was the most fertile of Roman law-writers, and there is more taken
+from him in Justinian's Digest than from any other jurist, except
+Ulpian. There are two thousand and eighty-three excerpts from this
+writer,--one sixth of the whole Digest. No legal writer, ancient or
+modern, has handled so many subjects. In perspicuity he is said to be
+inferior to Ulpian, one of the most famous of jurists, who was his
+contemporary. Ulpian has also exercised a great influence on modern
+jurisprudence from the copious extracts of his writings in the Digest.
+He was the chief adviser of Alexander Severus, and like Paulus was
+praefectus praetorio. The number of excerpts in the Digest from him is
+said to be two thousand four hundred and sixty-two, and they form a
+third part of it. Some fragments of his writings remain. The last of the
+great civilians associated with Gaius, Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian, as
+oracles of jurisprudence, was Modestinus, who was a pupil of Ulpian. He
+wrote both in Greek and Latin. There are three hundred and forty-five
+excerpts in the Digest from his writings, the titles of which show the
+extent and variety of his labors.</p>
+
+<p>These eminent lawyers shed great glory on the Roman civilization. In the
+earliest times men sought distinction on the fields of battle, but in
+the latter days of the republic honor was conferred for forensic
+ability. The first pleaders of Rome were not jurisconsults, but
+aristocratic &quot;patrons,&quot; who looked after their &quot;clients,&quot;--men of lower
+social grade, who in return for protection and assistance rendered
+service, sometimes political by voting, sometimes pecuniary, sometimes
+military. But when law became complicated, a class of men arose to
+interpret it. These men were held in great honor, and reached by their
+services the highest offices,--like Cicero and Hortensius. No
+remuneration was given originally for forensic pleading beyond the
+services which the client gave to a patron, but gradually the practice
+of the law became lucrative. Hortensius, as well as Cicero, gained an
+immense fortune; he had several villas, a gallery of paintings, a large
+stock of wines, parks, fish-ponds, and aviaries. Cicero had villas in
+all parts of Italy, a house on the Palatine with columns of Numidian
+marble, and a fortune of twenty millions of sesterces, equal to eight
+hundred thousand dollars. Most of the great statesmen of Rome in the
+time of Cicero were either lawyers or generals. Crassus, Pompey, P.
+Sextus, M. Marcellus, P. Clodius, Asinius Pollio, C. Cicero, M.
+Antonius, Julius Caesar, Caelius, Brutus, Catullus, were all celebrated
+for their forensic efforts. Candidates for the bar studied four years
+under a distinguished jurist, and were required to pass a rigorous
+examination. The judges were chosen from members of the bar, as well as
+in later times the senators. The great lawyers were not only learned in
+the law, but possessed great accomplishments. Varro was a lawyer, and
+was the most learned man that Rome ever produced. But under the emperors
+the lawyers were chiefly distinguished for their legal attainments, like
+Paulus and Ulpian.</p>
+
+<p>During this golden age of Roman jurisprudence many commentaries were
+written on the Twelve Tables, the Perpetual Edict, the Laws of the
+People, and the Decrees of the senate, as well as a vast mass of
+treatises on every department of the law, most of which have perished.
+The Institutes of Gaius, already mentioned, are the most valuable that
+remain, and have thrown great light on some important branches
+previously involved in obscurity. Their use in explaining the Institutes
+of Justinian is spoken of very highly by Mackenzie, since the latter are
+mainly founded on the long-lost work of Gaius. The great lawyers who
+flourished from Trajan to Alexander Severus, like Gaius, Ulpian, Paulus,
+Papinian, and Modestinus, had no successors who can be compared with
+them, and their works became standard authorities in the courts of law.</p>
+
+<p>After the death of Alexander Severus, 235 A.D., no great accession was
+made to Roman law until Theodosius II., 438 A.D., caused the
+constitutions, from Constantine to his own time, to be collected and
+arranged in sixteen books. This was called the Theodosian Code, which
+in the West was held in high esteem. It was very influential among the
+Germanic nations, serving as the chief basis of their early legislation;
+it also paved the way for the more complete codification that followed
+in the Justinian Code, which superseded it.</p>
+
+<p>To Justinian belongs the immortal glory of reforming the jurisprudence
+of the Romans. &quot;In the space of ten centuries,&quot; says Gibbon, &quot;the
+infinite variety of laws and legal opinions had filled many thousand
+volumes, which no fortune could purchase, and no capacity could digest.
+Books could not easily be found, and the judges, poor in the midst of
+riches, were reduced to the exercise of their illiterate discretion.&quot;
+The emperors had very early begun to issue ordinances, under the
+authority of the various offices gathered into their hands; and these,
+together with the answers to appeals from the lower courts made to the
+emperors directly, or to the sort of supreme court which they
+established, were called <i>imperial constitutions</i> and <i>rescripts</i>.
+Justinian determined to unite in one body all the rules of law, whatever
+may have been their origin; and in the year 528 appointed ten
+jurisconsults, among whom was the celebrated Tribonian, to select and
+arrange the imperial constitutions and rescripts, leaving out what was
+obsolete or useless or contradictory, and to make such alterations as
+the circumstances required. This was called the <i>Code</i>, divided into
+twelve books, and comprising the constitutions from Hadrian to
+Justinian. It was published in fourteen months after it was undertaken.</p>
+
+<p>Justinian thereupon authorized Tribonian, then quaestor, <i>vir magnificus
+magisteria dignitate inter agentes decoratus,</i>--&quot;for great titles were
+now given to the officers of the crown,&quot;--to prepare, with the
+assistance of sixteen associates, a collection of extracts from the
+writings of the most eminent jurists, so as to form a body of law for
+the government of the empire, with power to select and omit and alter;
+and this immense work was done in three years, and published under the
+title of Digest, or Pandects. Says Lord Mackenzie:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All the judicial learning of former times was laid under contribution
+by Tribonian and his colleagues. Selections from the works of
+thirty-nine of the ablest lawyers, scattered over two thousand separate
+treatises, were collected in one volume; and care was taken to inform
+posterity that three millions of lines were abridged and reduced in
+these extracts to the modest number of one hundred and fifty thousand.
+Among the selected jurists only three names belonged to the age of the
+republic,--the civilians who flourished under the first emperors are
+seldom appealed to; so that most of the writers whose works have
+contributed to the Pandects lived within a period of one hundred years.
+More than a third of the whole Pandects is from Ulpian, and next to him
+the principal writers are Paulus, Papinian, Salvius Julianus, Pomponius,
+Q. Cervidius Scaevola, and Gaius. Though the variety of subjects is
+immense, the Digest has no claims to scientific arrangement. It is a
+vast cyclopedia of heterogeneous law badly arranged; everything is
+there, but everything is not in its proper place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Neither the Digest nor the Code was adapted to elementary instruction;
+it was therefore necessary to prepare a treatise on the principles of
+Roman law. This was intrusted to Tribonian and two professors,
+Theophilus and Dorotheus. It is probable that Tribonian merely
+superintended the work, which was founded chiefly on the Institutes of
+Gaius, divided into four books. It has been universally admired for its
+method and elegant precision. It was intended merely as an introduction
+to the Pandects and the Code, and was entitled the Institutes.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Novels</i>, or <i>New Constitutions, of Justinian</i> were subsequently
+published, being the new ordinances of the Emperor and the changes he
+thought proper to make, and were therefore of high authority. The Code,
+Pandects, Institutes, and Novels of Justinian comprise the Roman law as
+received in Europe, in the form given by the school of Bologna, and is
+called the &quot;Corpus Juris Civilis.&quot; Savigny says:--</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was in that form that the Roman law became the common law of Europe;
+and when, four centuries later, other sources came to be added to it,
+the <i>Corpus Juris</i> of the school of Bologna had been so universally
+received, and so long established as a basis of practice, that the new
+discoveries remained in the domain of science, and served only for the
+theory of the law. For the same reason, the Ante-Justinian law is
+excluded from practice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After Justinian the old texts were left to moulder as useless though
+venerable, and they have nearly all disappeared. The Code, the Pandects,
+and the Institutes were declared to be the only legitimate authority,
+and alone were admitted to the tribunals or taught in the schools. The
+rescripts of the early emperors recognized too many popular rights to
+suit the despotic character of Justinian; and the older jurists, like
+the Scaevolas, Sulpicius, and Labeo, were distasteful from their
+sympathy with free institutions. Different opinions have been expressed
+by the jurisconsults as to the merits of the Justinian collection. By
+some it is regarded as a vast mass of legal lumber; by others, as a
+beautiful monument of human labor. After the lapse of so many centuries
+it is certain that a large portion of it is of no practical utility,
+since it is not applicable to modern wants. But again, no one doubts
+that it has exercised a great and good influence on moral and political
+science, and introduced many enlightened views concerning the
+administration of justice as well as the nature of civil government, and
+thus has modified the codes of the Teutonic nations that sprang up on
+the ruins of the old Roman world. It was used in the Greek empire until
+the fall of Constantinople. It never entirely lost authority in Italy,
+although it remained buried for centuries, till the discovery of the
+Florentine copy of the Pandects at the siege of Amalfi in 1135. Peter
+Valence, in the eleventh century, made use of it in a law-book which he
+published.</p>
+
+<p>With the rise of the Italian cities, the study of Roman law revived, and
+Bologna became the seat from which it spread over Europe. In the
+sixteenth century the science of theoretical law passed from Italy to
+France, under the auspices of Francis I., when Cujas, or Cujacius,
+became the great ornament of the school of Bourges and the greatest
+commentator on Roman law until Dumoulin appeared. Grotius, in Holland,
+excited the same interest in civil law that Dumoulin did in France,
+followed by eminent professors in Leyden and the German universities. It
+was reserved for Pothier, in the middle of the eighteenth century, to
+reduce the Roman law to systematic order,--one of the most gigantic
+tasks that ever taxed the industry of man. The recent discoveries,
+especially that made by Niebuhr of the long-lost work of Gaius, have
+given a great impulse to the study of Roman law in Germany; and to this
+impulse no one has contributed so greatly as Savigny of Berlin.</p>
+
+<p>The great importance of the subject demands a more minute notice of the
+principles of the Roman law than the limits of this work properly allow.
+I shall therefore endeavor to abridge what has been written by eminent
+authorities, taking as a basis the late work of Lord Mackenzie and the
+learned and interesting essay of Professor Maine.</p>
+
+<p>The Institutes of Justinian began with the law of persons, recognizing
+the distinction of ranks. All persons are capable of enjoying civil
+rights, but not all in the same degree. Greater privileges are allowed
+to men than to women, to freemen than to slaves, to fathers than
+to children.</p>
+
+<p>In the eye of the law all Roman citizens were equal wherever they lived,
+whether in the capital or the provinces. Citizenship embraced both
+political and civil rights. Political rights had reference to the right
+of voting in the comitia; but this was not considered the essence of
+citizenship, which was the enjoyment of the <i>connubium</i>, and
+<i>commercium</i>. By the former the citizen could contract a valid marriage
+and acquire the rights resulting from it, particularly the paternal
+power; by the latter he could acquire and dispose of property.
+Citizenship was acquired by birth and by manumission; it was lost when a
+Roman became a prisoner of war, or had been exiled for crime, or became
+a citizen of another State. An unsullied reputation was required by law
+for a citizen to exercise his rights to their full extent.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman jurists acknowledged all persons originally free by natural
+law; and while they recognized slavery, they ascribed the power of
+masters entirely to the law and custom of nations. Persons taken in war
+were considered at the absolute control of their captors, and were
+therefore, <i>de facto</i>, slaves; the children of a female slave followed
+the condition of their mother, and belonged to her master. But masters
+could manumit their slaves, who thus became Roman citizens with some
+restrictions. After the emancipation of a slave, he was bound to render
+certain services to his former master as patron, and if the freedman
+died intestate his property reverted to his patron.</p>
+
+<p>Marriage was contracted by the simple consent of the parties, though in
+early times equality of condition was required. The <i>lex Canuleia</i>,
+A.U.C. 309, authorized connubium between patricians and plebeians, and
+the <i>lex Julia</i>, A.U.C. 757, allowed it between freedmen and freeborn.
+By the <i>conventio in manum</i>, a wife passed out of her family into that
+of her husband, who acquired all her property; without it, the woman
+remained in the power of her father, and retained the free disposition
+of her property. Polygamy was not permitted; and relationship within
+certain degrees rendered the parties incapable of contracting marriage.
+(These rules as to forbidden degrees have been substantially adopted in
+England.) Celibacy was discouraged. Concubinage was allowed, if a man
+had not a wife, and provided the concubine was not the wife of another
+man; this heathenish custom was abrogated by Justinian. The wife was
+entitled to protection and support from her husband, and she retained
+her property independent of him. On her marriage the father gave his
+daughter a dowry in proportion to his means, the management of which,
+with its usufruct during marriage, belonged to the husband; but he could
+not alienate real estate without the wife's consent, and on the
+dissolution of marriage the <i>dos</i> reverted to the wife. Divorce existed
+in all ages at Rome, and was very common at the beginning of the empire;
+to check its prevalence, laws were passed inflicting severe penalties on
+those whose bad conduct led to it. Every man, whether married or not,
+could adopt children under certain restrictions, and they passed
+entirely under paternal power. But the marriage relation among the
+Romans did not accord after all with those principles of justice which
+we see in other parts of their legislative code. The Roman husband, like
+the father, was a tyrant. The facility of divorce destroyed mutual
+confidence, and inflamed every trifling dispute; for a word or a
+message or a letter or the mandate of a freedman was quite sufficient to
+secure a separation. It was not until Christianity became the religion
+of the empire that divorce could not be easily effected without a just
+cause. This facility of divorce was a great stigma on the Roman laws,
+and the degradation of woman was the principal consequence. But woman
+never was honored in any Pagan land, although her condition at Rome was
+better than it was at Athens. She always was regarded as a possession
+rather than as a person; her virtue was mistrusted, and her aspirations
+were scorned; she was hampered and guarded more like a slave than the
+equal companion of man. But the progress of legislation, as a whole, was
+in her favor, and she continued to gain new privileges until the fall of
+the empire. The Roman Catholic Church regards marriage as one of the
+sacraments, and through all the Middle Ages and down to our own day the
+great authority of the Church has been one of the strongest supports of
+that institution, as necessary to Christianity as to civilization. We
+Americans have improved on the morality of Jesus, of the early and later
+Church, and of the great nations of modern Europe; and in many of our
+States persons are allowed to slip out of the marriage tie about as
+easily as they get into it.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is more remarkable in the Roman laws than the extent of
+paternal power. It was unjust, and bears the image of a barbarous age.
+Moreover, it seems to have been coeval with the foundation of the city.
+A father could chastise his children by stripes, by imprisonment, by
+exile, by sending them to the country with chains on their feet. He was
+even armed with the power of life and death. &quot;Neither age nor rank,&quot;
+says Gibbon, &quot;nor the consular office, could exempt the most illustrious
+citizen from the bonds of filial subjection. Without fear, though not
+without danger of abuse, the Roman legislators had reposed unbounded
+confidence in the sentiments of paternal love, and the oppression was
+tempered by the assurance that each generation must succeed in its turn
+to the awful dignity of parent and master.&quot; By an express law of the
+Twelve Tables a father could sell his children as slaves. But the abuse
+of paternal power was checked in the republic by the censors, and
+afterward by emperors. Alexander Severus limited the right of the father
+to simple correction, and Constantine declared the father who should
+kill his son to be guilty of murder. The rigor of parents in reference
+to the disposition of the property of children was also gradually
+relaxed. Under Augustus, the son could keep absolute possession of what
+he had acquired in war; under Constantine, he could retain any property
+acquired in the civil service, and all property inherited from the
+mother could also be retained. In later times, a father could not give
+his son or daughter to another by adoption without their consent. Thus
+this <i>patria potestas</i> was gradually relaxed as civilization advanced,
+though it remained a peculiarity of Roman law to the latest times, and
+was severer than is ever seen in the modern world. Fathers were bound to
+maintain their children when they had no separate means to supply their
+wants, and children were also bound to maintain their parents if in
+want. These reciprocal duties, creditable to the Roman lawgivers, are
+recognized in the French Code, but not in the English, which also
+recognizes the right of a father to bequeath his whole estate to
+strangers,--a thing which Roman fathers had not power to do. The age
+when children attained majority among the Romans was twenty-five years.
+Women were condemned to the perpetual tutelage of parents, husbands, or
+guardians, as it was supposed they never could attain to the age of
+reason and experience. The relation of guardian and ward was strictly
+observed by the Romans. They made a distinction between the right to
+govern a person and the right to manage his estate, although the tutor
+or guardian could do both. If the pupil was an infant, the tutor could
+act without the intervention of the pupil; if the pupil was above seven
+years of age, he was considered to have an imperfect will. The youth
+ceased to be a pupil, if a boy, at fourteen; if a girl, at twelve. The
+tutor managed the estate of the pupil, but was liable for loss
+occasioned by bad management. He could sell movable property when
+expedient, but not real estate, without judicial authority. The tutor
+named by the father was preferred to all others.</p>
+
+<p>The Institutes of Justinian pass from persons to things, or the law
+relating to real rights; in other words, that which pertains to
+property. Some things common to all, like air, light, the ocean, and
+things sacred, like temples and churches, are not classed as property.</p>
+
+<p>Two things were required for the transfer of property, for it is the
+essence of property that the owner of a thing should have the right to
+transfer it,--first, the consent of the owner to transfer the thing upon
+some just ground; and secondly, the actual delivery of the thing to the
+person who is to acquire it. Movables were presumed to be the property
+of the possessors, until positive evidence was produced to the contrary.
+A prescriptive title to movables was acquired by possession for one
+year, and to immovables by possession for two years. Undisturbed
+possession for thirty years constituted in general a valid title.</p>
+
+<p>When a Roman died, his heirs succeeded to all his property by hereditary
+right. If he left no will, his estate devolved upon his relatives in a
+certain order prescribed by law. The power of making a testament only
+belonged to citizens above puberty. Children under the paternal power
+could not make a will. Males above fourteen and females above twelve,
+when not under power, could make wills without the authority of their
+guardian; but pupils, lunatics, prisoners of war, criminals, and various
+other persons were incapable of making a testament. The testator could
+divide his property among his heirs in such proportions as he saw fit;
+but if there was no distribution, all the heirs participated equally. A
+man could disinherit either of his children by declaring his intentions
+in his will, but only for grave reasons,--such as grievously injuring
+his person or character or feelings, or attempting his life. No will was
+effectual unless one or more persons were appointed heirs to represent
+the deceased. Wills were required to be signed by the testator, or some
+person for him, in the presence of seven witnesses who were Roman
+citizens. If a will was made by a parent for distributing his property
+solely among his children, no witnesses were required; and the ordinary
+formalities were dispensed with among soldiers in actual service, and
+during the prevalence of pestilence. The testament was opened in the
+presence of the witnesses, or a majority of them; and after they had
+acknowledged their seals a copy was made, and the original was deposited
+in the public archives.</p>
+
+<p>According to the Twelve Tables, the powers of a testator in disposing
+of his property were unlimited; but in process of time, laws were
+enacted to restrain immoderate or unnatural bequests. By the Falcidian
+law, in the time of Augustus, no one could leave in legacies more than
+three fourths of his estate, so that the heirs could inherit at least
+one fourth. Again, a law was passed by which the descendants were
+entitled to one third of the succession, and to one half if there were
+more than four. In France, if a man die leaving one lawful child, he can
+dispose of only half his estate by will; if he leaves two children, he
+can dispose only of one third; if he leaves three or more children, then
+he can dispose by will of only one fourth of his estate. In England, a
+man can disinherit both his wife and children. These, and many other
+matters,--bequests in trust, succession of men dying intestate, heirs at
+law, etc.,--were regulated by the Romans in ways on which our modern
+legislators have improved little or none.</p>
+
+<p>In the matter of contracts the Roman law was especially comprehensive,
+and the laws of France and Scotland are substantially based upon the
+Roman system. The Institutes of Gaius and Justinian distinguish four
+sorts of obligations,--<i>aut re, aut verbis, aut literis, aut consensu</i>.
+Gibbon, in his learned chapter, prefers to consider the specific
+obligations of men to each other under promises, benefits, and
+injuries. Lord Mackenzie treats the subject in the order of the
+Institutes:--</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Obligations contracted <i>re</i>--by the intervention of <i>things</i>--are
+called by the moderns real contracts, because they are not perfected
+till something has passed from one party to another. Of this description
+are the contracts of loan, deposit, and pledge,--security for
+indebtedness. Till the subject is actually lent, deposited, or pledged,
+it does not form the special contract of loan, deposit, or pledge.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Next to the perfection of contracts by <i>re</i>,--the intervention of
+things,--were obligations contracted by <i>verbis</i>, spoken <i>words</i>, and by
+<i>literis</i>, or writings. The <i>verborum obligatio</i> was contracted by
+uttering certain words of formal style,--an interrogation being put by
+one party, and an answer given by the other. These stipulations were
+binding. In England all guarantees must be in writing.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>obligatio literis</i> was a written acknowledgment of debt, chiefly
+employed when money was borrowed; but the creditor could not sue upon a
+note within two years from its date, without being called upon also to
+prove that the money was in fact paid to the debtor.</p>
+
+<p>Contracts perfected by consent, <i>consensu</i>, had reference to sale,
+hiring; partnership, and mandate, or orders to be carried out by agents.
+All contracts of sale were good without writing.</p>
+
+<p>Acts which caused damage to another opened a new class of cases. The
+law obliged the wrong-doer to make reparation, and this responsibility
+extended to damages arising not only from positive acts, but from
+negligence or imprudence. In cases of libel or slander, the truth of the
+allegation might be pleaded in justification. In all cases it was
+necessary to show that an injury had been committed maliciously; but if
+damage arose in the exercise of a right, as killing a slave in
+self-defence, no claim for reparation could be maintained. If any one
+exercised a profession or trade for which he was not qualified, he was
+liable to all the damage his want of skill or knowledge might
+occasion,--a provision that some of our modern laws might advantageously
+revive. When any damage was done by a slave or an animal, the owner of
+the same was liable for the loss, though the mischief was done without
+his knowledge and against his will. If anything was thrown from a window
+giving on the public thoroughfare so as to injure any one by the fall,
+the occupier was bound to repair the damage, though done by a stranger.
+Legal claims might be transferred to a third person by sale, exchange,
+or donation; but to prevent speculators from purchasing debts at low
+prices, it was ordered that the assignee should not be entitled to exact
+from the debtor more than he himself had paid to acquire the debt, with
+interest,--a wise and just regulation.</p>
+
+<p>By the ancient constitution, the king had the prerogative of
+determining civil causes. The right then devolved on the consuls,
+afterward on the praetor, and in certain cases on the curule and
+plebeian ediles, who were charged with the internal police of the city.</p>
+
+<p>The praetor, a magistrate next in dignity to the consuls, acted as
+supreme judge of the civil courts, assisted by a council of
+jurisconsults to determine questions in law. At first one praetor was
+sufficient, but as the limits of the city and empire extended, he was
+joined by a colleague. After the conquest of Sicily, Sardinia, and the
+two Spains, new praetors were appointed to administer justice in the
+provinces. The praetor held his court in the comitium, wore a robe
+bordered with purple, sat in a curule chair, and was attended
+by lictors.</p>
+
+<p>The praetor delegated his power to three classes of judges, called
+respectively <i>judex</i>, <i>arbiter</i>, and <i>recuperator</i>. When parties were at
+issue about facts, it was the custom for the praetor to fix the question
+of law upon which the action turned, and then to remit to a delegate, or
+judge, to inquire into the facts and pronounce judgment according to
+them. In the time of Augustus there were four thousand judices, who were
+merely private citizens, generally senators or men of consideration. The
+judex was invested by the magistrate with a judicial commission for a
+single case only. After being sworn to duty, he received from the
+praetor a formula containing a summary of all the points under
+litigation, from which he was not allowed to depart. He was required not
+merely to investigate facts, but to give sentence; and as law questions
+were more or less mixed up with the case, he was allowed to consult one
+or more jurisconsults. If the case was beyond his power to decide, he
+could decline to give judgment. The arbiter, like the judex, received a
+formula from the praetor, and seemed to have more extensive power. The
+recuperators heard and determined cases, but the number appointed for
+each case was usually three or five.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>centumvirs</i> constituted a permanent tribunal composed of members
+annually elected, in equal numbers, from each tribe; and this tribunal
+was presided over by the praetor, and divided into four chambers, which
+under the republic was placed under the ancient quaestors. The
+centumvirs decided questions of property, embracing a wide range of
+subjects. The Romans had no class of men like the judges of modern
+times; the superior magistrates were changed annually, and political
+duties were mixed with judicial. The evil was partially remedied by the
+institution of legal assessors, selected from the most learned
+jurisconsults. Under the empire the praetors were greatly increased;
+under Tiberius there were sixteen who administered justice, besides the
+consuls, six ediles, and ten tribunes of the people. The Emperor himself
+became the supreme judge, and he was assisted in the discharge of his
+judicial duties by a council composed of the consuls, a magistrate of
+each grade, and fifteen senators. At first, the duties of the praetorian
+prefects were purely military, but finally they discharged important
+judicial functions. The prefect of the city, in the time of the
+emperors, was a great judicial personage, who heard appeals from the
+praetors themselves.</p>
+
+<p>In all cases brought before the courts, the burden of proof was with the
+party asserting an affirmative fact. Proof by writing was generally
+considered most certain, but proof by witnesses was also admitted.
+Pupils, lunatics, infamous persons, interested parties, near relatives,
+and slaves could not bear evidence, nor any person who had a strong
+enmity against either party. The witnesses were required to give their
+testimony on oath. In most cases two witnesses were enough to prove a
+fact. When witnesses gave conflicting testimony, the judge regarded
+those who were most worthy of credit rather than those who were most
+numerous. In the English courts the custom used to be as with the
+Romans, of refusing testimony from those who were interested; but this
+has been removed. On the failure of regular proof, the Roman law allowed
+a party to refer the facts in a civil action to the oath of his
+adversary.</p>
+
+<p>Under the Roman republic there was no appeal in civil suits, but under
+the emperors a regular system was established. Under Augustus there was
+an appeal from all the magistrates to the prefect of the city, and from
+him to the praetorian prefect or even to the Emperor. In the provinces
+there was an appeal from the municipal magistrates to the governors, and
+from them to the Emperor, as Paul appealed from Festus to Caesar. Under
+Justinian no appeal was allowed from a suit which did not involve at
+least twenty pounds in gold.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to criminal courts among the Romans during the republic, the
+only body which had absolute power of life and death was the <i>comitia
+centuriata</i>. The senate had no jurisdiction in criminal cases, so far as
+Roman citizens were concerned. It was only in extraordinary emergencies
+that the senate, with the consuls, assumed the responsibility of
+inflicting summary punishment. Under the emperors, the senate was armed
+with the power of criminal jurisdiction; and as the senate was the tool
+of the imperator, he could crush whomsoever he pleased.</p>
+
+<p>As it was inconvenient, when Rome had become a very great city, to
+convene the comitia for the trial of offenders, the expedient was
+adopted of delegating the jurisdiction of the people to persons invested
+with temporary authority, called <i>quaestors</i>. These were finally
+established into regular and permanent courts, called <i>quaestores
+perpetui</i>. Every case submitted to these courts was tried by a judge and
+jury. It was the duty of the judge to preside and regulate proceedings
+according to law; and it was the duty of the jury, after hearing the
+evidence and pleadings, to decide on the guilt or innocence of the
+accused. As many as fifty persons frequently composed the jury, whose
+names were drawn out of an urn. Each party had a right to challenge a
+certain number, and the verdict was decided by a majority of votes. At
+first the judices were chosen from the senate, and afterward from the
+equestrians, and then again from both orders. But in process of time the
+quaestores perpetui gave place to imperial magistrates. The accused
+defended himself in person or by counsel.</p>
+
+<p>The Romans divided <i>crimes</i> into public and private. Private crimes
+could be prosecuted only by the party injured, and were generally
+punished by pecuniary fines, as among the old Germanic nations.</p>
+
+<p>Of public crimes the <i>crimen laesae majestatis</i>, or treason, was
+regarded as the greatest; and this was punished with death and with
+confiscation of goods, while the memory of the offender was declared
+infamous. Greater severity could scarcely be visited on a culprit.
+Treason comprehended conspiracy against the government, assisting the
+enemies of Rome, and misconduct in the command of armies. Thus Manlius,
+in spite of his magnificent services, was hurled from the Tarpeian
+Rock, because he was convicted of an intention to seize upon the
+government. Under the empire not only any attempt on the life of the
+Emperor was treason, but disrespectful words or acts. The criminal was
+even tried after death, that his memory might become infamous; and this
+barbarous practice was perpetuated in France and Scotland as late as the
+beginning of the seventeenth century. In England men have been executed
+for treasonable words. Besides treason there were other crimes against
+the State, such as a breach of the peace, extortion on the part of
+provincial governors, embezzlement of public property, stealing sacred
+things, bribery,--most of which offences were punished by pecuniary
+penalties.</p>
+
+<p>But there were also crimes against individuals, which were punished with
+the death penalty. Wilful murder, poisoning, and parricide were
+capitally punished. Adultery was punished by banishment, besides a
+forfeiture of considerable property; Constantine made it a capital
+offence. Rape was punished with death and confiscation of goods, as in
+England till a late period, when transportation for life became the
+penalty. The punishments inflicted for forgery, coining base money, and
+perjury were arbitrary. Robbery, theft, patrimonial damage, and injury
+to person and property were private trespasses, and not punished by the
+State. After a lapse of twenty years without accusation, crimes were
+supposed to be extinguished. The Cornelian, Pompeian, and Julian laws
+formed the foundation of criminal jurisprudence. This however never
+attained the perfection that was seen in the Civil Code, in which the
+full maturity of Roman wisdom was reached. The emperors greatly
+increased the severity of punishments, as was probably necessary in a
+corrupt state of society. After the decemviral laws fell into disuse,
+the Romans in the days of the republic passed from extreme rigor to
+great lenity, as is observable in the transition from the Puritan r&eacute;gime
+to our own times in the United States. Capital punishment for several
+centuries was exceedingly rare, and was frequently prevented by
+voluntary exile. Under the empire, again, public executions were
+frequent and revolting.</p>
+
+<p>Fines were a common mode of punishment with the Romans, as with the
+early Germans. Imprisonment in a public jail was rare, the custom of
+bail being in general use. Although retaliation was authorized by the
+Twelve Tables for bodily injuries, it was seldom exacted, since
+pecuniary compensation was taken in lieu. Corporal punishments were
+inflicted upon slaves, but rarely upon citizens, except for military
+crimes; but Roman citizens could be sold into slavery for various
+offences, chiefly military, and criminals were often condemned to labor
+in the mines or upon public works. Banishment was common,--<i>aquae et
+ignis interdictio</i>; and this was equivalent to the deprivation of the
+necessities of life and incapacitating a person from exercising the
+rights of citizenship. Under the emperors persons were confined often on
+the rocky islands off the coast, or in a compulsory residence in a
+particular place assigned. Thus Chrysostom was sent to a dreary place on
+the banks of the Euxine, and Ovid was banished to Tomi. Death, when
+inflicted, was by hanging, scourging, and beheading; also by strangling
+in prison. Slaves were often crucified, and were compelled to carry
+their cross to the place of execution. This was the most ignominious and
+lingering of all deaths; it was abolished by Constantine, from reverence
+to the sacred symbol. Under the emperors, execution took place also by
+burning alive and exposure to wild beasts; it was thus the early
+Christians were tormented, since their offence was associated with
+treason. Persons of distinction were treated with more favor than the
+lower classes, and their punishments were less cruel and ignominious;
+thus Seneca, condemned for privity to treason, was allowed to choose his
+mode of death. The criminal laws of modern European States followed too
+often the barbarous custom of the Roman emperors until a recent date.
+Since the French Revolution the severity of the penal codes has been
+much modified.</p>
+
+<p>The penal statutes of Rome however, as Gibbon emphatically remarks,
+&quot;formed a very small portion of the Code and the Pandects; and in all
+judicial proceedings the life or death of the citizen was determined
+with less caution and delay than the most ordinary question of covenant
+or inheritance.&quot; This was owing to the complicated relations of society,
+by which obligations are created or annulled, while duties to the State
+are explicit and well known, being inscribed not only on tables of
+brass, but on the conscience itself. It was natural, with the growth and
+development of commerce and dominion, that questions should arise which
+could not be ordinarily settled by ancient customs, and the practice of
+lawyers and the decisions of judges continually raised new difficulties,
+to be met only by new edicts. It is a pleasing fact to record, that
+jurisprudence became more just and enlightened as it became more
+intricate. The principles of equity were more regarded under the
+emperors than in the time of Cato. It is in the application of these
+principles that the laws of the Romans have obtained so high
+consideration; their abuse consisted in the expense of litigation, and
+the advantages which the rich thus obtained over the poor.</p>
+
+<p>But if delays and forms led to an expensive and vexatious administration
+of justice, these were more than compensated by the checks which a
+complicated jurisprudence gave to hasty or partial decisions. It was in
+the minuteness and precision of the forms of law, and in the foresight
+with which questions were anticipated in the various transactions of
+business, that the Romans in their civil and social relations were very
+much on a level with modern times. It would be difficult to find in the
+most enlightened of modern codes greater wisdom and foresight than
+appear in the legacy of Justinian as to all questions pertaining to the
+nature, the acquisition, the possession, the use, and the transfer of
+property. Civil obligations are most admirably defined, and all
+contracts are determined by the wisest application of the natural
+principles of justice. Nothing can be more enlightened than the laws
+which relate to leases, to sales, to partnerships, to damages, to
+pledges, to hiring of work, and to quasi-contracts. The laws pertaining
+to the succession to property, to the duties of guardians, to the rights
+of wards, to legacies, to bequests in trust, and to the general
+limitation of testamentary powers were singularly clear. The regulations
+in reference to intestate succession, and to the division of property
+among males and females, were wise and just; we find no laws of entail,
+no unequal rights, no absurd distinction between brothers, no peculiar
+privileges given to males over females, or to older sons. Particularly
+was everything pertaining to property and contracts and wills guarded
+with the most jealous care. A man was sure of possessing his own, and of
+transmitting it to his children. In the Institutes of Justinian we see
+on every page a regard to the principles of natural justice: but
+moreover we find that malicious witnesses should be punished; that
+corrupt judges should be visited with severe penalties; that libels and
+satires should subject their authors to severe chastisement; that every
+culprit should be considered innocent until his guilt was proved.</p>
+
+<p>No infringement on personal rights could be tolerated. A citizen was
+free to go where he pleased, to do whatsoever he would, if he did not
+trespass on the rights of another; to seek his pleasure unobstructed,
+and pursue his business without vexatious incumbrances. If he was
+injured or cheated, he was sure of redress; nor could he be easily
+defrauded with the sanction of the laws. A rigorous police guarded his
+person, his house, and his property; he was supreme and uncontrolled
+within his family. This security to property and life and personal
+rights was guaranteed by the greatest tyrants. Although political
+liberty was dead, the fullest personal liberty was enjoyed under the
+emperors, and it was under their sanction that jurisprudence in some of
+the most important departments of life reached perfection. If injustice
+was suffered it was not on account of the laws, but owing to the
+depravity of men, the venality of the rich, and the tricks of lawyers;
+the laws were wise and equal. The civil jurisprudence of the Romans
+could be copied with safety by the most enlightened of European States;
+indeed, it is already the foundation of their civil codes, especially in
+France and Germany.</p>
+
+<p>That there were some features in the Roman laws which we in these
+Christian times cannot indorse, and which we reprehend, cannot be
+denied. Under the republic there was not sufficient limit to paternal
+power, and the <i>pater familias</i> was necessarily a tyrant. It was unjust
+that the father should control the property of his son, and cruel that
+he was allowed an absolute control not only over his children, but also
+his wife. Yet the limits of paternal power were more and more curtailed,
+so that under the later emperors fathers were not allowed to have more
+authority than was perhaps expedient.</p>
+
+<p>The recognition of slavery as a domestic institution was another blot,
+and slaves could be treated with the grossest cruelty and injustice
+without possibility of redress. But here the Romans were not sinners
+beyond all other nations, and our modern times have witnessed a
+parallel. It was not the existence of slavery, however, which was the
+greatest evil, but the facility by which slaves could be made. The laws
+pertaining to debt were severe, and were most disgraceful in dooming a
+debtor to the absolute power of a creditor. To subject men of the same
+race to slavery for trifling debts which they could not discharge, was
+the great defect of the Roman laws. But even these cruel regulations
+were modified, so that in the corrupt times of the empire there was no
+greater practical severity than was common in England as late as one
+hundred years ago. The temptations to fraud were enormous in a wicked
+state of society, and demanded a severe remedy. It is possible that our
+modern laws may show too great leniency to debtors who are not merely
+unfortunate, but dishonest. The problem is not yet solved, whether men
+should be severely handled who are guilty of reckless and unprincipled
+speculations and unscrupulous dealings, or whether they should be
+allowed immunity to prosecute their dangerous and disgraceful courses.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, the penal code of the Romans in reference to breaches of trust
+or carelessness or ignorance, by which property was lost or squandered,
+may have been too severe, as is still the case in England in reference
+to hunting game on another's grounds. It was hard to doom a man to death
+who drove away his neighbor's cattle, or even entered in the night his
+neighbor's house; but severe penalties alone will keep men from crimes
+where there is a low state of virtue and religion, and general
+prosperity and contentment become impossible where there is no efficient
+protection to property. Society was never more secure and happy in
+England than when vagabonds could be arrested, and when petty larcenies
+were visited with certain retribution. Every traveller in France and
+England feels that in regard to the punishment of crime, those older
+countries, restricted as are their political privileges, are in most
+questions of secure and comfortable living vastly superior to our own.
+The Romans lost under the emperors their political rights, but gained
+protection and safety in their relations with society. Where quiet and
+industrious citizens feel safe in their homes, are protected from
+scoundrels in their dealings, have ample scope for industrial
+enterprise, and are free to choose their private pleasures, they resign
+themselves to the loss of electing their rulers without great
+unhappiness. There are greater evils in the world than the deprivation
+of the elective franchise, lofty and glorious as is this privilege. The
+arbitrary rule of the emperors was fatal to political aspirations and
+rights and the growth of a genuine manhood; yet it is but fair to note
+that the evils of political slavery were qualified and set off by the
+excellence of the civil code and the privileges of social freedom.</p>
+
+<p>The great practical evil connected with Roman jurisprudence was the
+intricacy and perplexity and uncertainty of the laws, together with the
+expense involved in litigation. The class of lawyers was large, and
+their gains were extortionate. Justice was not always to be found on the
+side of right. The law was uncertain as well as costly. The most learned
+counsel could be employed only by the rich, and even judges were venal,
+so that the poor did not easily find adequate redress. But all this is
+the necessary attendant on a factitious state of society, and by many is
+regarded as being quite as characteristic of modern, civilized Christian
+England and America as it was of Pagan Rome. Material civilization leads
+to an undue estimate of money; and when money purchases all that
+artificial people desire, then all classes will prostitute themselves
+for its possession, and justice, dignity, and elevation of sentiment
+will be forced to retreat,--as hermits sought a solitude when society
+had reached its lowest degradation, out of pure despair of its
+renovation.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>AUTHORITIES.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>The authorities for this chapter are very numerous. Since the Institutes
+of Gaius have been recovered, many eminent writers on Roman law have
+appeared, especially in Germany and France. Many might be cited, but for
+all ordinary purposes of historical study the work of Lord Mackenzie on
+Roman Law, together with the articles of George Long in Smith's
+Dictionary, will be found most useful. Maine's Treatise on Ancient Law
+is exceedingly interesting and valuable. Gibbon's famous chapter should
+also be read by every student. There is a fine translation of the
+Institutes of Justinian, which is quite accessible, by Dr. Harris of
+Oxford. The Code, Pandects, Institutes, and Novels are of course the
+original authority, with the long-lost Institutes of Gaius.</p>
+
+<p>In connection with the study of the Roman law, it would be well to read
+Sir George Bowyer's Commentaries on the Modern Civil Law. Also Irving,
+Introduction to the Study of the Civil Law; Lindley, Introduction to the
+Study of Jurisprudence; Wheaton's Elements of International Law; and
+Vattel, Le Droit des Gens.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="THE_FINE_ARTS."></a>THE FINE ARTS.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, PAINTING.</p>
+
+<p>500-430 B.C.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>My object in the present lecture is not a criticism of the principles
+of art so much as an enumeration of its various forms among the
+ancients, to show that in this department of civilization they reached
+remarkable perfection, and were not inferior to modern Christian nations.</p>
+
+<p>The first development of art among all the nations of antiquity was in
+architecture. The earliest buildings erected were houses to protect
+people from heat, cold, and the fury of the elements of Nature. At that
+remote period much more attention was given to convenience and practical
+utility than to beauty or architectural effect. The earliest houses were
+built of wood, and stone was not employed until temples and palaces
+arose. Ordinary houses were probably not much better than log-huts and
+hovels, until wealth was accumulated by private persons.</p>
+
+<p>The earliest monuments of enduring magnificence were the temples of
+powerful priests and the palaces of kings; and in Egypt and Assyria
+these appear earliest, as well as most other works showing civilization.
+Perhaps the first great monument which arose after the deluge of Noah
+was the Tower of Babel, built probably of brick. It was intended to be
+very lofty, but of its actual height we know nothing, nor of its style
+of architecture. Indeed, we do not know that it was ever advanced beyond
+its foundations; yet there are some grounds for supposing that it was
+ultimately finished, and became the principal temple of the Chaldaean
+metropolis.</p>
+
+<p>From the ruins of ancient monuments we conclude that architecture
+received its earliest development in Egypt, and that its effects were
+imposing, massive, and grand. It was chiefly directed to the erection of
+palaces and temples, the ruins of which attest grandeur and vastness.
+They were built of stone, in blocks so huge and heavy that even modern
+engineers are at loss to comprehend how they could have been transported
+and erected. All the monuments of the Pharaohs are wonders, especially
+such as appear in the ruins of Karnak,--a temple formerly designated as
+that of Jupiter Ammon. It was in the time of Sesostris, or Rameses the
+Great, the first of the Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty, that
+architecture in Egypt reached its greatest development. Then we find the
+rectangular-cut blocks of stone in parallel courses, the heavy pier, the
+cylindrical column with its bell-shaped capital, and the bold and
+massive rectangular architraves extending from pier to pier and column
+to column, surmounted by a deep covered coping or cornice.</p>
+
+<p>The imposing architecture of Egypt was chiefly owing to the impressive
+vastness of the public buildings. It was not produced by beauty of
+proportion or graceful embellishments; it was designed to awe the
+people, and kindle sentiments of wonder and astonishment. So far as this
+end was contemplated it was nobly reached; even to this day the
+traveller stands in admiring amazement before those monuments that were
+old three thousand years ago. No structures have been so enduring as the
+Pyramids; no ruins are more extensive and majestic than those of Thebes.
+The temple of Karnak and the palace of Rameses the Great were probably
+the most imposing ever built by man. This temple was built of blocks of
+stone seventy feet in length, on a platform one thousand feet long and
+three hundred wide, with pillars sixty feet in height. But this and
+other structures did not possess that unity of design which marked the
+Grecian temples. Alleys of colossal sphinxes formed the approach. At
+Karnak the alley was six thousand feet long, and before the main body
+of the edifice stood two obelisks commemorative of the dedication. The
+principal structures of Egyptian temples do not follow the straight
+line, but begin with pyramidal towers which flank the gateways; then
+follow, usually, a court surrounded with colonnades, subordinate
+temples, and houses for the priests. A second pylon, or pyramidal tower,
+leads to the interior and most considerable part of the temple,--a
+portico inclosed with walls, which receives light only through the
+entablature or openings in the roof. Adjoining this is the cella of the
+temple, without columns, enclosed by several walls, often divided into
+various small chambers with monolithic receptacles for idols or mummies
+or animals. The columns stand within the walls. The colonnade is not, as
+among the Greeks, an expansion of the temple; it is merely the wall with
+apertures. The walls, composed of square blocks, are perpendicular only
+on the inside, and bevelled externally, so that the thickness at the
+bottom sometimes amounts to twenty-four feet; thus the whole building
+assumes a pyramidal form, the fundamental principle of Egyptian
+architecture. The columns are more slender than the early Doric, are
+placed close together, and have bases of circular plinths; the shaft
+diminishes upward, and is ornamented with perpendicular or oblique
+furrows, but not fluted like Grecian columns. The capitals are of the
+bell form, ornamented with all kinds of foliage, and have a narrow but
+high abacus. They abound with sculptured decorations, the designs of
+which were borrowed from the vegetation of the country. The highest of
+the columns of the temple of Luxor is five and a quarter times the
+greatest diameter.</p>
+
+<p>But no monuments have ever excited so much curiosity and wonder as the
+Pyramids, not in consequence of any particular beauty or ingenuity in
+their construction, but because of their immense size and unknown age.
+None but sacerdotal monarchs would ever have erected them; none but a
+fanatical people would ever have toiled upon them. We do not know for
+what purpose they were raised, unless as sepulchres for kings. They are
+supposed to have been built at a remote antiquity, between two thousand
+and three thousand years before Christ. Lepsius thought that the oldest
+of these Pyramids were built more than three thousand years before
+Christ. The Pyramid of Cheops, at Memphis, covers a square whose side is
+seven hundred and sixty-eight feet, and rises into the air nearly five
+hundred feet. It is a solid mass of stone, which has suffered less from
+time than the mountains near it. Possibly it stands over an immense
+substructure, in which may yet be found the lore of ancient Egypt; it
+may even prove to be the famous labyrinth of which Herodotus speaks,
+built by the twelve kings of Egypt. According to this author, one
+hundred thousand men worked on this monument for forty years.</p>
+
+<p>The palaces of the kings are mere imitations of the temples, their only
+difference of architecture being that their rooms are larger and in
+greater numbers. Some think that the famous labyrinth was a collective
+palace of many rulers.</p>
+
+<p>Of Babylonian architecture we know little beyond what the Hebrew
+Scriptures and ancient authors tell us. But though nothing survives of
+ancient magnificence, we know that a city whose walls, according to
+Herodotus, were eighty-seven feet in thickness, three hundred and
+thirty-seven in height, and sixty miles in circumference, and in which
+were one hundred gates of brass, must have had considerable
+architectural splendor. This account of Babylon, however, is probably
+exaggerated, especially as to the height of the walls. The tower of
+Belus, the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Obelisk of Semiramis were
+probably wonderful structures, certainly in size, which is one of the
+conditions of architectural effect.</p>
+
+<p>The Tyrians must have carried architecture to considerable perfection,
+since the Temple of Solomon, one of the most magnificent in the ancient
+world, was probably built by artists from Tyre. It was not remarkable
+for size,--it was, indeed, very small,--but it had great splendor of
+decoration. It was of quadrangular outline, erected upon a solid
+platform of stone, and bearing a striking resemblance to the oldest
+Greek temples, like those of Aegina and Paestum. The portico of the
+Temple as rebuilt by Herod was one hundred and eighty feet high, and the
+Temple itself was entered by nine gates, thickly coated with silver and
+gold. The inner sanctuary was covered on all sides with plates of gold,
+and was dazzling to the eye. The various courts and porticos and palaces
+with which it was surrounded gave to it a very imposing effect.</p>
+
+<p>Architectural art in India was not so impressive and grand as in Egypt,
+and was directed chiefly to the erection of temples. Nor is it of very
+ancient date. There is no stone architecture now remaining in India,
+according to Sir James Fergusson, older than two and a half centuries
+before Christ; and this is in the form of Buddhist temples, generally
+traced to the great Asoka, who reigned from 272 B.C. to 236 B.C., and
+who established Buddhism as a state religion. There were doubtless
+magnificent buildings before his time, but they were of wood, and have
+all perished. We know, however, nothing about them.</p>
+
+<p>The Buddhist temples were generally excavated out of the solid rock, and
+only the fa&ccedil;ades were ornamented. These were not larger than ordinary
+modern parochial churches, and do not give the impression of
+extraordinary magnificence. Besides these rock-hewn temples in India
+there remain many examples of a kind of memorial monument called
+<i>stupas</i>, or <i>topes</i>. The earliest of these are single columns; but the
+later and more numerous are in the shape of cones or circular mounds,
+resembling domes, rarely exceeding one hundred feet in diameter. Around
+the apex of each was a balustrade, or some ornamental work, about six
+feet in diameter. These topes remind one of the Pantheon at Rome in
+general form, but were of much smaller size. They were built on a stone
+basement less than fifty feet in height, above which was the brickwork.
+In process of time they came to resemble pyramidal towers rather than
+rounded domes, and were profusely ornamented with carvings. The great
+peculiarity of all Indian architectural monuments is excessive
+ornamentation rather than beauty of proportion or grand effect.</p>
+
+<p>In course of time, however, Indian temples became more and more
+magnificent; and a Chinese traveller in the year 400 A.D. describes one
+in Gaudhava as four hundred and seventy feet high, decorated with every
+sort of precious substance. Its dome, as it appears in a bas-relief,
+must have rivalled that of St. Peter's at Rome; but no trace of it now
+remains. The topes of India, which were numerous, indicate that the
+Hindus were acquainted with the arch, both pointed and circular, which
+was not known to the Egyptians or the Greeks. The most important of
+these buildings, in which are preserved valuable relics, are found in
+the Punjab. They were erected about twenty years before Christ. In size,
+they are about one hundred and twenty-seven feet in diameter. Connected
+with the circular topes are found what are called <i>rails</i>, surrounding
+the topes, built in the form of rectangles, with heavy pillars. One of
+the most interesting of these was found to be two hundred and
+seventy-five feet long, having square pillars twenty-two feet in height,
+profusely carved with scenes from the life of Buddha, topped by capitals
+in the shape of elephants supporting a succession of horizontal stone
+beams, all decorated with a richness of carving unknown in any other
+country. The Amravati rail, one of the finest of the ancient monuments
+of India, is found to be one hundred and ninety-five by one hundred and
+sixty-five feet, having octagonal pillars ornamented with the most
+elaborate carvings.</p>
+
+<p>From an architectural point of view, the rails were surpassed by the
+<i>chaityas</i>, or temple-caves, in western India. These were cut in the
+solid rock. Some one thousand different specimens are to be found. The
+facades of these caves are perfect, generally in the form of an arch,
+executed in the rock with every variety of detail, and therefore
+imperishable without violence. The process of excavation extended
+through ten centuries from the time of Asoka; and the interiors as well
+as the fa&ccedil;ades were highly ornamented with sculptures. The temple-caves
+are seldom more than one hundred and fifty feet deep and fifty feet in
+width, and the roofs are supported by pillars like the interior of
+Gothic cathedrals, some of which are of beautiful proportions with
+elaborated capitals. Though these rock-hewn temples are no larger than
+ordinary Christian churches, they are very impressive from the richly
+decorated carvings; they were lighted from a single opening in the
+fa&ccedil;ade, sometimes in the shape of a horseshoe.</p>
+
+<p>Besides these chaityas, or temples, there are still more numerous
+<i>viharas</i>, or monasteries, found in India, of different dates, but none
+older than the third century before Christ. They show a central hall,
+surrounded on three sides by cells for the monks. On the fourth side is
+an open verandah; facing this is generally a shrine with an image of
+Buddha. These edifices are not imposing unless surrounded by galleries,
+as some were, supported by highly decorated pillars. The halls are
+constructed in several stories with heavy masonry, in the shape of
+pyramids adorned with the figures of men and animals. One of these halls
+in southern India had fifteen hundred cells. The most celebrated was
+the Nalanda monastery, founded in the first century by Nagarjuna, which
+accommodated ten thousand priests, and was enclosed by a wall measuring
+sixteen hundred feet by four hundred. It was to Central India what Mount
+Casino was to Italy, and Cluny was to France, in the Middle Ages,--the
+seat of learning and art.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until the Mohammedan conquest in India that architecture
+received a new impulse from the Saracenic influence. Then arose the
+mosques, minarets, and palaces which are a wonder for their
+magnificence, and in which are seen the influence of Greek art as well
+as that of India. There is an Oriental splendor in these palaces and
+mosques which has called out the admiration of critics, although it is
+different from those types of beauty which we are accustomed to praise.
+But these later edifices were erected in the Middle Ages, coeval with
+the cathedrals of Europe, and therefore do not properly come under the
+head of ancient art, in which the ancient Hindus, whether of Aryan or
+Turanian descent, did not particularly excel. It was in matters of
+religion and philosophy that the Hindus felt most interest, even as the
+ancient Jews thought more of theology than of art and science.</p>
+
+<p>Architecture, however, as the expression of genius and high
+civilization, was carried to perfection only by the Greeks, who excelled
+in so many things. It was among the ancient Dorians, who descended from
+the mountains of northern Greece eighty years after the fall of Troy,
+that architectural art worthy of the name first appeared. The Pelasgi
+erected Cyclopean structures fifteen hundred years before Christ, as
+seen in the massive walls of the Acropolis at Athens, constructed of
+huge blocks of hewn stone, and in the palaces of the princes of the
+heroic times. The lintel of the doorway of the Mycenaean treasury is
+composed of a single stone twenty-seven feet long and sixteen broad. But
+these edifices, which aimed at splendor and richness merely, were
+deficient in that simplicity and harmony which have given immortality to
+the temples of the Dorians. In this style of architecture everything was
+suitable to its object, and was grand and noble. The great thickness of
+the columns, the beautiful entablature, the ample proportion of the
+capital, the great horizontal lines of the architrave and cornice
+predominating over the vertical lines of the columns, the severity of
+geometrical forms produced for the most part by straight lines, gave an
+imposing simplicity to the Doric temple.</p>
+
+<p>How far the Greek architects were indebted to the Egyptian we cannot
+tell, for though columns are found amid the ruins of the Egyptian
+temples, they are of different shape from any made by the Greeks. In the
+structures of Thebes we find both the tumescent and the cylindrical
+columns, from which amalgamation might have been produced the Doric
+column. The Greeks seized on beauty wherever they found it, and improved
+upon it. The Doric column was not probably an entirely new creation, but
+shaped after models furnished by the most original of all the ancient
+nations, even the Egyptians. The Doric temples were uniform in plan. The
+columns were fluted, and were generally about six diameters in height;
+they diminished gradually upward from the base, with a slightly con
+vexed swelling; they were surmounted by capitals regularly proportioned
+according to their height. The entablature which the column supported
+was also of a certain number of diameters in height. So regular and
+perfect was the plan of the temple, that &quot;if the dimensions of a single
+column and the proportion the entablature should bear to it were given
+to two individuals acquainted with the style, with directions to compose
+a temple, they would produce designs exactly similar in size,
+arrangement, and general proportions.&quot; The Doric order possessed a
+peculiar harmony, but taste and skill were nevertheless necessary in
+order to determine the number of diameters a column should have, and
+also the height of the entablature.</p>
+
+<p>The Doric was the favorite order of European Greece for one thousand
+years, and also of her colonies in Sicily and Magna Graecia. It was
+used exclusively until after the Macedonian conquest, and was chiefly
+applied to temples. The massive temples of Paestum, the colossal
+magnificence of the Sicilian ruins, and the more elegant proportions of
+the Athenian structures, like the Parthenon and Temple of Theseus, show
+the perfection of the Doric architecture. Although the general style of
+all the Doric temples is so uniform, hardly two temples were alike. The
+earlier Doric was more massive; the later was more elegant, and its
+edifices were rich in sculptured decorations. Nothing could surpass the
+beauty of a Doric temple in the time of Pericles. The stylobate, or
+general base upon which the columnar story stood, from two thirds to a
+whole diameter of a column in height, was built in three equal courses,
+which gradually receded upward and formed steps, as it were, of a grand
+platform. The column, simply set upon the stylobate, without base or
+pedestal, was from four to six diameters in height, with twenty flutes,
+having a capital of half a diameter. On this rested the entablature, two
+column-diameters in height, which was divided into architrave (lower
+mouldings), frieze (broad middle space), and cornice (upper mouldings).
+The great beauty of the temple was the portico in front,--a forest of
+columns supporting the triangular pediment, about a diameter and a half
+to the apex, making an angle at the base of about fourteen degrees.
+From the pediment projects the cornice, while in the apex and at the
+base of the flat three-cornered gable are sculptured ornaments,
+generally the figures of men or animals. The whole outline of columns
+supporting the entablature is graceful, while the variety of light and
+shade arising from the arrangement of mouldings and capitals produces a
+grand effect.</p>
+
+<p>The Parthenon, the most beautiful specimen of the Doric, has never been
+equalled, and it still stands august in its ruins, the glory of the old
+Acropolis and the pride of Athens. It was built of white Pentelic
+marble, and rested on a basement of limestone. It was two hundred and
+twenty-seven feet in length, one hundred and one in breadth, and
+sixty-five in height, surrounded with forty-eight fluted columns, six
+feet and two inches at the base and thirty-four feet in height, while
+within the peristyle, at either end, was an interior range of columns
+standing before the end of the cella. The frieze and the pediment were
+elaborately ornamented with reliefs and statues, and the cella, within
+and without, was adorned with the choicest sculptures of Phidias, The
+remains of the exquisite sculptures of the pediment and the frieze were
+in the early part of this century brought from Greece by Lord Elgin,
+purchased by the English government, and placed in the British Museum,
+where, preserved from further dilapidation, they stand as indisputable
+evidence of the perfection of Greek art. The grandest adornment of the
+temple was the colossal statue of Minerva in the eastern apartment of
+the cella, forty feet in height, composed of gold and ivory; the inner
+walls of the chamber were decorated with paintings, and the whole temple
+was a repository of countless treasure. But the Parthenon, so regular to
+the eye with its vertical, oblique, and horizontal lines, was curved in
+every line, with the exception of the gable,--with its entablature,
+architrave, frieze, and cornice, together with the basement, all arched
+upwards; and even the columns had a slight convexity of vertical line,
+amounting to 1/550 of the entire height of shaft, though so slightly as
+not to be perceptible. These curved lines gave to the structure a
+peculiar grace which cannot be imitated, as well as an effect
+of solidity.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly coeval with the Doric was the Ionic order, invented by the
+Asiatic Greeks, still more graceful, though not so imposing. The
+Acropolis is a perfect example of this order. The column is nine
+diameters in height, with a base, while the capital is more ornamented
+than the Doric. The shaft is fluted with twenty-four flutes and
+alternate fillets (flat longitudinal ridges), and the fillet is about a
+quarter the width of the flute. The pediment is flatter than that of
+the Doric order, and more elaborate. The great distinction of the Ionic
+column is a base, and a capital formed with volutes (spiral scrolls),
+the shaft also being more slender. Vitruvius, the greatest authority
+among the ancients in architecture, says that &quot;the Greeks, in inventing
+these two kinds of columns, imitated in the one the naked simplicity and
+dignity of man, and in the other the delicacy and ornaments of woman;
+the base of the Ionic was the imitation of sandals, and the volutes of
+ringlets.&quot; The discoveries of many of the Ionic ornamentations among the
+remains of Assyrian architecture indicate the Oriental source of the
+Ionic ideas, just as the Doric style seems to have originated in Egypt.
+The artistic Greeks, however, always simplified and refined upon
+their masters.</p>
+
+<p>The Corinthian order exhibits a still greater refinement and elegance
+than the other two, and was introduced toward the end of the
+Peloponnesian War. Its peculiarity consists in columns with foliated
+capitals modelled after the acanthus leaf, and still greater height,
+about ten diameters, surmounted with a more ornamented entablature. Of
+this order the most famous temple in Greece was that of Minerva at
+Tegea, built by Scopas of Paros, but destroyed by fire four hundred
+years before Christ.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing more distinguished Greek architecture than the variety, the
+grace, and the beauty of the mouldings, generally in eccentric curves.
+The general outline of the moulding is a gracefully flowing cyma, or
+wave, concave at one end and convex at the other, like an Italic <i>f</i>,
+the concavity and convexity being exactly in the same curve, according
+to the line of beauty which Hogarth describes.</p>
+
+<p>The most beautiful application of Greek architecture was in the temples,
+which were very numerous and of extraordinary grandeur, long before the
+Persian War. Their entrance was always from the west or the east. They
+were built either in an oblong or round form, and were mostly adorned
+with columns. Those of an oblong form had columns either in the front
+alone, or in the eastern and western fronts, or on all the four sides.
+They generally had porticos attached to them, and were without windows,
+receiving their light from the door or from above. The friezes were
+adorned with various sculptures, as were sometimes the pediments, and no
+expense was spared upon them. The most important part of the temple was
+the cell (<i>cella,</i> or temple proper, a square chamber), in which the
+statue of the deity was kept, generally surrounded with a balustrade. In
+front of the cella was the vestibule, and in the rear or back a chamber
+in which the treasures of the temple were kept. Names were applied to
+the temples as well as to the porticos, according to the number of
+columns in the portico at either end of the temple,--such as the
+tetrastyle (four columns in front), or hexastyle (when there were six).
+There were never more than ten columns across the front. The Parthenon
+had eight, but six was the usual number. It was the rule to have twice
+as many columns along the sides as in front. Some of the temples had
+double rows of columns on all sides, like that of Diana at Ephesus and
+of Quirinus at Rome. The distance between the columns varied from one
+diameter and a half to four diameters. About five eighths of a Doric
+temple were occupied by the cella, and three eighths by the portico.</p>
+
+<p>That which gives to the Greek temples so much simplicity and
+harmony,--the great elements of beauty in architecture,--is the simple
+outline in parallelogrammic and pyramidal forms, in which the lines are
+uninterrupted through their entire length. This simplicity and harmony
+are more apparent in the Doric than in any of the other orders, but
+pertain to all the Grecian temples of which we have knowledge. The Ionic
+and Corinthian, or the voluted and foliated orders, do not possess that
+severe harmony which pervades the Doric; but the more beautiful
+compositions are so consummate that they will ever be taken as models
+of study.</p>
+
+<p>There is now no doubt that the exteriors of the Grecian temples were
+ornamented in color,--perhaps with historical pictures, etc.,--although
+as the traces have mostly disappeared it is impossible to know the
+extent or mode of decoration. It has been thought that the mouldings
+also may have been gilded or colored, and that the background of the
+sculptures had some flat color laid on as a relief to the raised
+figures. We may be sure, however it was done, that the effect was not
+gaudy or crude, but restrained within the limits of refinement and good
+taste by the infallible artistic instinct of those masters of the
+beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>It is not the magnitude of the Greek temples and other works of art
+which most impresses us. It is not for this that they are important
+models; it is not for this that they are copied and reproduced in all
+the modern nations of Europe. They were generally small compared with
+the temples of Egypt, and with the vast dimensions of Roman
+amphitheatres; only three or four would compare in size with a Gothic
+cathedral,--the Parthenon, the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens, and
+the Temple of Diana at Ephesus; even the Pantheon at Rome is small,
+compared with the later monuments of the Caesars. The traveller is
+always disappointed in contemplating the ruins of Greek buildings so far
+as size is concerned. But it is their matchless proportions, their
+severe symmetry, the grandeur of effect, the undying beauty, the
+graceful form which impress us, and make us feel that they are perfect.
+By the side of the Colosseum they are insignificant in magnitude; they
+do not cover acres, like the baths of Caracalla. Yet who has copied the
+Flavian amphitheatre; who erects an edifice after the style of the
+Thermae? All artists, however, copy the Parthenon. That, and not the
+colossal monuments of the Caesars, reappears in the capitals of Europe,
+and stimulates the genius of a Michael Angelo or a Christopher Wren.</p>
+
+<p>The flourishing period of Greek architecture was during the period from
+Pericles to Alexander,--one hundred and thirteen years. The Macedonian
+conquest introduced more magnificence and less simplicity. The Roman
+conquest accelerated the decline in severe taste, when different orders
+began to be used indiscriminately.</p>
+
+<p>In this state the art passed into the hands of the masters of the world,
+and they inaugurated a new era in architecture. The art was still
+essentially Greek, although the Romans derived their first knowledge
+from the Etruscans. The Cloaca Maxima, or Great Sewer, was built during
+the reign of the second Tarquin,--the grandest monument of the reign of
+the kings. It is not probable that temples and other public buildings in
+Rome were either beautiful or magnificent until the conquest of Greece,
+after which Grecian architects were employed. The Romans adopted the
+Corinthian style, which they made even more ornamental; and by the
+successful combination of the Etruscan arch with the Grecian column they
+laid the foundation of a new and original style, susceptible of great
+variety and magnificence. They entered into architecture with the
+enthusiasm of their teachers, but in their passion for novelty lost
+sight of the simplicity which is the great fascination of a Doric
+temple. Says Memes:--</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They [the Romans] deemed that lightness and grace were to be attained
+not so much by proportion between the vertical and the horizontal as by
+the comparative slenderness of the former. Hence we see a poverty in
+Roman architecture in the midst of profuse ornament. The great error was
+a constant aim to lessen the diameter while they increased the elevation
+of the columns. Hence the massive simplicity and severe grandeur of the
+ancient Doric disappear in the Roman, the characteristics of the order
+being frittered down into a multiplicity of minute details.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When the Romans used the Doric at all, they used a base for the column,
+which was never done at Athens. They also altered the Doric capital,
+which cannot be improved. Again, most of the Grecian Doric temples were
+peripteral,--surrounded with pillars on all the sides. But the Romans
+built with porticos on one front only, which had a greater projection
+than the Grecian. They generally were projected three columns, while the
+Greek portico had usually but a single row. Many of the Roman temples
+are circular, like the Pantheon, which has a portico of eight columns
+projected to the depth of three. Nor did the Romans construct hypaethral
+or uncovered temples with internal columns, like the Greeks. The
+Pantheon is an exception, since the dome has an open eye; and one great
+ornament of this beautiful structure is in the arrangement of internal
+columns placed in the front of niches, composed of antae, or pier-formed
+ends of walls, to carry an entablature round under an attic on which the
+cupola rests. The Romans also adopted coupled columns, broken and
+recessed entablatures, and pedestals, which are considered blemishes.
+They again paid more attention to the interior than to the exterior
+decoration of their palaces and baths,--as we may infer from the ruins
+of Hadrian's villa at Tivoli and the excavations of Pompeii.</p>
+
+<p>The pediments (roof-angles) used in Roman architectural works are
+steeper than those made by the Greeks, varying in inclination from
+eighteen to twenty-five degrees, instead of fourteen. The mouldings are
+the same as the Grecian in general form, although they differ from them
+in contour; they are less delicate and graceful, but were used in great
+profusion. Roman architecture is overdone with ornament, every moulding
+carved, and every straight surface sculptured with foliage or historical
+subjects in relief. The ornaments of the frieze consist of foliage and
+animals, with a variety of other things. The great exuberance of
+ornament is considered a defect, although when applied to some
+structures it is exceedingly beautiful. In the time of the first Caesars
+Roman architecture had, from the huge size of the buildings, a character
+of grandeur and magnificence. Columns and arches appeared in all the
+leading public buildings,--columns generally forming the external and
+arches the internal construction. Fabric after fabric arose on the ruins
+of others. The Flavii supplanted the edifices of Nero, which ministered
+to debauchery, by structures of public utility.</p>
+
+<p>The Romans invented no new principle in architecture, unless it be the
+arch, which was known, though not practically applied, by the Assyrians,
+Egyptians, and Greeks. The Romans were a practical and utilitarian
+people, and needed for their various structures greater economy of
+material than was compatible with large blocks of stone, especially for
+such as were carried to great altitudes. The arch supplied this want,
+and is perhaps the greatest invention ever made in architecture. No
+instance of its adoption occurs in the construction of Greek edifices
+before Greece became a part of the Roman empire. Its application dates
+back to the Cloaca Maxima, and may have been of Etrurian invention. Some
+maintain that Archimedes of Sicily was the inventor of the arch; but to
+whomsoever the glory of the invention is due, it is certain that the
+Romans were the first of European nations to make a practical
+application of its wonderful qualities. It enabled them to rear vast
+edifices with the humblest materials, to build bridges, aqueducts,
+sewers, amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, as well as temples and
+palaces. The merits of the arch have never been lost sight of by
+succeeding generations, and it is an essential element in the
+magnificent Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Its application
+extends to domes and cupolas, to floors and corridors and roofs, and to
+various other parts of buildings where economy of material and labor is
+desired. It was applied extensively to doorways and windows, and is an
+ornament as well as a utility. The most imposing forms of Roman
+architecture may be traced to a knowledge of the properties of the arch,
+and as brick was more extensively used than any other material, the arch
+was invaluable. The imperial palace on Mount Palatine, the Pantheon
+(except its portico and internal columns), the temples of Peace, of
+Venus and Rome, and of Minerva Medica, were of brick. So were the great
+baths of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian, the villa of Hadrian, the
+city walls, the villa of Mecaenas at Tivoli, and most of the palaces of
+the nobility,--although, like many of the temples, they were faced with
+stone. The Colosseum was of travertine, a cheap white limestone, and
+faced with marble. It was another custom to stucco the surface of brick
+walls, as favorable to decorations. In consequence of the invention of
+the arch, the Romans erected a greater variety of fine structures than
+either the Greeks or Egyptians, whose public edifices were chiefly
+confined to temples. The arch entered into almost every structure,
+public or private, and superseded the use of long stone-beams, which
+were necessary in the Grecian temples, as also of wooden timbers, in the
+use of which the Romans were not skilled, and which do not really
+pertain to architecture: an imposing edifice must always be constructed
+of stone or brick. The arch also enabled the Romans to economize in the
+use of costly marbles, of which they were very fond, as well as of other
+stones. Some of the finest columns were made of Egyptian granite, very
+highly polished.</p>
+
+<p>The extensive application of the arch doubtless led to the deterioration
+of the Grecian architecture, since it blended columns with arcades, and
+thus impaired the harmony which so peculiarly marked the temples of
+Athens and Corinth; and as taste became vitiated with the decline of
+the empire, monstrous combinations took place, which were a great fall
+from the simplicity of the Parthenon and the interior of the Pantheon.</p>
+
+<p>But whatever defects marked the age of Diocletian and Constantine, it
+can never be questioned that the Romans carried architecture to a
+perfection rarely attained in our times. They may not have equalled the
+severe simplicity of their teachers the Greeks, but they surpassed them
+in the richness of their decorations, and in all buildings designed for
+utility, especially in private houses and baths and theatres.</p>
+
+<p>The Romans do not seem to have used other than semicircular arches. The
+Gothic, or Pointed, or Christian architecture, as it has been variously
+called, was the creation of the Middle Ages, and arose almost
+simultaneously in Europe after the first Crusade, so that it would seem
+to be of Eastern origin. But it was a graft on the old Roman arch, in
+the curve of the ellipse rather than the circle.</p>
+
+<p>Aside from this invention of the arch, to which we are indebted for the
+most beautiful ecclesiastical structures ever erected, we owe everything
+in architecture to the Greeks and Romans. We have found out no new
+principles which were not known to Vitruvius. No one man was the
+inventor or creator of the wonderful structures which ornamented the
+cities of the ancient world. We have the names of great architects, who
+reared various and faultless models, but they all worked upon the same
+principles, and these can never be subverted; so that in architecture
+the ancients are our schoolmasters, whose genius we revere the more we
+are acquainted with their works. What more beautiful than one of those
+grand temples which the cultivated heathen Greeks erected to the worship
+of their unknown gods!--the graduated and receding stylobate as a base
+for the fluted columns, rising at regular distances in all their severe
+proportion and matchless harmony, with their richly carved capitals
+supporting an entablature of heavy stones, most elaborately moulded and
+ornamented with the figures of plants and animals; and rising above
+this, on the ends of the temple, or over a portico several columns deep,
+the pediment, covered with chiselled cornices, with still richer
+ornaments rising from the apices and at the feet, all carved in white
+marble, and then spread over an area larger than any modern churches,
+making a forest of columns to bear aloft those ponderous beams of stone,
+without anything tending to break the continuity of horizontal lines, by
+which the harmony and simplicity of the whole are regulated! So
+accurately squared and nicely adjusted were the stones and pillars of
+which these temples were composed, that there was scarcely need even of
+cement. Without noise or confusion or sound of hammers did those
+temples rise, since all their parts were cut and carved in the distant
+quarries, and with mathematical precision. And within the cella, nearly
+concealed by surrounding columns, were the statues of the gods, and the
+altars on which incense was offered, or sacrifices made. In every part,
+interior and exterior, do we see a matchless proportion and beauty,
+whether in the shaft or the capital or the frieze or the pilaster or the
+pediment or the cornices, or even the mouldings,--everywhere grace and
+harmony, which grow upon the mind the more they are contemplated. The
+greatest evidence of the matchless creative genius displayed in those
+architectural wonders is that after two thousand years, and with all the
+inventions of Roman and modern artists, no improvement has been made;
+and those edifices which are the admiration of our own times are deemed
+beautiful as they approximate the ancient models, which will forever
+remain objects of imitation. No science can make two and two other than
+four; no art can make a Doric temple different from the Parthenon
+without departing from the settled principles of beauty and proportion
+which all ages have indorsed. Such were the Greeks and Romans in an art
+which is one of the greatest indices of material civilization, and which
+by them was derived from geometrical forms, or the imitation of Nature.</p>
+
+<p>The genius displayed by the ancients in sculpture is even more
+remarkable than their skill in architecture. Sculpture was carried to
+perfection only by the Greeks; but they did not originate the art, since
+we read of sculptured images from the remotest antiquity. The earliest
+names of sculptors are furnished by the Old Testament. Assyria and Egypt
+are full of relics to show how early this art was cultivated. It was not
+carried to perfection as early, probably, as architecture; but rude
+images of gods, carved in wood, are as old as the history of idolatry.
+The history of sculpture is in fact identified with that of idols. The
+Egyptians were probably the first who made any considerable advances in
+the execution of statues. Those which remain are rude, simple, uniform,
+without beauty or grace (except a certain serenity of facial expression
+which seems to pervade all their portraiture), but colossal and grand.
+Nearly two thousand years before Christ the walls of Thebes were
+ornamented with sculptured figures, even as the gates of Babylon were
+made of sculptured bronze. The dimensions of Egyptian colossal figures
+surpass those of any other nation. The sitting statues of Memnon at
+Thebes are fifty feet in height, and the Sphinx is twenty-five,--all of
+granite. The number of colossal statues was almost incredible. The
+sculptures found among the ruins of Karnak must have been made nearly
+four thousand years ago. They exhibit great simplicity of design, but
+have not much variety of expression. They are generally carved from the
+hardest stones, and finished so nicely that we infer that the Egyptians
+were acquainted with the art of hardening metals for their tools to a
+degree not known in our times. But we see no ideal grandeur among any of
+the remains of Egyptian sculpture; however symmetrical or colossal,
+there is no diversity of expression, no trace of emotion, no
+intellectual force,--everything is calm, impassive, imperturbable. It
+was not until sculpture came into the hands of the Greeks that any
+remarkable excellence in grace of form or expression of face was
+reached. But the progress of development was slow. The earliest carvings
+were rude wooden images of the gods, and more than a thousand years
+elapsed before the great masters were produced whose works marked the
+age of Pericles.</p>
+
+<p>It is not my object to give a history of the development of the plastic
+art, but to show the great excellence it attained in the hands of
+immortal sculptors.</p>
+
+<p>The Greeks had an intuitive perception of the beautiful, and to this
+great national trait we ascribe the wonderful progress which sculpture
+made. Nature was most carefully studied by the Greek artists, and that
+which was most beautiful in Nature became the object of their imitation.
+They even attained to an ideal excellence, since they combined in a
+single statue what could not be found in a single individual,--as Zeuxis
+is said to have studied the beautiful forms of seven virgins of Crotona
+in order to paint his famous picture of Venus. Great as was the beauty
+of Phryne or Aspasia or Lais, yet no one of them could have served for a
+perfect model; and it required a great sensibility to beauty in order to
+select and idealize what was most perfect in the human figure. Beauty
+was adored in Greece, and every means were used to perfect it,
+especially beauty of form, which is the characteristic excellence of
+Grecian statuary. The gymnasia were universally frequented; and the
+great prizes of the games, bestowed for feats of strength and agility,
+were regarded as the highest honors which men could receive,--the
+subject of the poet's ode and the people's admiration. Statues of the
+victors perpetuated their fame and improved the sculptor's art. From the
+study of these statues were produced those great creations which all
+subsequent ages have admired; and from the application of the principles
+seen in these forms we owe the perpetuation of the ideas of grace and
+beauty such as no other people besides the Greeks had ever discovered,
+or indeed scarcely appreciated. The sculpture of the human figure became
+a noble object of ambition in Greece, and was most munificently
+rewarded. Great artists arose, whose works adorned the temples of Greece
+so long as she preserved her independence, and when that was lost, her
+priceless productions were scattered over Asia and Europe. The Romans
+especially seized what was most prized, whether or not they could tell
+what was most perfect. Greece lived in her marble statues more than in
+her government or laws; and when we remember the estimation in which
+sculpture was held among the Greeks, the great prices paid for
+masterpieces, the care and attention with which they were guarded and
+preserved, and the innumerable works which were produced, filling all
+the public buildings, especially consecrated places, and even open
+spaces and the houses of the rich and great, calling from all classes
+admiration and praise,--we cannot think it likely that so great
+perfection will ever be reached again in those figures which are
+designed to represent beauty of form. Even the comparatively few statues
+which have survived the wars and violence of two thousand years,
+convince us that the moderns can only imitate; they can produce no
+creations equal to those by Athenian artists. &quot;No mechanical copying of
+Greek statues, however skilful the copyist, can ever secure for modern
+sculpture the same noble and effective character it possessed among the
+Greeks, for the simple reason that the imitation, close as may be the
+resemblance, is but the result of the eye and hand, while the original
+is the expression of a true and deeply felt sentiment. Art was not
+sustained by the patronage of a few who affect to have what is called
+<i>taste</i>; in Greece the artist, having a common feeling for the beautiful
+with his countrymen, produced his works for the public, which were
+erected in places of honor and dedicated in temples of the gods.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was not until the Persian wars awakened among the Greeks the
+slumbering consciousness of national power, and Athens became the
+central point of Grecian civilization, that sculpture, like architecture
+and painting, reached its culminating point of excellence under Phidias
+and his contemporaries. Great artists had previously made themselves
+famous, like Miron, Polycletus, and Ageladas; but the great riches which
+flowed into Athens at this time gave a peculiar stimulus to art,
+especially under the encouragement of such a ruler as Pericles, whose
+age was the golden era of Grecian history.</p>
+
+<p>Pheidias, or Phidias, was to sculpture what Aeschylus was to tragic
+poetry,--the representative of the sublime and grand. He was born four
+hundred and eighty-four years before Christ, and was the pupil of
+Ageladas. He stands at the head of the ancient sculptors, not from what
+<i>we</i> know of him, for his masterpieces have perished, but from the
+estimation in which he was held by the greatest critics of antiquity. It
+was to him that Pericles intrusted the adornment of the Parthenon, and
+the numerous and beautiful sculptures of the frieze and the pediment
+were the work of artists whom he directed. His great work in that
+wonderful edifice was the statue of the goddess Minerva herself, made of
+gold and ivory, forty feet in height, standing victorious, with a spear
+in her left hand and an image of victory in her right, with helmet on
+her head, and her shield resting by her side. The cost of this statue
+may be estimated when we consider that the gold alone used upon it was
+valued at forty-four talents, equal to five hundred thousand dollars of
+our money,--an immense sum in that age. Some critics suppose that this
+statue was overloaded with ornament, but all antiquity was unanimous in
+its admiration. The exactness and finish of detail were as remarkable as
+the grandeur of the proportions. Another of the famous works of Phidias
+was a colossal bronze statue of Athene Promachos, sixty feet in height,
+on the Acropolis between the Propylaea and the Parthenon. But both of
+these yielded to the colossal statue of Zeus in his great temple at
+Olympia, represented in a sitting posture, forty feet high, on a
+pedestal of twenty feet. The god was seated on a throne. Ebony, gold,
+ivory, and precious stones formed, with a multitude of sculptured and
+painted figures, the wonderful composition of this throne. In this his
+greatest work the artist sought to embody the idea of majesty and
+repose,--of a supreme deity no longer engaged in war with Titans and
+Giants, but enthroned as a conqueror, ruling with a nod the subject
+world, and giving his blessing to those victories which gave glory to
+the Greeks. So famous was this statue, which was regarded as the
+masterpiece of Grecian art, that it was considered a calamity to die
+without having seen it; and this served for a model for all subsequent
+representations of majesty and power in repose among the ancients. It
+was removed to Constantinople by Theodosius I., and was destroyed by
+fire in the year 475 A.D. Phidias executed various other famous works,
+which have perished; but even those that were executed under his
+superintendence which have come down to our times,--like the statues
+which ornamented the pediment of the Parthenon,--are among the finest
+specimens of art that exist, and exhibit the most graceful and
+appropriate forms which could have been selected, uniting grandeur with
+simplicity, and beauty with accuracy of anatomical structure. His
+distinguishing excellence was ideal beauty, and that of the
+sublimest order.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the wonders and mysteries of ancient art the colossal statues of
+ivory and gold were perhaps the most remarkable, and the difficulty of
+executing them has been set forth by the ablest of modern critics, like
+Winckelmann, Heyne, and De Quincey. &quot;The grandeur of their dimensions,
+the perfection of their workmanship, the richness of their materials,
+their majesty, beauty, and ideal truth, the splendor of the architecture
+and pictorial decoration with which they were associated,--all conspired
+to impress the beholder with wonder and awe, and induce a belief of the
+actual presence of the god.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After the Peloponnesian War a new school of art arose in Athens, which
+appealed more to the passions. Of this school was Praxiteles, who aimed
+to please without seeking to elevate or instruct. No one has probably
+ever surpassed him in execution. He wrought in bronze and marble, and
+was one of the artists who adorned the Mausoleum of Artemisia. Without
+attempting the sublime impersonation of the deity, in which Phidias
+excelled, he was unsurpassed in the softer graces and beauties of the
+human form, especially in female figures. His most famous work was an
+undraped statue of Venus, for his native town of Cnidus, which was so
+remarkable that people flocked from all parts of Greece to see it. He
+did not aim at ideal majesty so much as at ideal gracefulness; his works
+were formed from the most beautiful living models, and hence expressed
+only the ideal of sensuous charms. It is probable that the Venus de
+Medici of Cleomenes was a mere copy of the Aphrodite of Praxiteles,
+which was so highly extolled by, the ancient authors; it was of Parian
+marble, and modelled from the celebrated Phryne. His statues of Dionysus
+also expressed the most consummate physical beauty, representing the god
+as a beautiful youth crowned with ivy, and expressing tender and dreamy
+emotions. Praxiteles sculptured several figures of Eros, or the god of
+love, of which that at Thespiae attracted visitors to the city in the
+time of Cicero. It was subsequently carried to Rome, and perished by a
+conflagration in the time of Titus. One of the most celebrated statues
+of this artist was an Apollo, many copies of which still exist. His
+works were very numerous, but chiefly from the circle of Dionysus,
+Aphrodite, and Eros, in which adoration for corporeal attractions is the
+most marked peculiarity, and for which the artist was fitted by his
+dissolute life.</p>
+
+<p>Scopas was the contemporary of Praxiteles, and was the author of the
+celebrated group of Niobe, which is one of the chief ornaments of the
+gallery of sculpture at Florence. He flourished about three hundred and
+fifty years before Christ, and wrought chiefly in marble. He was
+employed in decorating the Mausoleum which Artemisia erected to her
+husband,--one of the wonders of the world. His masterpiece is said to
+have been a group representing Achilles conducted to the island of Leuce
+by the divinities of the sea, which ornamented the shrine of Domitius in
+the Flaminian Circus. In this, tender grace, heroic grandeur, daring
+power, and luxurious fulness of life were combined with wonderful
+harmony. Like the other great artists of this school, Scopas exhibited
+the grandeur and sublimity for which Phidias was celebrated, but a
+greater refinement and luxury, as well as skill in the use of drapery.</p>
+
+<p>Sculpture in Greece culminated, as an art, in Lysippus, who worked
+chiefly in bronze. He is said to have executed fifteen hundred statues,
+and was much esteemed by Alexander the Great, by whom he was extensively
+patronized. He represented men not as they were, but as they appeared to
+be; and if he exaggerated, he displayed great energy of action. He aimed
+to idealize merely human beauty, and his imitation of Nature was carried
+out in the minutest details. None of his works are extant; but as he
+alone was permitted to make the statue of Alexander, we infer that he
+had no equals. The Emperor Tiberius transferred one of his statues (that
+of an athlete) from the baths of Agrippa to his own chamber, which so
+incensed the people that he was obliged to restore it. His favorite
+subject was Hercules, and a colossal statue of this god was carried to
+Rome by Fabius Maximus, when he took Tarentum, and afterward was
+transferred to Constantinople; the Farnese Hercules and the Belvidere
+Torso are probably copies of this work. He left many eminent scholars,
+among whom were Chares (who executed the famous Colossus of Rhodes),
+Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus who sculptured the group of the
+&quot;Laoco&ouml;n.&quot; The Rhodian school was the immediate offshoot from the school
+of Lysippus at Sicyon; and from this small island of Rhodes the Romans,
+when they conquered it, carried away three thousand statues. The
+Colossus was one of the wonders of the world (seventy cubits in height);
+and the Laoco&ouml;n (the group of the Trojan hero and his two sons encoiled
+by serpents) is a perfect miracle of art, in which pathos is exhibited
+in the highest degree ever attained in sculpture. It was discovered in
+1506, near the baths of Titus, and is one of the choicest remains of
+ancient plastic art.</p>
+
+<p>The great artists of antiquity did not confine themselves to the
+representation of man, but also carved animals with exceeding accuracy
+and beauty. Nicias was famous for his dogs, Myron for his cows, and
+Lysippus for his horses. Praxiteles composed his celebrated lion after a
+living animal. &quot;The horses of the frieze of the Elgin Marbles,&quot; says
+Flaxman, &quot;appear to live and move; to roll their eyes, to gallop,
+prance, and curvet; the veins of their faces and legs seem distended
+with circulation. The beholder is charmed with the deer-like lightness
+and elegance of their make; and although the relief is not above an inch
+from the background, and they are so much smaller than nature, we can
+scarcely suffer reason to persuade us they are not alive.&quot; The Greeks
+also carved gems, cameos, medals, and vases, with unapproachable
+excellence. Very few specimens have come down to our times, but those
+which we possess show great beauty both in design and execution.</p>
+
+<p>Grecian statuary began with ideal representations of the deities, and
+was carried to the greatest perfection by Phidias in his statues of
+Jupiter and Minerva. Then succeeded the school of Praxiteles, in which
+the figures of gods and goddesses were still represented, but in mortal
+forms. The school of Lysippus was famous for the statues of celebrated
+men, especially in cities where Macedonian rulers resided. Artists were
+expected henceforth to glorify kings and powerful nobles and rulers by
+portrait statues. From this period, however, plastic art degenerated;
+nor were works of original genius produced, but rather copies or
+varieties from the three great schools to which allusion has been made.
+Sculpture may have multiplied, but not new creations; although some
+imitations of great merit were produced, like the Hermaphrodite, the
+Torso, the Farnese Hercules, and the Fighting Gladiator. When Corinth
+was sacked by Mummius, some of the finest statues of Greece were carried
+to Rome; and after the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, the Greek
+artists emigrated to Italy. The fall of Syracuse introduced many works
+of priceless value into Rome; but it was from Athens, Delphi, Corinth,
+Elis, and other great centres of art that the richest treasures were
+brought. Greece was despoiled to ornament Italy.</p>
+
+<p>The Romans did not create a school of sculpture. They borrowed wholly
+from the Greeks, yet made, especially in the time of Hadrian, many
+beautiful statues. They were fond of this art, and all eminent men had
+statues erected to their memory. The busts of emperors were found in
+every great city, and Rome was filled with statues. The monuments of the
+Romans were even more numerous than those of the Greeks, and among them
+some admirable portraits are found. These sculptures did not express
+that consummation of beauty and grace, of refinement and sentiment,
+which marked the Greeks; but the imitations were good. Art had reached
+its perfection under Lysippus; there was nothing more to learn. Genius
+in that department could soar no higher. It will never rise to
+loftier heights.</p>
+
+<p>It is noteworthy that the purest forms of Grecian art arose in its
+earlier stages. From a moral point of view, sculpture declined from the
+time of Phidias. It was prostituted at Rome under the emperors. The
+specimens which have often been found among the ruins of ancient baths
+make us blush for human nature. The skill of execution did not decline
+for several centuries; but the lofty ideal was lost sight of, and gross
+appeals to human passions were made by those who sought to please
+corrupt leaders of society in an effeminate age. The turgidity and
+luxuriance of art gradually passed into tameness and poverty. The
+reliefs on the Arch of Constantine are rude and clumsy compared with
+those on the column of Marcus Aurelius.</p>
+
+<p>It is not my purpose to describe the decline of art, or enumerate the
+names of the celebrated masters who exalted sculpture in the palmy days
+of Pericles or even Alexander. I simply speak of sculpture as an art
+which reached a great perfection among the Greeks and Romans, as we have
+a right to infer from the specimens that have been preserved. How many
+more must have perished, we may infer from the criticisms of the ancient
+authors. The finest productions of our own age are in a measure
+reproductions; they cannot be called creations, like the statue of the
+Olympian Jove. Even the Moses of Michael Angelo is a Grecian god, and
+Powers's Greek Slave is a copy of an ancient Venus. The very tints which
+have been admired in some of the works of modern sculptors are borrowed
+from Praxiteles, who succeeded in giving to his statues an appearance of
+living flesh. The Museum of the Vatican alone contains several thousand
+specimens of ancient sculpture which have been found among the d&eacute;bris of
+former magnificence, many of which are the productions of Greek artists
+transported to Rome. Among them are antique copies of the Cupid and the
+Faun of Praxiteles, the statue of Demosthenes, the Minerva Medica, the
+Athlete of Lysippus, the Torso Belvedere sculptured by Apollonius, the
+Belvidere Antinous, of faultless anatomy and a study for Domenichino,
+the Laoco&ouml;n, so panegyrized by Pliny, the Apollo Belvedere, the work of
+Agasias of Ephesus, the Sleeping Ariadne, with numerous other statues of
+gods and goddesses, emperors, philosophers, poets, and statesmen of
+antiquity. The Dying Gladiator, which ornaments the capitol, is alone a
+magnificent proof of the perfection to which sculpture was carried
+centuries after the art had culminated at Athens. And these are only a
+few which stand out among the twenty thousand recovered statues that now
+embellish Italy, to say nothing of those that are scattered over Europe.
+We have the names of hundreds of artists who were famous in their day.
+Not merely the figures of men are chiselled, but of animals and plants.
+Nature in all her forms was imitated; and not merely Nature, but the
+dresses of the ancients are perpetuated in marble. No modern sculptor
+has equalled, in delicacy of finish, the draperies of those ancient
+statues as they appear to us even after the exposure and accidents of
+two thousand years. No one, after a careful study of the museums of
+Europe, can question that of all the nations who have claimed to be
+civilized, the ancient Greeks and Romans deserve a proud pre-eminence in
+an art which is still regarded as among the highest triumphs of human
+genius. All these matchless productions of antiquity are the result of
+native genius alone, without the aid of Christian ideas. Nor with the
+aid of Christianity are we sure that any nation will ever soar to
+loftier heights than did the Greeks in that proud realm which was
+consecrated to Paganism.</p>
+
+<p>We are not so certain in regard to the excellence of the ancients in the
+art of painting as we are in regard to sculpture and architecture, since
+so few specimens of painting have been preserved. We have only the
+testimony of the ancients themselves; and as they had so severe a taste
+and so great a susceptibility to beauty in all its forms, we cannot
+suppose that their notions were crude in this great art which the
+moderns have carried to such great perfection. In this art the moderns
+doubtless excel, especially in perspective and drawing, and light and
+shade. No age, we fancy, can surpass Italy in the fifteenth and
+sixteenth centuries, when the genius of Raphael, Correggio, and
+Domenichino blazed with such wonderful brilliancy.</p>
+
+<p>Painting in some form, however, is very ancient, though not so ancient
+as are the temples of the gods and the statues that were erected to
+their worship. It arose with the susceptibility to beauty of form and
+color, and with the view of conveying thoughts and emotions of the soul
+by imitation of their outward expression. The walls of Babylon were
+painted after Nature with representations of different species of
+animals and of combats between them and man. Semiramis was represented
+as on horseback, striking a leopard with a dart, and her husband Ninus
+as wounding a lion. Ezekiel describes various idols and beasts portrayed
+upon the walls, and even princes painted in vermilion, with girdles
+around their loins. In ages almost fabulous there were some rude
+attempts in this art, which probably arose from the coloring of statues
+and reliefs. The wooden chests of Egyptian mummies are covered with
+painted and hieroglyphic presentations of religious subjects; but the
+colors were laid without regard to light and shade. The Egyptians did
+not seek to represent the passions and emotions which agitate the soul,
+but rather to authenticate events and actions; and hence their
+paintings, like hieroglyphics, are but inscriptions. It was their great
+festivals and religious rites which they sought to perpetuate, not ideas
+of beauty or of grace. Thus their paintings abound with dismembered
+animals, plants, and flowers, with censers, entrails,--whatever was used
+in their religious worship. In Greece also the original painting
+consisted in coloring statues and reliefs of wood and clay. At Corinth,
+painting was early united with the fabrication of vases, on which were
+rudely painted figures of men and animals. Among the Etruscans, before
+Rome was founded, it is said there were beautiful paintings, and it is
+probable that these people were advanced in art before the Greeks. There
+were paintings in some of the old Etruscan cities which the Roman
+emperors wished to remove, so much admired were they even in the days of
+the greatest splendor. The ancient Etruscan vases are famous for designs
+which have never been exceeded in purity of form, but it is probable
+that these were copied from the Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>Whether the Greeks or the Etruscans were the first to paint, however,
+the art was certainly carried to the greatest perfection among the
+former. The development of it was, like all arts, very gradual. It
+probably began by drawing the outline of a shadow, without intermediate
+markings; the next step was the complete outline with the inner
+markings,--such as are represented on the ancient vases, or like the
+designs of Flaxman. They were originally practised on a white ground;
+then light and shade were introduced, and then the application of colors
+in accordance with Nature. We read of a great painting by Bularchus, of
+the battle of Magnete, purchased by a king of Lydia seven hundred and
+eighteen years before Christ. As the subject was a battle, it must have
+represented the movement of figures, although we know nothing of the
+coloring or of the real excellence of the work, except that the artist
+was paid munificently. Cimon of Cleona is the first great name connected
+with the art in Greece. He is praised by Pliny, to whom we owe the
+history of ancient painting more than to any other author. Cimon was not
+satisfied with drawing simply the outlines of his figures, such as we
+see in the oldest painted vases, but he also represented limbs, and
+folds of garments. He invented the art of foreshortening, or the various
+representations of the diminution of the length of figures as they
+appear when looked at obliquely; and hence was the first painter of
+perspective. He first made muscular articulations, indicated the veins,
+and gave natural folds to drapery.</p>
+
+<p>A much greater painter than he was Polygnotus of Thasos, the
+contemporary of Phidias, who came to Athens about the year 463
+B.C.,--one of the greatest geniuses of any age, and one of the most
+magnanimous, who had the good fortune to live in an age of exceeding
+intellectual activity. He painted on panels, which were afterward let
+into the walls, being employed on the public buildings of Athens, and on
+the great temple of Delphi, the hall of which he painted gratuitously.
+He also decorated the Propylaea, which was erected under the
+superintendence of Phidias. The pictures of Polygnotus had nothing of
+that elaborate grouping, aided by the powers of perspective, so much
+admired in modern art. His greatness lay in statuesque painting, which
+he brought nearly to perfection by ideal expression, accurate drawing,
+and improved coloring. He used but few colors, and softened the rigidity
+of his predecessors by making the mouth of beauty smile. He gave great
+expression to the face and figure, and his pictures were models of
+excellence for the beauty of the eyebrows, the blush upon the cheeks,
+and the gracefulness of the draperies. He strove, like Phidias, to
+express character in repose. He imitated the personages and the subjects
+of the old mythology, and treated them in an epic spirit, his subjects
+being almost invariably taken from Homer and the Epic cycle.</p>
+
+<p>Among the works of Polygnotus, as mentioned by Pliny, are his paintings
+in the Temple at Delphi, in the Propylaea of the Acropolis, in the
+Temple of Theseus, and in the Temple of the Dioscuri at Athens. He
+painted in a truly religious spirit, and upon symmetrical principles,
+with great grandeur and freedom, resembling Michael Angelo more than any
+other modern artist.</p>
+
+<p>The use of oil was unknown to the ancients. The artists painted upon
+wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, but not upon canvas, which was
+not used till the time of Nero. They painted upon tablets or panels, and
+not upon the walls,--the panels being afterward framed and encased in
+the walls. The stylus, or cestrum, used in drawing and for spreading the
+wax colors was pointed on one end and flat on the other, and generally
+made of metal. Wax was prepared by purifying and bleaching, and then
+mixed with colors. When painting was practised in watercolors, glue was
+used with the white of an egg or with gums; but wax and resins were also
+worked with water, with certain preparations. This latter mode was
+called encaustic, and was, according to Plutarch, the most durable of
+all methods. It was not generally adopted till the time of Alexander the
+Great. Wax was a most essential ingredient, since it prevented the
+colors from cracking. Encaustic painting was practised both with the
+cestrum and the pencil, and the colors were also burned in.</p>
+
+<p>Fresco, or water-color, on fresh plaster, was used for coloring walls,
+which were divided into compartments or panels. The composition of the
+stucco, and the method of preparing the walls for painting, is described
+by the ancient writers: &quot;They first covered the walls with a layer of
+ordinary plaster, over which, when dry, were successively added three
+other layers of a finer quality, mixed with sand. Above these were
+placed three layers of a composition of chalk and marble-dust, the upper
+one being laid on before the under one was dry; by which process the
+different layers were so bound together that the whole mass formed one
+beautiful and solid slab, resembling marble, and was capable of being
+detached from the wall and transported in a wooden frame to any
+distance. The colors were applied when the composition was still wet.
+The fresco wall, when painted, was covered with an encaustic varnish,
+both to heighten the color and to preserve it from the effects of the
+sun or the weather; but this process required so much care, and was
+attended with so much expense, that it was used only in the better
+houses and palaces.&quot; The later discoveries at Pompeii show the same
+correctness of design in painting as in sculpture, and also considerable
+perfection in coloring. The great artists of Greece--Phidias and
+Euphranor, Zeuxis and Protogenes, Polygnotus and Lysippus--were both
+sculptors and painters, like Michael Angelo; and the ancient writers
+praise the paintings of these great artists as much as their sculpture.
+The Aldobrandini Marriage, found on the Esquiline Mount during the
+pontificate of Clement VIII., and placed in the Vatican by Pius VII., is
+admired both for drawing and color. Polygnotus was praised by Aristotle
+for his designs, and by Lucian for his color.</p>
+
+<p>Dionysius and Mikon were the great contemporaries of Polygnotus, the
+former being celebrated for his portraits. His pictures were deficient
+in the ideal, but were remarkable for expression and elegant drawing.
+Mikon was particularly skilled in painting horses, and was the first who
+used for a color the light Attic ochre, and the black made from burnt
+vine-twigs. He painted three of the walls of the Temple of Theseus, and
+also the walls of the Temple of the Dioscuri.</p>
+
+<p>A greater painter still was Apollodorus of Athens. Through his labors,
+about 408 B.C., dramatic effect was added to the style of Polygnotus,
+without departing from his pictures as models. &quot;The acuteness of his
+taste,&quot; says Fuseli, &quot;led him to discover that as all men were connected
+by one general form, so they were separated each by some predominant
+power, which fixed character and bound them to a class. Thence he drew
+his line of imitation, and personified the central form of the class to
+which his object belonged, and to which the rest of its qualities
+administered without being absorbed. Agility was not suffered to destroy
+firmness, solidity, or weight; nor strength and weight, agility.
+Elegance did not degenerate into effeminacy, nor grandeur swell to
+hugeness.&quot; His aim was to deceive the eye of the spectator by the
+semblance of reality: he painted men and things as they really appeared.
+He also made a great advance in coloring: he invented chiaro-oscuro.
+Other painters had given attention to the proper gradation of light and
+shade; he heightened this effect by the gradation of tints, and thus
+obtained what the moderns call <i>tone</i>. He was the first who conferred
+due honor on the pencil,--<i>primusque gloriam penicillo jure contulit</i>.</p>
+
+<p>This great painter was succeeded by Zeuxis, who belonged to his school,
+but who surpassed him in the power to give ideal form to rich effects.
+He began his great career four hundred and twenty-four years before
+Christ, and was most remarkable for his female figures. His Helen,
+painted from five of the most beautiful women of Croton, was one of the
+most renowned productions of antiquity, to see which the painter
+demanded money. He gave away his pictures, because, with an artist's
+pride, he maintained that their price could not be estimated. There is
+a tradition that Zeuxis laughed himself to death over an old woman
+painted by him. He arrived at illusion of the senses, regarded as a high
+attainment in art,--as in the instance recorded of his grapes, at which
+the birds pecked. He belonged to the Asiatic school, whose headquarters
+were at Ephesus,--the peculiarities of which were accuracy of imitation,
+the exhibition of sensuous charms, and the gratification of sensual
+tastes. He went to Athens about the time that the sculpture of Phidias
+was completed, which modified his style. His marvellous powers were
+displayed in the contrast of light and shade, which he learned from
+Apollodorus. He gave ideal beauty to his figures, but it was in form
+rather than in expression. He taught the true method of grouping, by
+making each figure the perfect representation of the class to which it
+belonged. His works were deficient in those qualities which elevate the
+feelings and the character. He was the Euripides rather than the Homer
+of his art. He exactly imitated natural objects, which are incapable of
+ideal representation. His works were not so numerous as they were
+perfect in their way, in some of which, as in the Infant Hercules
+strangling the Serpent, he displayed great dramatic power. Lucian highly
+praises his Female Centaur as one of the most remarkable paintings of
+the world, in which he showed great ingenuity of contrasts. His Jupiter
+Enthroned is also extolled by Pliny, as one of his finest works. Zeuxis
+acquired a great fortune, and lived ostentatiously.</p>
+
+<p>Contemporaneous with Zeuxis, and equal in fame, was Parrhasius, a native
+of Ephesus, whose skill lay in accuracy of drawing and power of
+expression. He gave to painting true proportion, and attended to minute
+details of the countenance and the hair. In his gods and heroes, he did
+for painting what Phidias did in sculpture. His outlines were so perfect
+as to indicate those parts of the figure which they did not express. He
+established a rule of proportion which was followed by all succeeding
+artists. While many of his pieces were of a lofty character, some were
+demoralizing. Zeuxis yielded the palm to him, since Parrhasius painted a
+curtain which deceived his rival, whereas the grapes of Zeuxis had
+deceived only birds. Parrhasius was exceedingly arrogant and luxurious,
+and boasted of having reached the utmost limits of his art. He combined
+the magic tone of Apollodorus with the exquisite design of Zeuxis and
+the classic expression of Polygnotus.</p>
+
+<p>Many were the eminent painters that adorned the fifth century before
+Christ, not only in Athens, but in the Ionian cities of Asia. Timanthes
+of Sicyon was distinguished for invention, and Eupompus of the same
+city founded a school. His advice to Lysippus is memorable: &quot;Let Nature,
+not an artist, be your model.&quot; Protogenes was celebrated for his high
+finish. His Talissus took him seven years to complete. Pamphilus was
+celebrated for composition, Antiphilus for facility, Theon of Samos for
+prolific fancy, Apelles for grace, Pausias for his chiaro-oscuro,
+Nicomachus for his bold and rapid pencil, Aristides for depth of
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>The art probably culminated in Apelles, who was at once a rich colorist
+and portrayer of sensuous charm and a scientific artist, while he added
+a peculiar grace of his own, which distinguished him above both his
+predecessors and contemporaries. He was contemporaneous with Alexander,
+and was alone allowed to paint the picture of the great conqueror.
+Apelles was a native of Ephesus, studied under Pamphilus of Amphipolis,
+and when he had gained reputation he went to Sicyon and took lessons
+from Melanthius. He spent the best part of his life at the court of
+Philip and Alexander, and painted many portraits of these great men and
+of their generals. He excelled in portraits, and labored so assiduously
+to perfect himself in drawing that he never spent a day without
+practising. He made great improvement in the mechanical part of his art,
+inventing some colors, and being the first to varnish pictures. By the
+general consent of ancient authors, Apelles stands at the head of all
+the painters of their world. His greatest work was his Venus Anadyomene,
+or Venus rising out of the sea, in which female grace was personified;
+the falling drops of water from her hair gave the appearance of a
+transparent silver veil over her form. This picture cost one hundred
+talents, was painted for the Temple of Aesculapius at Cos, and afterward
+placed by Augustus in the temple which he dedicated to Julius Caesar.
+The lower part of it becoming injured, no one could be found to repair
+it; nor was there an artist who could complete an unfinished picture
+which Apelles left. He feared no criticism, and was unenvious of the
+fame of rivals.</p>
+
+<p>After Apelles, the art of painting declined, although great painters
+occasionally appeared, especially from the school of Sicyon, which was
+renowned for nearly two hundred years. The destruction of Corinth by
+Mummius, 146 B.C., gave a severe blow to Grecian art. This general
+destroyed, or carried to Rome, more works than all his predecessors
+combined. Sulla, when he spoiled Athens, inflicted a still greater
+injury; and from that time artists resorted to Rome and Alexandria and
+other flourishing cities for patronage and remuneration. The
+masterpieces of famous artists brought enormous prices, and Greece and
+Asia were ransacked for old pictures. The paintings which Aemilius
+Paulus brought from Greece required two hundred and fifty wagons to
+carry them in the triumphal procession. With the spoliation of Greece,
+the migration of artists began; and this spoliation of Greece, Asia, and
+Sicily continued for two centuries. We have already said that such was
+the wealth of Rhodes in works of art that three thousand statues were
+found there by the conquerors; nor could there have been less at Athens,
+Olympia, and Delphi. Scaurus had all the public pictures of Sicyon
+transported to Rome. Verres plundered every temple and public building
+in Sicily.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Rome was possessed of the finest paintings in the world, without
+the slightest claim to the advancement of the art. And if the opinion of
+Sir Joshua Reynolds is correct, art could advance no higher in the realm
+of painting, as well as of statuary, than the Greeks had already borne
+it. Yet the Romans learned to place as high value on the works of
+Grecian genius as the English do on the paintings of the old masters of
+Italy and Flanders. And if they did not add to the art, they gave such
+encouragement that under the emperors it may be said to have been
+flourishing. Varro had a gallery of seven hundred portraits of eminent
+men. The portraits as well as the statues of the great were placed in
+the temples, libraries, and public buildings. The baths especially were
+filled with paintings.</p>
+
+<p>The great masterpieces of the Greeks were either historical or
+mythological. Paintings of gods and heroes, groups of men and women, in
+which character and passion could be delineated, were the most highly
+prized. It was in the expression given to the human figure--in beauty of
+form and countenance, in which all the emotions of the soul, as well as
+the graces of the body were portrayed--that the Greek artists sought to
+reach the ideal, and to gain immortality. And they painted for a people
+who had both a natural and a cultivated taste and sensibility.</p>
+
+<p>Among the Romans portrait, decorative, and scene painting engrossed the
+art, much to the regret of such critics as Pliny and Vitruvius. Nothing
+could be in more execrable taste than a colossal painting of Nero, one
+hundred and twenty feet high. From the time of Augustus landscape
+decorations were common, and were carried out with every species of
+license. Among the Greeks we do not read of landscape painting. This has
+been reserved for our age, and is much admired, as it was at Rome in the
+latter days of the empire. Mosaic work, of inlaid stones or composition
+of varying shades and colors, gradually superseded painting in Rome; it
+was first used for floors, and finally walls and ceilings were
+ornamented with it. It is true, the ancients could show no such
+exquisite perfection of colors, tints, and shades as may be seen to-day
+in the wonderful reproductions of world-renowned paintings on the walls
+of St. Peter's at Rome; but many ancient mosaics have been preserved
+which attest beauty of design of the highest character,--like the Battle
+of Issus, lately discovered at Pompeii; and this brilliant art had its
+origin and a splendid development at the hands of the old Romans.</p>
+
+<p>Thus in all those arts of which modern civilization is proudest, and in
+which the genius of man has soared to the loftiest heights, the ancients
+were not merely our equals,--they were our superiors. It is greater to
+originate than to copy. In architecture, in sculpture, and perhaps in
+painting, the Greeks attained absolute perfection. Any architect of our
+time, who should build an edifice in different proportions from those
+that were recognized in the great cities of antiquity, would make a
+mistake. Who can improve upon the Doric columns of the Parthenon, or
+upon the Corinthian capitals of the Temple of Jupiter? Indeed, it is in
+proportion as we accurately copy the faultless models of the age of
+Pericles that excellence with us is attained and recognized; when we
+differ from them we furnish grounds of just criticism. So in
+sculpture,--the finest modern works are inspired by antique models. It
+is only when the artist seeks to bring out the purest and loftiest
+sentiments of the soul, such as only Christianity can inspire, that he
+may hope to surpass the sculpture of antiquity in one department of that
+art alone,--in expression, rather than in beauty of form, on which no
+improvement can be made. And if we possessed the painted Venus of
+Apelles, as we can boast of having the sculptured Venus of Cleomenes, we
+should probably discover greater richness of coloring as well as grace
+of figure than appear in that famous picture of Titian which is one of
+the proudest ornaments of the galleries of Florence, and one of the
+greatest marvels of Italian art.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>AUTHORITIES.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>Winckelmann's History of Ancient Art; M&uuml;ller's Ancient Art and its
+Remains; A.J. Guattani, Antiquit&eacute;s de la Grande Gr&egrave;ce; Mazois,
+Antiquit&eacute;s de Pompeii; Sir W. Gill, Pompeiana; Donaldson's Antiquities
+of Athens; Vitruvius, Stuart, Chandler, Clarke, Dodwell, Cleghorn, De
+Quincey, Fergusson, Schliemann,--these are some of the innumerable
+authorities on Architecture among the ancients.</p>
+
+<p>In Sculpture, Pliny and Cicero are the most noted critics. There is a
+fine article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica on this subject. In Smith's
+Dictionary are the Lives and works of the most noted masters. M&uuml;ller's
+Ancient Art alludes to the leading masterpieces. Montfau&ccedil;on's Antiquit&eacute;
+Expliqu&eacute;e en Figures; Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, by the Society of
+Dilettanti, London, 1809; Ancient Marbles of the British Museum, by
+Taylor Combe; Millin, Introduction &agrave; l'&Eacute;tude des Monuments Antiques;
+Monuments In&eacute;dits d'Antiquit&eacute; figur&eacute;e, recuellis et publi&eacute;s par
+Raoul-Rochette; Gerhard's Arch&auml;ologische Zeitung; David's Essai sur le
+Classement Chronologique des Sculpteurs Grecs les plus c&eacute;l&egrave;bres.</p>
+
+<p>In Painting, see M&uuml;ller's Ancient Art; Fuseli's Lectures; Sir Joshua
+Reynolds's Lectures; Lanzi's History of Painting in Italy (translated by
+Roscoe); and the Article on &quot;Painting,&quot; Encyclopaedia Britannica, and
+Article &quot;Pictura,&quot; Smith's Dictionary, both of which last mentioned
+refer to numerous German, French, and other authorities, should the
+reader care to pursue the subject. Vitruvius (on Architecture,
+translated by Gwilt) writes at some length on ancient wall-paintings.
+The finest specimens of ancient paintings are found in catacombs, the
+baths, and the ruins of Pompeii. On this subject Winckelmann is the
+great authority.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="ANCIENT_SCIENTIFIC_KNOWLEDGE."></a>ANCIENT SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>ASTRONOMY, GEOGRAPHY, ETC.</p>
+
+<p>2000-100 B.C.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>It would be absurd to claim for the ancients any great attainments in
+science, such as they made in the field of letters or the realm of art.
+It is in science, especially when applied to practical life, that the
+moderns show their great superiority to the most enlightened nations of
+antiquity. In this great department of human inquiry modern genius
+shines with the lustre of the sun. It is this which most strikingly
+attests the advance of civilization. It is this which has distinguished
+and elevated the races of Europe, and carried them in the line of
+progress beyond the attainments of the Greeks and Romans. With the
+magnificent discoveries and inventions of the last three hundred years
+in almost every department of science, especially in the explorations of
+distant seas and continents, in the analysis of chemical compounds, in
+the wonders of steam and electricity, in mechanical appliances to
+abridge human labor, in astronomical researches, in the explanation of
+the phenomena of the heavens, in the miracles which inventive genius has
+wrought,--seen in our ships, our manufactories, our printing-presses,
+our observatories, our fortifications, our laboratories, our mills, our
+machines to cultivate the earth, to make our clothes, to build our
+houses, to multiply our means of offence and defence, to make weak
+children do the work of Titans, to measure our time with the accuracy of
+the planetary orbits, to use the sun itself in perpetuating our
+likenesses to distant generations, to cause a needle to guide the
+mariner with assurance on the darkest night, to propel a heavy ship
+against wind and tide without oars or sails, to make carriages ascend
+mountains without horses at the rate of thirty miles an hour, to convey
+intelligence with the speed of lightning from continent to continent and
+under oceans that ancient navigators never dared to cross,--these and
+other wonders attest an ingenuity and audacity of intellect which would
+have overwhelmed with amazement the most adventurous of Greeks and the
+most potent of Romans.</p>
+
+<p>But the great discoveries and inventions to which we owe this marked
+superiority are either accidental or the result of generations of
+experiment, assisted by an immense array of ascertained facts from which
+safe inductions can be made. It is not, probably, the superiority of
+the European races over the Greeks and Romans to which we may ascribe
+the wonderful advance of modern society, but the particular direction
+which genius was made to take. Had the Greeks given the energy of their
+minds to mechanical forces as they did to artistic creations, they might
+have made wonderful inventions. But it was not so ordered by Providence.
+At that time the world was not in the stage of development when this
+particular direction of intellect could have been favored. The
+development of the physical sciences, with their infinite multiplicity
+and complexity, required more centuries of observation, collection and
+collation of facts, deductions from known phenomena, than the ancients
+had had to work with; while the more ethereal realms of philosophy,
+ethics, aesthetics, and religion, though needing keen study of Nature
+and of man, depended more upon inner spiritual forces, and less upon
+accumulated detail of external knowledge. Yet as there were some
+subjects which the Greeks and Romans seemed to exhaust, some fields of
+labor and thought in which they never have been and perhaps never will
+be surpassed, so some future age may direct its energies into channels
+that are as unknown to us as clocks and steam-engines were to the
+Greeks. This is the age of mechanism and of science; and mechanism and
+science sweep everything before them, and will probably be carried to
+their utmost capacity and development. After that the human mind may
+seek some new department, some new scope for its energies, and an age of
+new wonders may arise,--perhaps after the present dominant races shall
+have become intoxicated with the greatness of their triumphs and have
+shared the fate of the old monarchies of the East. But I would not
+speculate on the destinies of the European nations, whether they are to
+make indefinite advances until they occupy and rule the whole world, or
+are destined to be succeeded by nations as yet undeveloped,--savages, as
+their fathers were when Rome was in the fulness of material wealth
+and grandeur.</p>
+
+<p>I have shown that in the field of artistic excellence, in literary
+composition, in the arts of government and legislation, and even in the
+realm of philosophical speculation, the ancients were our
+school-masters, and that among them were some men of most marvellous
+genius, who have had no superiors among us. But we do not see among them
+the exhibition of genius in what we call science, at least in its
+application to practical life. It would be difficult to show any
+department of science which the ancients carried to any considerable
+degree of perfection. Nevertheless, there were departments in which they
+made noble attempts, and in which they showed large capacity, even if
+they were unsuccessful in great practical results.</p>
+
+<p>Astronomy was one of these. In this science such men as Eratosthenes,
+Aristarchus, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy were great lights of whom humanity
+may be proud; and had they been assisted by our modern inventions, they
+might have earned a fame scarcely eclipsed by that of Kepler and Newton.
+The old astronomers did little to place this science on a true
+foundation, but they showed great ingenuity, and discovered some truths
+which no succeeding age has repudiated. They determined the
+circumference of the earth by a method identical with that which would
+be employed by modern astronomers; they ascertained the position of the
+stars by right ascension and declination; they knew the obliquity of the
+ecliptic, and determined the place of the sun's apogee as well as its
+mean motion. Their calculations on the eccentricity of the moon prove
+that they had a rectilinear trigonometry and tables of chords. They had
+an approximate knowledge of parallax; they could calculate eclipses of
+the moon, and use them for the correction of their lunar tables. They
+understood spherical trigonometry, and determined the motions of the sun
+and moon, involving an accurate definition of the year and a method of
+predicting eclipses; they ascertained that the earth was a sphere, and
+reduced the phenomena of the heavenly bodies to uniform movements of
+circular orbits. We have settled by physical geography the exact form
+of the earth, but the ancients arrived at their knowledge by
+astronomical reasoning. Says Whewell:--</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The reduction of the motions of the sun, moon, and five planets to
+circular orbits, as was done by Hipparchus, implies deep concentrated
+thought and scientific abstraction. The theories of eccentrics and
+epicycles accomplished the end of explaining all the known phenomena.
+The resolution of the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies into an
+assemblage of circular motions was a great triumph of genius, and was
+equivalent to the most recent and improved processes by which modern
+astronomers deal with such motions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Astronomy was probably born in Chaldaea as early as the time of Abraham.
+The glories of the firmament were impressed upon the minds of the rude
+primitive races with an intensity which we do not feel, with all the
+triumphs of modern science. The Chaldaean shepherds, as they watched
+their flocks by night, noted the movements of the planets, and gave
+names to the more brilliant constellations. Before religious rituals
+were established, before great superstitions arose, before poetry was
+sung, before musical instruments were invented, before artists
+sculptured marble or melted bronze, before coins were stamped, before
+temples arose, before diseases were healed by the arts of medicine,
+before commerce was known, those Oriental shepherds counted the anxious
+hours by the position of certain constellations. Astronomy is therefore
+the oldest of the ancient sciences, although it remained imperfect for
+more than four thousand years. The old Assyrians, Egyptians, and Greeks
+made but few discoveries which are valued by modern astronomers, but
+they laid the foundation of the science, and ever regarded it as one of
+the noblest subjects that could stimulate the faculties of man. It was
+invested with all that was religious and poetical.</p>
+
+<p>The spacious level and unclouded horizon of Chaldaea afforded peculiar
+facilities of observation; and its pastoral and contemplative
+inhabitants, uncontaminated by the vices and superstitions of subsequent
+ages, active-minded and fresh, discovered after a long observation of
+eclipses--some say extending over nineteen centuries--the cycle of two
+hundred and twenty-three lunations, which brings back the eclipses in
+the same order. Having once established their cycle, they laid the
+foundation for the most sublime of all the sciences. Callisthenes
+transmitted from Babylon to Aristotle a collection of observations of
+all the eclipses that preceded the conquests of Alexander, together with
+the definite knowledge which the Chaldaeans had collected about the
+motions of the heavenly bodies. Such knowledge was rude and simple, and
+amounted to little beyond the fact that there were spherical
+revolutions about an inclined axis, and that the poles pointed always to
+particular stars. The Egyptians also recorded their observations, from
+which it would appear that they observed eclipses at least sixteen
+hundred years before the beginning of our era,--which is not improbable,
+if the speculations of modern philosophers respecting the age of the
+world are entitled to credit. The Egyptians discovered by the rising of
+Sirius that the year consists of three hundred and sixty-five and
+one-quarter days; and this was their sacred year, in distinction from
+the civil, which consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days. They
+also had observed the courses of the planets, and could explain the
+phenomena of the stations and retrogradations; and it is asserted too
+that they regarded Mercury and Venus as satellites of the sun. Some have
+maintained that the obelisks which the Egyptians erected served the
+purpose of gnomons for determining the obliquity of the ecliptic, the
+altitude of the pole, and the length of the tropical year. It is thought
+even that the Pyramids, by the position of their sides toward the
+cardinal points, attest Egyptian acquaintance with a meridional line.
+The Chinese boast of having noticed and recorded a series of eclipses
+extending over a period of thirty-eight hundred and fifty-eight years;
+and it is probable that they anticipated the Greeks two thousand years
+in the discovery of the Metonic cycle,--or the cycle of nineteen years,
+at the end of which time the new moons fall on the same days of the
+year. The Chinese also determined the obliquity of the ecliptic eleven
+hundred years before our era. The Hindus at a remote antiquity
+represented celestial phenomena with considerable exactness, and
+constructed tables by which the longitude of the sun and moon were
+determined, and dials to measure time. Bailly thinks that thirty-one
+hundred and two years before Christ astronomy was cultivated in Siam
+which hardly yields in accuracy to that which modern science has built
+on the theory of universal gravitation.</p>
+
+<p>But the Greeks after all were the only people of antiquity who elevated
+astronomy to the dignity of a science. They however confessed that they
+derived their earliest knowledge from the Babylonian and Egyptian
+priests, while the priests of Thebes claimed to be the originators of
+exact astronomical observations. Diodorus asserts that the Chaldaeans
+used the Temple of Belus, in the centre of Babylon, for their survey of
+the heavens. But whether the Babylonians or the Egyptians were the
+earliest astronomers is of little consequence, although the pedants make
+it a grave matter of investigation. All we know is that astronomy was
+cultivated by both Babylonians and Egyptians, and that they made but
+very limited attainments. They approximated to the truth in reference
+to the solar year, by observing the equinoxes and solstices and the
+heliacal rising of particular stars.</p>
+
+<p>The early Greek philosophers who visited Egypt and the East in search of
+knowledge, found very little to reward their curiosity or industry,--not
+much beyond preposterous claims to a high antiquity, and to an esoteric
+wisdom which has not yet been revealed. Plato and Eudoxus spent thirteen
+years in Heliopolis for the purpose of extracting the scientific
+knowledge of the Egyptian priests, yet they learned but little beyond
+the fact that the solar year was a trifle beyond three hundred and
+sixty-five days. No great names have come down to us from the priests of
+Babylon or Egypt; no one gained an individual reputation. The Chaldaean
+and Egyptian priests may have furnished the raw material of observation
+to the Greeks, but the latter alone possessed the scientific genius by
+which undigested facts were converted into a symmetrical system. The
+East never gave valuable knowledge to the West; it gave the tendency to
+religious mysticism, which in its turn tended to superstition. Instead
+of astronomy, it gave astrology; instead of science, it gave magic,
+incantations, and dreams. The Eastern astronomers connected their
+astronomy with divination from the stars, and made their antiquity reach
+back to two hundred and seventy thousand years. There were soothsayers
+in the time of Daniel, and magicians, exorcists, and interpreters of
+signs. They were not men of scientific research, seeking truth; it was
+power they sought, by perverting the intellect of the people. The
+astrology of the East was founded on the principle that a star or
+constellation presided over the birth of an individual, and that it
+either portended his fate, or shed a good or bad influence upon his
+future life. The star which looked upon a child at the hour of his birth
+was called the &quot;horoscopus,&quot; and the peculiar influence of each planet
+was determined by the astrologers. The superstitions of Egypt and
+Chaldaea unfortunately spread among both the Greeks and Romans, and
+these were about all that the Western nations learned from the boastful
+priests of occult Oriental science. Whatever was known of real value
+among the ancients is due to the earnest inquiries of the Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>And yet their researches were very unsatisfactory until the time of
+Hipparchus. The primitive knowledge was almost nothing. The Homeric
+poems regarded the earth as a circular plain bounded by the heaven,
+which was a solid vault or hemisphere, with its concavity turned
+downward. This absurdity was believed until the time of Herodotus, five
+centuries after; nor was it exploded fully in the time of Aristotle. The
+sun, moon, and stars were supposed to move upon or with the inner
+surface of the heavenly hemisphere, and the ocean was thought to gird
+the earth around as a great belt, into which the heavenly bodies sank at
+night. Homer believed that the sun arose out of the ocean, ascended the
+heaven, and again plunged into the ocean, passing under the earth, and
+producing darkness. The Greeks even personified the sun as a divine
+charioteer driving his fiery steeds over the steep of heaven, until he
+bathed them at evening in the western waves. Apollo became the god of
+the sun, as Diana was the goddess of the moon. But the early Greek
+inquirers did not attempt to explain how the sun found his way from the
+west back again to the east; they merely took note of the diurnal
+course, the alternation of day and night, the number of the seasons, and
+their regular successions. They found the points of the compass by
+determining the recurrence of the equinoxes and solstices; but they had
+no conception of the ecliptic,--of that great circle in the heaven
+formed by the sun's annual course,--and of its obliquity when compared
+with our equator. Like the Egyptians and Babylonians, the Greeks
+ascertained the length of the year to be three hundred and sixty-five
+days; but perfect accuracy was lacking, for want of scientific
+instruments and of recorded observations of the heavenly bodies. The
+Greeks had not even a common chronological era for the designation of
+years. Herodotus informs us that the Trojan War preceded his time by
+eight hundred years: he merely states the interval between the event in
+question and his own time; he had certain data for distant periods. The
+Greeks reckoned dates from the Trojan War, and the Romans from the
+building of their city. The Greeks also divided the year into twelve
+months, and introduced the intercalary circle of eight years, although
+the Romans disused it afterward, until the calendar was reformed by
+Julius Caesar. Thus there was no scientific astronomical knowledge worth
+mentioning among the primitive Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>Immense research and learning have been expended by modern critics to
+show the state of scientific astronomy among the Greeks. I am amazed
+equally at the amount of research and its comparative worthlessness; for
+what addition to science can be made by an enumeration of the
+puerilities and errors of the Greeks, and how wasted and pedantic the
+learning which ransacks all antiquity to prove that the Greeks adopted
+this or that absurdity!<a name="FNanchor1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1"><sup>[1]</sup></a></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor1">[1]</a> The style of modern historical criticism is well
+exemplified in the discussions of the Germans whether the Arx on the
+Capitoline Hill occupied the northeastern or southwestern corner, which
+take up nearly one half of the learned article on the Capitoline in
+Smith's Dictionary.
+
+<p>The earliest historic name associated with astronomy in Greece was
+Thales, the founder of the Ionic school of philosophers. He is reported
+to have made a visit to Egypt, to have fixed the year at three hundred
+and sixty-five days, to have determined the course of the sun from
+solstice to solstice, and to have calculated eclipses. He attributed an
+eclipse of the moon to the interposition of the earth between the sun
+and moon, and an eclipse of the sun to the interposition of the moon
+between the sun and earth,--and thus taught the rotundity of the earth,
+sun, and moon. He also determined the ratio of the sun's diameter to its
+apparent orbit. As he first solved the problem of inscribing a
+right-angled triangle in a circle, he is the founder of geometrical
+science in Greece. He left, however, nothing to writing; hence all
+accounts of him are confused,--some doubting even if he made the
+discoveries attributed to him. His philosophical speculations, which
+science rejects,--such as that water is the principle of all
+things,--are irrelevant to a description of the progress of astronomy.
+That he was a great light no one questions, considering the ignorance
+with which he was surrounded.</p>
+
+<p>Anaximander, who followed Thales in philosophy, held to puerile
+doctrines concerning the motions and nature of the stars, which it is
+useless to repeat. His addition to science, if he made any, was in
+treating the magnitudes and distances of the planets. He constructed
+geographical charts, and attempted to delineate the celestial sphere,
+and to measure time with a gnomon, or time-pillar, by the motion of its
+shadow upon a dial.<a name="FNanchor2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2"><sup>[2]</sup></a></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor2">[2]</a> Dr. E.H. Knight, in his &quot;American Mechanical Dictionary&quot;
+(i. 692), cites the Scriptural account of the beautiful altar seen by
+King Ahaz of Jerusalem, in Damascus, when he went thither to greet
+Tiglath-Pileser, the Assyrian who had helped him against his Samarian
+enemy. Ahaz erected a similar altar at Jerusalem, and also a <i>sun-dial,</i>
+the same one mentioned in the account of the miraculous cure of his son
+Hezekiah. &quot;This,&quot; says Dr. Knight, &quot;was probably the first dial on
+record, and is one hundred and forty years before Thales, and nearly
+four hundred before Plato and Aristotle, and just a little previous to
+the lunar eclipses observed at Babylon, as recorded by Ptolemy.... The
+Hebrew word [for this dial] is said by Colonel White of the Bengal army
+to signify a <i>staircase</i>, which much strengthens the inference that it
+was like the equinoctial dial of the Indian nations and of Mesopotamia,
+from whence its pattern is assumed to have been derived.&quot;
+
+<p>Anaximenes of Miletus taught, like his predecessors, crude notions of
+the sun and stars, and speculated on the nature of the moon, but did
+nothing to advance his science on true grounds, except by the
+construction of sun-dials. The same may be said of Heraclitus,
+Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Anaxagoras: they were great men, but they
+gave to the world mere speculations, some of which are very puerile.
+They all held to the idea that the heavenly bodies revolved around the
+earth, and that the earth was a plain; but they explained eclipses, and
+supposed that the moon derived its light from the sun. Some of them
+knew the difference between the planets and the fixed stars. Anaxagoras
+scouted the notion that the sun was a god, and supposed it to be a mass
+of ignited stone,--for which he was called an atheist.</p>
+
+<p>Socrates, who belonged to another school, avoided all barren
+speculations concerning the universe, and confined himself to human
+actions and interests. He looked even upon geometry in a very practical
+way, valuing it only so far as it could be made serviceable to
+land-measuring. As for the stars and planets, he supposed it was
+impossible to arrive at a true knowledge of them, and regarded
+speculations upon them as useless.</p>
+
+<p>It must be admitted that the Greek astronomers, however barren were
+their general theories, laid the foundation of science. Pythagoras
+taught the obliquity of the ecliptic, probably learned in Egypt, and the
+identity of the morning and evening stars. It is supposed that he
+maintained that the sun was the centre of the universe, and that the
+earth revolved around it; but this he did not demonstrate, and his whole
+system was unscientific, assuming certain arbitrary principles, from
+which he reasoned deductively. &quot;He assumed that fire is more worthy than
+earth; that the more worthy place must be given to the more worthy; that
+the extremity is more worthy than the intermediate parts,--and hence,
+as the centre is an extremity, the place of fire is at the centre of the
+universe, and that therefore the earth and other heavenly bodies move
+round the fiery centre.&quot; But this was no heliocentric system, since the
+sun moved, like the earth, in a circle around the central fire. This was
+merely the work of the imagination, utterly unscientific, though bold
+and original. Nor did this hypothesis gain credit, since it was the
+fixed opinion of philosophers that the earth was the centre of the
+universe, around which the sun, moon, and planets revolved. But the
+Pythagoreans were the first to teach that the motions of the sun, moon,
+and planets are circular and equable. Their idea that the celestial
+bodies emitted a sound, and were combined into a harmonious symphony,
+was exceedingly crude, however beautiful &quot;The music of the spheres&quot;
+belongs to poetry, as well as to the speculations of Plato.</p>
+
+<p>Eudoxus, in the fifth century before Christ, contributed to science by
+making a descriptive map of the heavens, which was used as a manual of
+sidereal astronomy to the sixth century of our era.</p>
+
+<p>The error of only one hundred and ninety days in the periodic time of
+Saturn shows that there had been for a long time close observations.
+Aristotle--whose comprehensive intellect, like that of Bacon, took in
+all forms of knowledge--condensed all that was known in his day into a
+treatise concerning the heavens. He regarded astronomy as more
+intimately connected with mathematics than any other branch of science.
+But even he did not soar far beyond the philosophers of his day, since
+he held to the immobility of the earth,--the grand error of the
+ancients. Some few speculators in science (like Heraclitus of Pontus,
+and Hicetas) conceived a motion of the earth itself upon its axis, so as
+to account for the apparent motion of the sun; but they also thought it
+was in the centre of the universe.</p>
+
+<p>The introduction of the gnomon (time-pillar) and dial into Greece
+advanced astronomical knowledge, since they were used to determine the
+equinoxes and solstices, as well as parts of the day. Meton set up a
+sun-dial at Athens in the year 433 B.C., but the length of the hour
+varied with the time of the year, since the Greeks divided the day into
+twelve equal parts. Dials were common at Rome in the time of Plautus,
+224 B.C.; but there was a difficulty in using them, since they failed at
+night and in cloudy weather, and could not be relied on. Hence the
+introduction of water-clocks instead.</p>
+
+<p>Aristarchus is said to have combated (280 B.C.) the geocentric theory so
+generally received by philosophers, and to have promulgated the
+hypothesis &quot;that the fixed stars and the sun are immovable; that the
+earth is carried round the sun in the circumference of a circle of
+which the sun is the centre; and that the sphere of the fixed stars,
+having the same centre as the sun, is of such magnitude that the orbit
+of the earth is to the distance of the fixed stars as the centre of the
+sphere of the fixed stars is to its surface.&quot; Aristarchus also,
+according to Plutarch, explained the apparent annual motion of the sun
+in the ecliptic by supposing the orbit of the earth to be inclined to
+its axis. There is no evidence that this great astronomer supported his
+heliocentric theory with any geometrical proof, although Plutarch
+maintains that he demonstrated it. This theory gave great offence,
+especially to the Stoics; and Cleanthes, the head of the school at that
+time, maintained that the author of such an impious doctrine should be
+punished. Aristarchus left a treatise &quot;On the Magnitudes and Distances
+of the Sun and Moon;&quot; and his methods to measure the apparent diameters
+of the sun and moon are considered theoretically sound by modern
+astronomers, but practically inexact owing to defective instruments. He
+estimated the diameter of the sun at the seven hundred and twentieth
+part of the circumference of the circle which it describes in its
+diurnal revolution, which is not far from the truth; but in this
+treatise he does not allude to his heliocentric theory.</p>
+
+<p>Archimedes of Syracuse, born 287 B.C., is stated to have measured the
+distance of the sun, moon, and planets, and he constructed an orrery in
+which he exhibited their motions. But it was not in the Grecian colony
+of Syracuse, but of Alexandria, that the greatest light was shed on
+astronomical science. Here Aristarchus resided, and also Eratosthenes,
+who lived between the years 276 and 196 B.C. The latter was a native of
+Athens, but was invited by Ptolemy Euergetes to Alexandria, and placed
+at the head of the library. His great achievement was the determination
+of the circumference of the earth. This was done by measuring on the
+ground the distance between Syene, a city exactly under the tropic, and
+Alexandria, situated on the same meridian. The distance was found to be
+five thousand stadia. The meridional distance of the sun from the zenith
+of Alexandria he estimated to be 7&deg; 12', or a fiftieth part of the
+circumference of the meridian. Hence the circumference of the earth was
+fixed at two hundred and fifty thousand stadia,--which is not very
+different from our modern computation. The circumference being known,
+the diameter of the earth was easily determined. The moderns have added
+nothing to this method. He also calculated the diameter of the sun to be
+twenty-seven times greater than that of the earth, and the distance of
+the sun from the earth to be eight hundred and four million stadia, and
+that of the moon seven hundred and eighty thousand stadia,--a close
+approximation to the truth.</p>
+
+<p>Astronomical science received a great impulse from the school of
+Alexandria, the greatest light of which was Hipparchus, who flourished
+early in the second century before Christ. He laid the foundation of
+astronomy upon a scientific basis. &quot;He determined,&quot; says Delambre, &quot;the
+position of the stars by right ascensions and declinations, and was
+acquainted with the obliquity of the ecliptic. He determined the
+inequality of the sun and the place of its apogee, as well as its mean
+motion; the mean motion of the moon, of its nodes and apogee; the
+equation of the moon's centre, and the inclination of its orbit. He
+calculated eclipses of the moon, and used them for the correction of his
+lunar tables, and he had an approximate knowledge of parallax.&quot; His
+determination of the motions of the sun and moon, and his method of
+predicting eclipses evince great mathematical genius. But he combined
+with this determination a theory of epicycles and eccentrics which
+modern astronomy discards. It was however a great thing to conceive of
+the earth as a solid sphere, and to reduce the phenomena of the heavenly
+bodies to uniform motions in circular orbits. &quot;That Hipparchus should
+have succeeded in the first great steps of the resolution of the
+heavenly bodies into circular motions is a circumstance,&quot; says Whewell,
+&quot;which gives him one of the most distinguished places in the roll of
+great astronomers.&quot; But he did even more than this: he discovered that
+apparent motion of the fixed stars round the axis of the ecliptic, which
+is called the Precession of the Equinoxes,--one of the greatest
+discoveries in astronomy. He maintained that the precession was not
+greater than fifty-nine seconds, and not less than thirty-six seconds.
+Hipparchus also framed a catalogue of the stars, and determined their
+places with reference to the ecliptic by their latitudes and longitudes.
+Altogether he seems to have been one of the greatest geniuses of
+antiquity, and his works imply a prodigious amount of calculation.</p>
+
+<p>Astronomy made no progress for three hundred years, although it was
+expounded by improved methods. Posidonius constructed an orrery, which
+exhibited the diurnal motions of the sun, moon, and five planets.
+Posidonius calculated the circumference of the earth to be two hundred
+and forty thousand stadia, by a different method from Eratosthenes. The
+barrenness of discovery from Hipparchus to Ptolemy,--the Alexandrian
+mathematician, astronomer, and geographer in the second century of the
+Christian era,--in spite of the patronage of the royal Ptolemies of
+Egypt, was owing to the want of instruments for the accurate measure of
+time (like our clocks), to the imperfection of astronomical tables, and
+to the want of telescopes. Hence the great Greek astronomers were unable
+to realize their theories. Their theories however were magnificent, and
+evinced great power of mathematical combination; but what could they do
+without that wondrous instrument by which the human eye indefinitely
+multiplies its power? Moreover, the ancients had no accurate almanacs,
+since the care of the calendar belonged not so much to the astronomers
+as to the priests, who tampered with the computation of time for
+sacerdotal objects. The calendars of different communities differed.
+Hence Julius Caesar rendered a great service to science by the reform of
+the Roman calendar, which was exclusively under the control of the
+college of pontiffs, or general religious overseers. The Roman year
+consisted of three hundred and fifty-five days; and in the time of
+Caesar the calendar was in great confusion, being ninety days in
+advance, so that January was an autumn month. He inserted the regular
+intercalary month of twenty-three days, and two additional ones of
+sixty-seven days. These, together with ninety days, were added to three
+hundred and sixty-five days, making a year of transition of four hundred
+and forty-five days, by which January was brought back to the first
+month in the year after the winter solstice; and to prevent the
+repetition of the error, he directed that in future the year should
+consist of three hundred and sixty-five and one-quarter days, which he
+effected by adding one day to the months of April, June, September, and
+November, and two days to the months of January, Sextilis, and
+December, making an addition of ten days to the old year of three
+hundred and fifty-five. And he provided for a uniform intercalation of
+one day in every fourth year, which accounted for the remaining
+quarter of a day.</p>
+
+<p>Caesar was a student of astronomy, and always found time for its
+contemplation. He is said even to have written a treatise on the motion
+of the stars. He was assisted in his reform of the calendar by
+Sosigines, an Alexandrian astronomer. He took it out of the hands of the
+priests, and made it a matter of pure civil regulation. The year was
+defined by the sun, and not as before by the moon.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the Romans were the first to bring the scientific knowledge of the
+Greeks into practical use; but while they measured the year with a great
+approximation to accuracy, they still used sun-dials and water-clocks to
+measure diurnal time. Yet even these were not constructed as they should
+have been. The hour-marks on the sun-dial were all made equal, instead
+of varying with the periods of the day,--so that the length of the hour
+varied with the length of the day. The illuminated interval was divided
+into twelve equal parts; so that if the sun rose at five A.M., and set
+at eight P.M., each hour was equal to eighty minutes. And this rude
+method of measurement of diurnal time remained in use till the sixth
+century. Clocks, with wheels and weights, were not invented till the
+twelfth century.</p>
+
+<p>The last great light among the ancients in astronomical science was
+Ptolemy, who lived from 100 to 170 A.D., in Alexandria. He was
+acquainted with the writings of all the previous astronomers, but
+accepted Hipparchus as his guide. He held that the heaven is spherical
+and revolves upon its axis; that the earth is a sphere, and is situated
+within the celestial sphere, and nearly at its centre; that it is a mere
+point in reference to the distance and magnitude of the fixed stars, and
+that it has no motion. He adopted the views of the ancient astronomers,
+who placed Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars next under the sphere of the fixed
+stars, then the sun above Venus and Mercury, and lastly the moon next to
+the earth. But he differed from Aristotle, who conceived that the earth
+revolves in an orbit around the centre of the planetary system, and
+turns upon its axis,--two ideas in common with the doctrines which
+Copernicus afterward unfolded. But even Ptolemy did not conceive the
+heliocentric theory,--the sun the centre of our system. Archimedes and
+Hipparchus both rejected this theory.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to the practical value of the speculations of the ancient
+astronomers, it may be said that had they possessed clocks and
+telescopes, their scientific methods would have sufficed for all
+practical purposes. The greatness of modern discoveries lies in the
+great stretch of the perceptive powers, and the magnificent field they
+afford for sublime contemplation. &quot;But,&quot; as Sir G. Cornewall Lewis
+remarks, &quot;modern astronomy is a science of pure curiosity, and is
+directed exclusively to the extension of knowledge in a field which
+human interests can never enter. The periodic time of Uranus, the nature
+of Saturn's ring, and the occultation of Jupiter's satellites are as far
+removed from the concerns of mankind as the heliacal rising of Sirius,
+or the northern position of the Great Bear.&quot; This may seem to be a
+utilitarian view, with which those philosophers who have cultivated
+science for its own sake, finding in the same a sufficient reward, can
+have no sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>The upshot of the scientific attainments of the ancients, in the
+magnificent realm of the heavenly bodies, would seem to be that they
+laid the foundation of all the definite knowledge which is useful to
+mankind; while in the field of abstract calculation they evinced
+reasoning and mathematical powers that have never been surpassed.
+Eratosthenes, Archimedes, and Hipparchus were geniuses worthy to be
+placed by the side of Kepler, Newton, and La Place, and all ages will
+reverence their efforts and their memory. It is truly surprising that
+with their imperfect instruments, and the absence of definite data,
+they reached a height so sublime and grand. They explained the doctrine
+of the sphere and the apparent motions of the planets, but they had no
+instruments capable of measuring angular distances. The ingenious
+epicycles of Ptolemy prepared the way for the elliptic orbits and laws
+of Kepler, which in turn conducted Newton to the discovery of the law of
+gravitation,--the grandest scientific discovery in the annals of
+our race.</p>
+
+<p>Closely connected with astronomical science was geometry, which was
+first taught in Egypt,--the nurse and cradle of ancient wisdom. It arose
+from the necessity of adjusting the landmarks disturbed by the
+inundations of the Nile. There is hardly any trace of geometry among the
+Hebrews. Among the Hindus there are some works on this science, of great
+antiquity. Their mathematicians knew the rule for finding the area of a
+triangle from its sides, and also the celebrated proposition concerning
+the squares on the sides of the right-angled triangle. The Chinese, it
+is said, also knew this proposition before it was known to the Greeks,
+among whom it was first propounded by Thales. He applied a circle to the
+measurement of angles. Anaximander made geographical charts, which
+required considerable geometrical knowledge. Anaxagoras employed
+himself in prison in attempting to square the circle. Thales, as has
+been said, discovered the important theorem that in a right-angled
+triangle the squares on the sides containing the right angle are
+together equal to the square on the opposite side of it. Pythagoras
+discovered that of all figures having the same boundary, the circle
+among plane figures and the sphere among solids are the most capacious.
+Hippocrates treated of the duplication of the cube, and wrote elements
+of geometry, and knew that the area of a circle was equal to a triangle
+whose base is equal to its circumference and altitude equal to its
+radius. The disciples of Plato invented conic sections, and discovered
+the geometrical foci.</p>
+
+<p>It was however reserved for Euclid to make his name almost synonymous
+with geometry. He was born 323 B.C., and belonged to the Platonic sect,
+which ever attached great importance to mathematics. His &quot;Elements&quot; are
+still in use, as nearly perfect as any human production can be. They
+consist of thirteen books. The first four are on plane geometry; the
+fifth is on the theory of proportion, and applies to magnitude in
+general; the seventh, eighth, and ninth are on arithmetic; the tenth on
+the arithmetical characteristics of the division of a straight line; the
+eleventh and twelfth on the elements of solid geometry; the thirteenth
+on the regular solids. These &quot;Elements&quot; soon became the universal study
+of geometers throughout the civilized world; they were translated into
+the Arabic, and through the Arabians were made known to mediaeval
+Europe. There can be no doubt that this work is one of the highest
+triumphs of human genius, and it has been valued more than any single
+monument of antiquity; it is still a text-book, in various English
+translations, in all our schools. Euclid also wrote various other works,
+showing great mathematical talent.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps a greater even than Euclid was Archimedes, born 287 B.C. He
+wrote on the sphere and cylinder, terminating in the discovery that the
+solidity and surface of a sphere are two thirds respectively of the
+solidity and surface of the circumscribing cylinder. He also wrote on
+conoids and spheroids. &quot;The properties of the spiral and the quadrature
+of the parabola were added to ancient geometry by Archimedes, the last
+being a great step in the progress of the science, since it was the
+first curvilineal space legitimately squared.&quot; Modern mathematicians may
+not have the patience to go through his investigations, since the
+conclusions he arrived at may now be reached by shorter methods; but the
+great conclusions of the old geometers were reached by only prodigious
+mathematical power. Archimedes is popularly better known as the inventor
+of engines of war and of various ingenious machines than as a
+mathematician, great as were his attainments in this direction. His
+theory of the lever was the foundation of statics till the discovery of
+the composition of forces in the time of Newton, and no essential
+addition was made to the principles of the equilibrium of fluids and
+floating bodies till the time of Stevin, in 1608. Archimedes detected
+the mixture of silver in a crown of gold which his patron, Hiero of
+Syracuse, ordered to be made; and he invented a water-screw for pumping
+water out of the hold of a great ship which he had built. He contrived
+also the combination of pulleys, and he constructed an orrery to
+represent the movement of the heavenly bodies. He had an extraordinary
+inventive genius for discovering new provinces of inquiry and new points
+of view for old and familiar objects. Like Newton, he had a habit of
+abstraction from outward things, and would forget to take his meals. He
+was killed by Roman soldiers when Syracuse was taken; and the Sicilians
+so soon forgot his greatness that in the time of Cicero they did not
+know where his tomb was.</p>
+
+<p>Eratosthenes was another of the famous geometers of antiquity, and did
+much to improve geometrical analysis. He was also a philosopher and
+geographer. He gave a solution of the problem of the duplication of the
+cube, and applied his geometrical knowledge to the measurement of the
+magnitude of the earth,--being one of the first who brought
+mathematical methods to the aid of astronomy, which in our day is almost
+exclusively the province of the mathematician.</p>
+
+<p>Apollonius of Perga, probably about forty years younger than Archimedes,
+and his equal in mathematical genius, was the most fertile and profound
+writer among the ancients who treated of geometry. He was called the
+Great Geometer. His most important work is a treatise on conic sections,
+which was regarded with unbounded admiration by contemporaries, and in
+some respects is unsurpassed by any thing produced by modern
+mathematicians. He however made use of the labors of his predecessors,
+so that it is difficult to tell how far he is original. But all men of
+science must necessarily be indebted to those who have preceded them.
+Even Homer, in the field of poetry, made use of the bards who had sung
+for a thousand years before him; and in the realms of philosophy the
+great men of all ages have built up new systems on the foundations which
+others have established. If Plato or Aristotle had been contemporaries
+with Thales, would they have matured so wonderful a system of
+dialectics? Yet if Thales had been contemporaneous with Plato, he might
+have added to the great Athenian's sublime science even more than did
+Aristotle. So of the great mathematicians of antiquity; they were all
+wonderful men, and worthy to be classed with the Newtons and Keplers of
+our times. Considering their means and the state of science, they made
+as <i>great</i> though not as <i>fortunate</i> discoveries,--discoveries which
+show patience, genius, and power of calculation. Apollonius was one of
+these,--one of the master intellects of antiquity, like Euclid and
+Archimedes; one of the master intellects of all ages, like Newton
+himself. I might mention the subjects of his various works, but they
+would not be understood except by those familiar with mathematics.</p>
+
+<p>Other famous geometers could also be named, but such men as Euclid,
+Archimedes, and Apollonius are enough to show that geometry was
+cultivated to a great extent by the philosophers of antiquity. It
+progressively advanced, like philosophy itself, from the time of Thales
+until it had reached the perfection of which it was capable, when it
+became merged into astronomical science. It was cultivated more
+particularly by the disciples of Plato, who placed over his school this
+inscription: &quot;Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here.&quot; He believed
+that the laws by which the universe is governed are in accordance with
+the doctrines of mathematics. The same opinion was shared by Pythagoras,
+the great founder of the science, whose main formula was that <i>number</i>
+is the essence or first principle of all things. No thinkers ever
+surpassed the Greeks in originality and profundity; and mathematics,
+being highly prized by them, were carried to the greatest perfection
+their method would allow. They did not understand algebra, by the
+application of which to geometry modern mathematicians have climbed to
+greater heights than the ancients; but then it is all the more
+remarkable that without the aid of algebraic analysis they were able to
+solve such difficult problems as occupied the minds of Archimedes and
+Apollonius. No positive science can boast of such rapid development as
+geometry for two or three hundred years before Christ, and never was the
+intellect of man more severely tasked than by the ancient
+mathematicians.</p>
+
+<p>No empirical science can be carried to perfection by any one nation or
+in any particular epoch; it can only expand with the progressive
+developments of the human race itself. Nevertheless, in that science
+which for three thousand years has been held in the greatest honor, and
+which is one of the three great liberal professions of our modern times,
+the ancients, especially the Greeks, made considerable advance. The
+science of medicine, having in view the amelioration of human misery and
+the prolongation of life itself, was very early cultivated. It was,
+indeed, in old times another word for <i>physics</i>,--the science of
+Nature,--and the <i>physician</i> was the observer and expounder of physics.
+The physician was supposed to be acquainted with the secrets of
+Nature,--that is, the knowledge of drugs, of poisons, of antidotes to
+them, and the way to administer them. He was also supposed to know the
+process of preserving the body after death. Thus Joseph, seventeen
+hundred years before the birth of Christ, commanded his physician to
+embalm the body of his father; and the process of embalming was probably
+known to the Egyptians before the period when history begins. Helen, of
+Trojan fame, put into wine a drug that &quot;frees man from grief and anger,
+and causes oblivion of all ills.&quot; Solomon was a great botanist,--a realm
+with which the science of medicine is indissolubly connected. The origin
+of Hindu medicine is lost in remote antiquity. The Ayur Veda, written
+nine hundred years before Hippocrates was born, sums up the knowledge of
+previous periods relating to obstetric surgery, to general pathology, to
+the treatment of insanity, to infantile diseases, to toxicology, to
+personal hygiene, and to diseases of the generative functions.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Hippocrates, the father of European medicine, must have derived his
+knowledge not merely from his own observations, but from the writings of
+men unknown to us and from systems practised for an indefinite period.
+The real founders of Greek medicine are fabled characters, like Hercules
+and Aesculapius,--that is, benefactors whose fictitious names alone
+have descended to us. They are mythical personages, like Hermes and
+Chiron. Twelve hundred years before Christ temples were erected to
+Aesculapius in Greece, the priests of which were really physicians, and
+the temples themselves hospitals. In them were practised rites
+apparently mysterious, but which modern science calls by the names of
+mesmerism, hydropathy, the use of mineral springs, and other essential
+elements of empirical science. And these temples were also medical
+schools. That of Cos gave birth to Hippocrates, and it was there that
+his writings were begun. Pythagoras--for those old Grecian philosophers
+were the fathers of all wisdom and knowledge, in mathematics and
+empirical sciences as well as philosophy itself--studied medicine in the
+schools of Egypt, Phoenicia, Chaldaea, and India, and came in conflict
+with sacerdotal power, which has ever been antagonistic to new ideas in
+science. He travelled from town to town as a teacher or lecturer,
+establishing communities in which <i>medicine</i> as well as <i>numbers</i>
+was taught.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest name in medical science in ancient or in modern times, the
+man who did the most to advance it, the greatest medical genius of whom
+we have any early record, was Hippocrates, born on the island of Cos,
+460 B.C., of the great Aesculapian family. He received his instruction
+from his father. We know scarcely more of his life than we do of Homer
+himself, although he lived in the period of the highest splendor of
+Athens. Even his writings, like those of Homer, are thought by some to
+be the work of different men. They were translated into Arabic, and were
+no slight means of giving an impulse to the Saracenic schools of the
+Middle Ages in that science in which the Saracens especially excelled.
+The Hippocratic collection consists of more than sixty works, which were
+held in the highest estimation by the ancient physicians. Hippocrates
+introduced a new era in medicine, which before his time had been
+monopolized by the priests. He carried out a system of severe induction
+from the observation of facts, and is as truly the creator of the
+inductive method as Bacon himself. He abhorred theories which could not
+be established by facts; he was always open to conviction, and candidly
+confessed his mistakes; he was conscientious in the practice of his
+profession, and valued the success of his art more than silver and gold.
+The Athenians revered Hippocrates for his benevolence as well as genius.
+The great principle of his practice was <i>trust in Nature</i>; hence he was
+accused of allowing his patients to die. But this principle has many
+advocates among scientific men in our day; and some suppose that the
+whole successful practice of Homoeopathy rests on the primal principle
+which Hippocrates advanced, although the philosophy of it claims a
+distinctly scientific basis in the principle <i>similia similibus
+curantur</i>. Hippocrates had great skill in diagnosis, by which medical
+genius is most severely tested; his practice was cautious and timid in
+contrast with that of his contemporaries. He is the author of the
+celebrated maxim, &quot;Life is short and art is long.&quot; He divides the causes
+of disease into two principal classes,--the one comprehending the
+influence of seasons, climates, and other external forces; the other
+including the effects of food and exercise. To the influence of climate
+he attributes the conformation of the body and the disposition of the
+mind; to a vicious system of diet he attributes innumerable forms of
+disease. For more than twenty centuries his pathology was the foundation
+of all the medical sects. He was well acquainted with the medicinal
+properties of drugs, and was the first to assign three periods to the
+course of a malady. He knew but little of surgery, although he was in
+the habit of bleeding, and often employed the knife; he was also
+acquainted with cupping, and used violent purgatives. He was not aware
+of the importance of the pulse, and confounded the veins with the
+arteries. Hippocrates wrote in the Ionic dialect, and some of his works
+have gone through three hundred editions, so highly have they been
+valued. His authority passed away, like that of Aristotle, on the
+revival of science in Europe. Yet who have been greater ornaments and
+lights than these two distinguished Greeks?</p>
+
+<p>The school of Alexandria produced eminent physicians, as well as
+mathematicians, after the glory of Greece had departed. So highly was it
+esteemed that Galen in the second century,--born in Greece, but famous
+in the service of Rome,--went there to study, five hundred years after
+its foundation. It was distinguished for inquiries into scientific
+anatomy and physiology, for which Aristotle had prepared the way. Galen
+was the Humboldt of his day, and gave great attention to physics. In
+eight books he developed the general principles of natural science known
+to the Greeks. On the basis of the Aristotelian researches, the
+Alexandrian physicians carried out extensive inquiries in physiology.
+Herophilus discovered the fundamental principles of neurology, and
+advanced the anatomy of the brain and spinal cord.</p>
+
+<p>Although the Romans had but little sympathy with science or philosophy,
+being essentially political and warlike in their turn of mind, yet when
+they had conquered the world, and had turned their attention to arts,
+medicine received a good share of their attention. The first physicians
+in Rome were Greek slaves. Of these was Asclepiades, who enjoyed the
+friendship of Cicero. It is from him that the popular medical theories
+as to the &quot;pores&quot; have descended. He was the inventor of the
+shower-bath. Celsus wrote a work on medicine which takes almost equal
+rank with the Hippocratic writings.</p>
+
+<p>Medical science at Rome culminated in Galen, as it did at Athens in
+Hippocrates. Galen was patronized by Marcus Aurelius, and availed
+himself of all the knowledge of preceding naturalists and physicians. He
+was born at Pergamos about the year 130 A.D., where he learned, under
+able masters, anatomy, pathology, and therapeutics. He finished his
+studies at Alexandria, and came to Rome at the invitation of the
+Emperor. Like his imperial patron, Galen was one of the brightest
+ornaments of the heathen world, and one of the most learned and
+accomplished men of any age. He left five hundred treatises, most of
+them relating to some branch of medical science, which give him the name
+of being one of the most voluminous of authors. His celebrity is founded
+chiefly on his anatomical and physiological works. He was familiar with
+practical anatomy, deriving his knowledge from dissection. His
+observations about health are practical and useful; he lays great stress
+on gymnastic exercises, and recommends the pleasures of the chase, the
+cold bath in hot weather, hot baths for old people, the use of wine, and
+three meals a day. The great principles of his practice were that
+disease is to be overcome by that which is contrary to the disease
+itself,--hence the name Allopathy, invented by the founder of
+Homoeopathy to designate the fundamental principle of the general
+practice,--and that nature is to be preserved by that which has relation
+with nature. His &quot;Commentaries on Hippocrates&quot; served as a treasure of
+medical criticism, from which succeeding annotators borrowed. No one
+ever set before the medical profession a higher standard than Galen
+advanced, and few have more nearly approached it. He did not attach
+himself to any particular school, but studied the doctrines of each. The
+works of Galen constituted the last production of ancient Roman
+medicine, and from his day the decline in medical science was rapid,
+until it was revived among the Arabs.</p>
+
+<p>The physical sciences, it must be confessed, were not carried by the
+ancients to any such length as geometry and astronomy. In physical
+geography they were particularly deficient. Yet even this branch of
+knowledge can boast of some eminent names. When men sailed timidly along
+the coasts, and dared not explore distant seas, the true position and
+characteristics of countries could not be ascertained with the
+definiteness that it is at present. But geography was not utterly
+neglected in those early times, nor was natural history.</p>
+
+<p>Herodotus gives us most valuable information respecting the manners and
+customs of Oriental and barbarous nations; and Pliny wrote a Natural
+History in thirty-seven books, which is compiled from upwards of two
+thousand volumes, and refers to twenty thousand matters of importance.
+He was born 23 A.D., and was fifty-six when the eruption of Vesuvius
+took place, which caused his death. Pliny cannot be called a scientific
+genius in the sense understood by modern savants; nor was he an original
+observer,--his materials being drawn up second-hand, like a modern
+encyclopaedia. Nor did he evince great judgment in his selection: he had
+a great love of the marvellous, and his work was often unintelligible;
+but it remains a wonderful monument of human industry. His Natural
+History treats of everything in the natural world,--of the heavenly
+bodies, of the elements, of thunder and lightning, of the winds and
+seasons, of the changes and phenomena of the earth, of countries and
+nations, of seas and rivers, of men, animals, birds, fishes, and plants,
+of minerals and medicines and precious stones, of commerce and the fine
+arts. He is full of errors, but his work is among the most valuable
+productions of antiquity. Buffon pronounced his Natural History to
+contain an infinity of knowledge in every department of human
+occupation, conveyed in a dress ornate and brilliant. It is a literary
+rather than a scientific monument, and as such it is wonderful. In
+strict scientific value, it is inferior to the works of modern research;
+but there are few minds, even in these times, who have directed
+inquiries to such a variety of subjects as are treated in Pliny's
+masterpiece.</p>
+
+<p>If we would compare the geographical knowledge of the ancients with that
+of the moderns, we confess to the immeasurable inferiority of
+the ancients.</p>
+
+<p>Eratosthenes, though more properly an astronomer, and the most
+distinguished among the ancients, was also a considerable writer on
+geography, indeed, the first who treated the subject systematically,
+although none of his writings have reached us. The improvements he
+pointed out were applied by Ptolemy himself. His work was a presentation
+of the geographical knowledge known in his day, so far as geography is
+the science of determining the position of places on the earth's
+surface. When Eratosthenes began his labors, in the third century before
+Christ, it was known that the surface of the earth was spherical; he
+established parallels of latitude and longitude, and attempted the
+difficult undertaking of measuring the circumference of the globe by the
+actual measurement of a segment of one of its great circles.</p>
+
+<p>Hipparchus (beginning of second century before Christ) introduced into
+geography a great improvement; namely, the relative situation of
+places, by the same process that he determined the positions of the
+heavenly bodies. He also pointed out how longitude might be determined
+by observing the eclipses of the sun and moon. This led to the
+construction of maps; but none have reached us except those that were
+used to illustrate the geography of Ptolemy. Hipparchus was the first
+who raised geography to the rank of a science. He starved himself to
+death, being tired of life.</p>
+
+<p>Posidonius, who was nearly a century later, determined the arc of a
+meridian between Rhodes and Alexandria to be a forty-eighth part of the
+whole circumference,--an enormous calculation, yet a remarkable one in
+the infancy of astronomical science. His writings on history and
+geography are preserved only in quotations by Cicero, Strabo,
+and others.</p>
+
+<p>Geographical knowledge however was most notably advanced by Strabo, who
+lived in the Augustan era; although his researches were chiefly confined
+to the Roman empire. Strabo was, like Herodotus, a great traveller, and
+much of his geographical information is the result of his own
+observations. It is probable he was much indebted to Eratosthenes, who
+preceded him by three centuries. The authorities of Strabo were chiefly
+Greek, but his work is defective from the imperfect notions which the
+ancients had of astronomy; so that the determination of the earth's
+figure by the measure of latitude and longitude, the essential
+foundation of geographical description, was unknown. The enormous
+strides which all forms of physical science have made since the
+discovery of America throw all ancient descriptions and investigations
+into the shade, and Strabo appears at as great disadvantage as Pliny or
+Ptolemy; yet the work of Strabo, considering his means, and the
+imperfect knowledge of the earth's surface and astronomical science in
+his day, was really a great achievement. He treats of the form and
+magnitude of the earth, and devotes eight books to Europe, six to Asia,
+and one to Africa. The description of places belongs to Strabo, whose
+work was accepted as the text-book of the science till the fifteenth
+century, for in his day the Roman empire had been well surveyed. He
+maintained that the earth is spherical, and established the terms
+<i>longitude</i> and <i>latitude</i>, which Eratosthenes had introduced, and
+computed the earth to be one hundred and eighty thousand stadia in
+circumference, and a degree to be five hundred stadia in length, or
+sixty-two and a-half Roman miles. His estimates of the length of a
+degree of latitude were nearly correct; but he made great errors in the
+degrees of longitude, making the length of the world from east to west
+too great, which led to the belief in the practicability of a western
+passage to India. He also assigned too great length to the
+Mediterranean, arising from the difficulty of finding the longitude with
+accuracy. But it was impossible, with the scientific knowledge of his
+day, to avoid errors, and we are surprised that he made so few.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may be said of the accuracy of the great geographer of
+antiquity, it cannot be denied that he was a man of immense research and
+learning. His work in seventeen books is one of the most valuable that
+have come down from antiquity, both from the discussions which run
+through it, and the curious facts which can be found nowhere else. It is
+scarcely fair to estimate the genius of Strabo by the correctness and
+extent of his geographical knowledge. All men are comparatively ignorant
+in science, because science is confessedly a progressive study. The
+great scientific lights of our day may be insignificant, compared with
+those who are to arise, if profundity and accuracy of knowledge be made
+the test. It is the genius of the ancients, their grasp and power of
+mind, their original labors, which we are to consider.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it would seem that among the ancients, in those departments of
+science which are inductive, there were not sufficient facts, well
+established, from which to make sound inductions; but in those
+departments which are deductive, like pure mathematics, and which
+require great reasoning powers, there were lofty attainments,--which
+indeed gave the foundation for the achievements of modern science.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>AUTHORITIES.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>An exceedingly learned work (London, 1862) on the Astronomy of the
+Ancients, by Sir George Cornewall Lewis, though rather ostentatious in
+the parade of authorities, and minute on points which are not of much
+consequence, is worth consulting. Delambre's History of Ancient
+Astronomy has long been a classic, but is richer in materials for a
+history than a history itself. There is a valuable essay in the
+Encyclopaedia Britannica, which refers to a list of special authors.
+Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences may also be consulted with
+profit. Dunglison's History of Medicine is a standard, giving much
+detailed information, and Leclerc among the French and Speugel among the
+Germans are esteemed authorities. Strabo's Geography is the most
+valuable of antiquity; see also Polybius: both of these have been
+translated and edited for English readers.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="MATERIAL_LIFE_OF_THE_ANCIENTS."></a>MATERIAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>MECHANICAL AND USEFUL ARTS.</p>
+
+<p>4000-50 B.C.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>While the fine arts made great progress among the cultivated nations of
+antiquity, and with the Greeks reached a refinement that has never since
+been surpassed, the ancients were far behind modern nations in
+everything that has utility for its object. In implements of war, in
+agricultural instruments, in the variety of manufactures, in machinery,
+in chemical compounds, in domestic utensils, in grand engineering works,
+in the comfort of houses, in modes of land-travel and transportation, in
+navigation, in the multiplication of books, in triumphs over the forces
+of Nature, in those discoveries and inventions which abridge the labors
+of mankind and bring races into closer intercourse,--especially by such
+wonders as are wrought by steam, gas, electricity, gunpowder, the
+mariner's compass, and the art of printing,--the modern world feels its
+immense superiority to all the ages that have gone before. And yet,
+considering the infancy of science and the youth of nations, more was
+accomplished by the ancients for the comfort and convenience and luxury
+of man than we naturally might suppose.</p>
+
+<p>Egypt was the primeval seat of what may be called material civilization,
+and many arts and inventions were known there when the rest of the world
+was still in ignorance and barbarism. More than four thousand years ago
+the Egyptians had chariots of war and most of the military weapons known
+afterward to the Greeks,--especially the spear and bow, which were the
+most effective offensive weapons known to antiquity or the Middle Ages.
+Some of their warriors were clothed in coats of brass equal to the steel
+or iron cuirass worn by the Mediaeval knights of chivalry. They had the
+battle-axe, the shield, the sword, the javelin, the metal-headed arrow.
+One of the early Egyptian kings marched against his enemies with six
+hundred thousand infantry, twenty thousand cavalry, and twenty-three
+thousand chariots of war, each drawn by two horses. The saddles and
+bridles of their horses were nearly as perfect as ours are at the
+present time; the leather they used was dyed in various colors, and
+adorned with metal edges. The wheels of their chariots were bound with
+hoops of metal, and had six spokes. Umbrellas to protect from the rays
+of the sun were held over the heads of their women of rank when they
+rode in their highly-decorated chariots. Walls of solid masonry, thick
+and high, surrounded their principal cities, while an attacking or
+besieging army used movable towers. Their disciplined troops advanced to
+battle in true military precision, at the sound of the trumpet.</p>
+
+<p>The public works of Egyptian kings were on a grand scale. They united
+rivers with seas by canals which employed hundreds of thousands of
+workmen. They transported heavy blocks of stone, of immense weight and
+magnitude, for their temples, palaces, and tombs. They erected obelisks
+in single shafts nearly one hundred feet in height, and they engraved
+the sides of these obelisks from top to bottom with representations of
+warriors, priests, and captives. They ornamented their vast temples with
+sculptures which required the hardest metals. Rameses the Great, the
+Sesostris of the Greeks, had a fleet of four hundred vessels in the
+Arabian Gulf, and the rowers wore quilted helmets. His vessels had
+sails, which implies the weaving of flax and the twisting of heavy
+ropes; some of his war-galleys were propelled by forty-four oars, and
+were one hundred and twenty feet in length.</p>
+
+<p>Among their domestic utensils the Egyptians used the same kind of
+buckets for wells that we find to-day among the farmhouses of New
+England. Skilful gardeners were employed in ornamenting grounds and in
+raising fruits and vegetables. The leather cutters and dressers were
+famous for their skill, as well as workers in linen. Most products of
+the land, as well as domestic animals, were sold by weight in carefully
+adjusted scales. Instead of coins, money was in rings of gold, silver,
+and copper. The skill used by the Egyptians in rearing fowls, geese, and
+domestic animals greatly surpassed that known to modern farmers.
+According to Wilkinson, they caught fish in nets equal to the seines
+employed by modern fishermen. Their houses as well as their monuments
+were built of brick, and were sometimes four or five stories in height,
+and secured by bolts on the doors. Locks and keys were also in use, made
+of iron; and the doorways were ornamented. Some of the roofs of their
+public buildings were arched with stone. In their mills for grinding
+wheat circular stones were used, resembling in form those now employed,
+generally turned by women, but sometimes so large that asses and mules
+were employed in the work. The walls and ceilings of their buildings
+were richly painted, the devices being as elaborate as those of the
+Greeks. Besides town-houses, the rich had villas and gardens, where they
+amused themselves with angling and spearing fish in the ponds. The
+gardens were laid in walks shaded with trees, and were well watered from
+large tanks. Vines were trained on trellis-work supported by pillars,
+and sometimes in the form of bowers. For gathering fruit, baskets were
+used somewhat similar to those now employed. Their wine-presses showed
+considerable ingenuity, and after the necessary fermentation the wine
+was poured into large earthen jars, corresponding to the amphorae of the
+Romans, and covered with lids made air-tight by resin and bitumen. The
+Egyptians had several kinds of wine, highly praised by the ancients; and
+wine among them was cheap and abundant. Egypt was also renowned for
+drugs unknown to other nations, and for beer made of barley, as well as
+wine. As for fruits, they had the same variety as we have at the present
+day, their favorite fruit being dates. &quot;So fond were the Egyptians of
+trees and flowers that they exacted a contribution from the nations
+tributary to them of their rarest plants, so that their gardens bloomed
+with flowers of every variety in all seasons of the year.&quot; Wreaths and
+chaplets were in common use from the earliest antiquity. It was in their
+gardens, abounding with vegetables as well as with fruits and flowers,
+that the Egyptians entertained their friends.</p>
+
+<p>In Egyptian houses were handsome chairs and fauteuils, stools and
+couches, the legs of which were carved in imitation of the feet of
+animals; and these were made of rare woods, inlaid with ivory, and
+covered with rich stuffs. Some of the Egyptian chairs were furnished
+with cushions and covered with the skins of leopards and lions; the
+seats were made of leather, painted with flowers. Footstools were
+sometimes made of elegant patterns, inlaid with ivory and precious
+woods. Mats were used in the sitting-rooms. The couches were of every
+variety of form, and utilized in some instances as beds. The tables were
+round, square, and oblong, and were sometimes made of stone and highly
+ornamented with carvings. Bronze bedsteads were used by the
+wealthy classes.</p>
+
+<p>In their entertainments nothing was omitted by the Egyptians which would
+produce festivity,--music, songs, dancing, and games of chance. The
+guests arrived in chariots or palanquins, borne by servants on foot, who
+also carried parasols over the heads of their masters. Previous to
+entering the festive chamber water was brought for the feet and hands,
+the ewers employed being made often of gold and silver, of beautiful
+form and workmanship. Servants in attendance anointed the head with
+sweet-scented ointment from alabaster vases, and put around the heads of
+the guests garlands and wreaths in which the lotus was conspicuous; they
+also perfumed the apartments with myrrh and frankincense, obtained
+chiefly from Syria. Then wine was brought, and emptied into
+drinking-cups of silver or bronze, and even of porcelain, beautifully
+engraved, one of which was exclusively reserved for the master of the
+house. While at dinner the party were enlivened with musical
+instruments, the chief of which were the harp, the lyre, the guitar, the
+tambourine, the pipe, the flute, and the cymbal. Music was looked upon
+by the Egyptians as an important science, and was diligently studied and
+highly prized; the song and the dance were united with the sounds of
+musical instruments. Many of the ornamented vases and other vessels used
+by the Egyptians in their banquets were not inferior in elegance of form
+and artistic finish to those made by the Greeks at a later day. The
+Pharaoh of the Jewish Exodus had drinking-vessels of gold and silver,
+exquisitely engraved and ornamented with precious stones.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the bronze vases found at Thebes and other parts of Egypt show
+great skill in the art of compounding metals, and were highly polished.
+Their bronze knives and daggers had an elastic spring, as if made of
+steel. Wilkinson expresses his surprise at the porcelain vessels
+recently discovered, as well as admiration of them, especially of their
+rich colors and beautiful shapes. There is a porcelain bowl of exquisite
+workmanship in the British Museum inscribed with the name of Rameses
+II., proving that the arts of pottery were carried to great perfection
+two thousand years before Christ. Boxes of elaborate workmanship, made
+of precious woods finely carved and inlaid with ivory, are also
+preserved in the different museums of Europe, all dating from a remote
+antiquity. These boxes are of every form, with admirably fitting lids,
+representing fishes, birds, and animals. The rings, bracelets, and other
+articles of jewelry that have been preserved show great facility on the
+part of the Egyptians in cutting the hardest stones. The skill displayed
+in the sculptures on the hard obelisks and granite monuments of Egypt
+was remarkable, since they were executed with hardened bronze.</p>
+
+<p>Glass-blowing was another art in which the Egyptians excelled. Fifteen
+hundred years before Christ they made ornaments of glass, and glass
+vessels of large size were used for holding wine. Such was their skill
+in the manufacture of glass that they counterfeited precious stones with
+a success unknown to the moderns. We read of a counterfeited emerald six
+feet in length. Counterfeited necklaces were sold at Thebes which
+deceived strangers. The uses to which glass was applied were in the
+manufacture of bottles, beads, mosaic work, and drinking-cups, and their
+different colors show considerable knowledge of chemistry. The art of
+cutting and engraving stones was doubtless learned by the Israelites in
+their sojourn in Egypt. So perfect were the Egyptians in the arts of
+cutting precious stones that they were sought by foreign merchants, and
+they furnished an important material in commerce.</p>
+
+<p>From the earliest times the Egyptians were celebrated for their
+manufacture of linen, which was one of the principal articles of
+commerce; and cotton and woollen cloths as well as linen were woven.
+Cotton was used not only for articles of dress, but for the covering of
+chairs and other kinds of furniture. The great mass of the mummy cloths
+is of coarse texture; but the &quot;fine linen&quot; spoken of in the Scripture
+was as fine as muslin, in some instances containing more than five
+hundred threads to an inch, while the finest productions of the looms of
+India have only one hundred threads to the inch. Not only were the
+threads of linen cloth of extraordinary fineness, but the dyes were
+equally remarkable, and were unaffected by strong alkalies. Spinning was
+principally the occupation of women, who also practised the art of
+embroidery, in which gold thread was used, supposed to be beaten out by
+the hammer; but in the arts of dyeing and embroidery the Egyptians were
+surpassed by the Babylonians, who were renowned for their cloths of
+various colors.</p>
+
+<p>The manufacture of paper was another art for which the Egyptians were
+famous, made from the papyrus, a plant growing in the marsh-land of the
+Nile. The papyrus was also applied to the manufacture of sails, baskets,
+canoes, and parts of sandals. Some of the papyri, on which is
+hieroglyphic writing dating from two thousand years before our era, are
+in good preservation. Sheep-skin parchment also was used for writing.</p>
+
+<p>The Egyptians were especially skilled in the preparation of leather for
+sandals, shields, and chairs. The curriers used the same semicircular
+knife which is now in use. The great consumption of leather created a
+demand far greater than could be satisfied by the produce of the
+country, and therefore skins from foreign countries were imported as
+part of the tribute laid on conquered nations or tribes.</p>
+
+<p>More numerous than the tanners in Egypt were the potters, among whom the
+pottery-wheel was known from a remote antiquity, previous to the arrival
+of Joseph from Canaan, and long before the foundation of the Greek
+Athens. Earthenware was used for holding wine, oils, and other liquids;
+but the finest production of the potter were the vases, covered with a
+vitreous glaze and modelled in every variety of forms, some of which
+were as elegant as those made later by the Greeks, who excelled in this
+department of art.</p>
+
+<p>Carpenters and cabinet-makers formed a large class of Egyptian workmen
+for making coffins, boxes, tables, chairs, doors, sofas, and other
+articles of furniture, frequently inlaid with ivory and rare woods.
+Veneering was known to these workmen, probably arising from the scarcity
+of wood. The tools used by the carpenters, as appear from the
+representations on the monuments, were the axe, the adze, the hand-saw,
+the chisel, the drill, and the plane. These tools were made of bronze,
+with handles of acacia, tamarisk, and other hard woods. The hatchet, by
+which trees were felled, was used by boat-builders. The boxes and other
+articles of furniture were highly ornamented with inlaid work.</p>
+
+<p>Boat-building in Egypt also employed many workmen. Boats were made of
+the papyrus plant, deal, cedar, and other woods, and were propelled both
+by sails and oars. One ship-of-war built for Ptolemy Philopater is said
+by ancient writers to have been 478 feet long, to have had forty banks
+of oars, and to have carried 400 sailors, 4,000 rowers, and 3,000
+soldiers. This is doubtless an exaggeration, but indicates great
+progress in naval architecture. The construction of boats varied
+according to the purpose for which they were intended. They were built
+with ribs as at the present day, with small keels, square sails, with
+spacious cabins in the centre, and ornamented sterns; there was usually
+but one mast, and the prows terminated in the heads of animals. The
+boats of burden were somewhat similar to our barges; the sails were
+generally painted with rich colors. The origin of boat-building was
+probably the raft, and improvement followed improvement until the
+ship-of-war rivalled in size our largest vessels, while Egyptian
+merchant vessels penetrated to distant seas, and probably doubled the
+Cape of Good Hope.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to agriculture the Egyptians were the most advanced of the
+nations of antiquity, since the fertility of their soil made the
+occupation one of primary importance. Irrigation was universally
+practised, the Nile furnishing water for innumerable canals. The soil
+was often turned up with the hoe rather than the plough. The grain was
+sown broadcast, and was trodden in by goats. Their plough was very
+simple, and was drawn by oxen; the yoke being attached to the horns.
+Although the soil was rich, manures were frequently used. The chief
+crops were those of wheat, barley, beans, peas, lentils, vetches,
+lupines, clover, rice, indigo, cotton, lettuce, flax, hemp, cumin,
+coriander, poppy, melons, cucumbers, onions, and leeks. We do not read
+of carrots, cabbages, beets, or potatoes, which enter so largely into
+modern husbandry. Oil was obtained from the olive, the castor-berry,
+simsin, and coleseed. Among the principal trees which were cultivated
+were the vine, olive, locust, acacia, date, sycamore, pomegranate, and
+tamarisk. Grain, after harvest, was trodden out by oxen, and the straw
+was used as provender. To protect the fields from inundation dykes
+were built.</p>
+
+<p>All classes in Egypt delighted in the sports of the field, especially in
+the hunting of wild animals, in which the arrow was most frequently
+used. Sometimes the animals were caught in nets, in enclosed places near
+water-brooks. The Egyptians also had numerous fish-ponds, since they
+were as fond of angling as they were of hunting. Hunting in Egypt was an
+amusement, not an occupation as among nomadic people. Not only was
+hunting for pleasure a great amusement among Egyptians, but also among
+Babylonians and Persians, who coursed the plains with dogs. They used
+the noose or lasso also to catch antelopes and wild cattle, which were
+hunted with lions; the bow used in the chase was similar to that
+employed in war. All the subjects of the chase were sculptured on the
+monuments with great spirit and fidelity, especially the stag, the ibex,
+the porcupine, the wolf, the hare, the lion, the fox, and the giraffe.
+The camel is not found among the Egyptian sculptures, nor the bear. Of
+the birds found in their sculptures were vultures, eagles, kites, hawks,
+owls, ravens, larks, swallows, turtle-doves, quails, ostriches, storks,
+plovers, snipes, geese, and ducks, many of which were taken in nets. The
+Nile and Lake Birket el Keroun furnished fish in great abundance. The
+profits of the fisheries were enormous, and were farmed out by the
+government.</p>
+
+<p>The Egyptians were very fond of ornaments in dress, especially the
+women. They paid great attention to their sandals; they wore their hair
+long and plaited, bound round with an ornamented fillet fastened by a
+lotus bud; they wore ear-rings and a profusion of rings on the fingers
+and bracelets for the arms, made of gold and set with precious stones.
+The scarabaeus, or sacred beetle, was the adornment of rings and
+necklaces; even the men wore necklaces and rings and chains. Both men
+and women stained the eyelids and brows. Pins and needles were among the
+articles of the toilet, usually made of bronze; also metallic mirrors
+finely polished. The men carried canes or walking-sticks,--the wands of
+Moses and Aaron.</p>
+
+<p>As the Egyptians paid great attention to health, physicians were held in
+great repute; and none were permitted to practise but in some particular
+branch, such as diseases of the eye, the ear, the head, the teeth, and
+the internal maladies. They were paid by government, and were skilled in
+the knowledge of drugs. The art of curing diseases originated, according
+to Pliny, in Egypt. Connected with the healing art was the practice of
+embalming dead bodies, which was carried to great perfection.</p>
+
+<p>In elegance of life the Greeks and Romans, however, far surpassed any
+of the nations of antiquity, if not in luxury itself, which was confined
+to the palaces of kings. In social refinements the Greeks were not
+behind any modern nation, as one infers from reading Becker's Charicles.
+Among the Greeks was the network of trades and professions, as in Paris
+and London, and a complicated social life in which all the amenities
+known to the modern world were seen, especially in Athens and Corinth
+and the Ionian capitals. What could be more polite and courteous than
+the intercourse carried on in Greece among cultivated and famous people?
+When were symposia more attractive than when the <i>&eacute;lite</i> of Athens, in
+the time of Pericles, feasted and communed together? When was art ever
+brought in support of luxury to greater perfection? We read of libraries
+and books and booksellers, of social games, of attractive gardens and
+villas, as well as of baths and spectacles, of markets and fora in
+Athens. The common life of a Pericles or a Cicero differed but little
+from that of modern men of rank and fortune.</p>
+
+<p>In describing the various arts which marked the nations of antiquity, we
+cannot but feel that in a material point of view the ancient
+civilization in its important features was as splendid as our own. In
+the decoration of houses, in social entertainments, in cookery, the
+Romans were our equals. The mosaics, the signet rings, cameos,
+bracelets, bronzes, vases, couches, banqueting-tables, lamps, colored
+glass, potteries, all attest great elegance and beauty. The tables of
+thuga root and Delian bronze were as expensive as modern sideboards;
+wood and ivory were carved in Rome as exquisitely as in Japan and China;
+mirrors were made of polished silver. Glass-cutters could imitate the
+colors of precious stones so well that the Portland vase, from the tomb
+of Alexander Severus, was long considered as a genuine sardonyx. The
+palace of Nero glittered with gold and jewels; perfumes and flowers were
+showered from ivory ceilings. The halls of Heliogabalus were hung with
+cloth of gold, enriched with jewels; his beds were silver, and his
+tables of gold. A banquet dish of Drusillus weighed five hundred pounds
+of silver. Tunics were embroidered with the figures of various animals;
+sandals were garnished with precious stones. Paulina wore jewels, when
+she paid visits, valued at $800,000. Drinking-cups were engraved with
+scenes from the poets; libraries were adorned with busts, and presses of
+rare woods; sofas were inlaid with tortoise-shell, and covered with
+gorgeous purple. The Roman grandees rode in gilded chariots, bathed in
+marble baths, dined from golden plate, drank from crystal cups, slept on
+beds of down, reclined on luxurious couches, wore embroidered robes,
+and were adorned with precious stones. They ransacked the earth and the
+seas for rare dishes for their banquets, and ornamented their houses
+with carpets from Babylon, onyx cups from Bithynia, marbles from
+Numidia, bronzes from Corinth, statues from Athens,--whatever, in short,
+was precious or rare or curious in the most distant countries.</p>
+
+<p>What a concentration of material wonders was to be seen in all the
+countries that bordered on the Mediterranean,--not merely in Italy and
+Greece, but in Sicily and Asia Minor, and even in Gaul and Spain! Every
+country was dotted with cities, villas, and farms. Every country was
+famous for oil, or fruit, or wine, or vegetables, or timber, or flocks,
+or pastures, or horses. More than two hundred and fifty cities or towns
+in Italy alone are historical, and some were famous.</p>
+
+<p>The excavations of Pompeii attest great luxury and elegance of life.
+Cortona, Clusium, Veii, Ancona, Ostia, Praeneste, Antium, Misenum,
+Baiae, Puteoli, Neapolis, Brundusium, Sybaris, were all celebrated.</p>
+
+<p>And still more remarkable were the old capitals of Greece, Asia Minor,
+and Africa. Syracuse was older than Rome, and had a fortress of a mile
+and a half in length. Carthage, under the emperors, nearly equalled its
+ancient magnificence. Athens was never more splendid than in the time of
+the Roman Antonines. In spite of successive conquests, there still
+towered upon the Acropolis the most wonderful temple of antiquity, built
+of Pentelic marble, and adorned with the sculptures of Phidias. Corinth
+was richer and more luxurious than Athens, and possessed the most
+valuable pictures of Greece, as well as the finest statues; a single
+street for three miles was adorned with costly edifices. And even the
+islands which were colonized by Greeks were seats of sculpture and
+painting, as well as of schools of learning. Still grander were the
+cities of Asia Minor. Antioch had a street four miles in length, with
+double colonnades; and its baths, theatres, museums, and temples excited
+universal admiration. At Ephesus was the grand temple of Diana, four
+times as large as the Parthenon at Athens, covering as much ground as
+Cologne Cathedral, with one hundred and twenty-eight columns sixty feet
+high. The Ephesian theatre was capable of seating sixty thousand
+spectators. Tarsus, the birthplace of Paul, was no mean city; and
+Damascus, the old capital of Syria, was both beautiful and rich.</p>
+
+<p>Laodicea was famous for tapestries, Hierapolis for its iron wares,
+Cybara for its dyes, Sardis for its wines, Smyrna for its beautiful
+monuments, Delos for its slave-trade, Cyrene for its horses, Paphos for
+its temple of Venus, in which were a hundred altars. Seleucia, on the
+Tigris, had a population of four hundred thousand. Caesarea in
+Palestine, founded by Herod the Great, and the principal seat of
+government to the Roman prefects, had a harbor equal in size to the
+renowned Piraeus, and was secured against the southwest winds by a mole
+of such massive construction that the blocks of stone, sunk under the
+water, were fifty feet in length, eighteen in width, and nine in
+thickness. The city itself was constructed of polished stone, with an
+agora, a theatre, a circus, a praetorium, and a temple to Caesar. Tyre,
+which had resisted for seven months the armies of Alexander, remained to
+the fall of the empire a great emporium of trade; it monopolized the
+manufacture of imperial purple. Sidon was equally celebrated for its
+glass and embroidered robes. The Sidonians cast glass mirrors, and
+imitated precious stones. But the glory of both Tyre and Sidon was in
+ships, which visited all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and even
+penetrated to Britain and India.</p>
+
+<p>But greater than Tyre or Antioch, or any eastern city, was Alexandria,
+the capital of Egypt. Egypt even in its decline was still a great
+monarchy; and when the sceptre of three hundred kings passed from
+Cleopatra the last of the Ptolemies, to Augustus Caesar the conqueror at
+Actium, the military force of Egypt is said to have amounted to seven
+hundred thousand men. The annual revenues of this State under the
+Ptolemies amounted to about seventeen million dollars in gold and
+silver, besides the produce of the earth. A single feast cost
+Philadelphus more than half a million of pounds sterling, and he had
+accumulated treasures to the amount of seven hundred and forty thousand
+talents, or about eight hundred and sixty million dollars. What European
+monarch ever possessed such a sum? The kings of Egypt, even when
+tributary to Rome, were richer in gold and silver than was Louis XIV. in
+the proudest hour of his life.</p>
+
+<p>The ground-plan of Alexandria was traced by Alexander himself, but it
+was not completed until the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Its
+circumference was about fifteen miles; the streets were regular, and
+crossed one another at right angles, being wide enough for free passage
+of both carriages and foot passengers. Its harbor could hold the largest
+fleet ever congregated; its walls and gates were constructed with all
+the skill and strength known to antiquity; its population numbered six
+hundred thousand, and all nations were represented in its crowded
+streets. The wealth of the city may be inferred from the fact that in
+one year sixty-two hundred and fifty talents, or more than six million
+dollars, were paid to the public treasury for port dues. The library was
+the largest in the world, numbering over seven hundred thousand
+volumes; and this was connected with a museum, a menagerie, a botanical
+garden, and various halls for lectures, altogether forming the most
+famous university in the Roman empire. The inhabitants were chiefly
+Greek, and had all the cultivated tastes and mercantile thrift of that
+quick-witted people. In a commercial point of view Alexandria was the
+most important city in the world, and its ships whitened every sea.
+Unlike most commercial cities, it was intellectual, and its schools of
+poetry, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, and theology were more
+renowned than even those of Athens during the third and fourth
+centuries. Alexandria, could it have been transported in its former
+splendor to our modern world, would be a great capital in these times.</p>
+
+<p>And all these cities were connected with one another and with Rome by
+magnificent roads, perfectly straight, and paved with large blocks of
+stone. They were originally constructed for military purposes, but were
+used by travellers, and on them posts were regularly established; they
+crossed valleys upon arches, and penetrated mountains; in Italy,
+especially, they were great works of art, and connected all the
+provinces. There was an uninterrupted communication from the wall of
+Antoninus through York, London, Sandwich, Boulogne, Rheims, Lyons,
+Milan, Rome, Brundusium, Dyrrachium, Byzantium, Ancyra, Tarsus,
+Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem,--a distance of thirty-seven hundred and forty
+miles; and these roads were divided by milestones, and houses for
+travellers erected upon them at points of every five or six miles.</p>
+
+<p>Commerce under the Roman emperors was not what it now is, but still was
+very considerable, and thus united the various provinces together. The
+most remote countries were ransacked to furnish luxuries for Rome; every
+year a fleet of one hundred and twenty vessels sailed from the Red Sea
+for the islands of the Indian Ocean. But the Mediterranean, with the
+rivers which flowed into it, was the great highway of the ancient
+navigator. Navigation by the ancients was even more rapid than in modern
+times before the invention of steam, since oars were employed as well as
+sails. In summer one hundred and sixty-two Roman miles were sailed over
+in twenty-four hours; this was the average speed, or about seven knots.
+From the mouth of the Tiber vessels could usually reach Africa in two
+days, Massilia in three, and the Pillars of Hercules in seven; from
+Puteoli the passage to Alexandria had been effected, with moderate
+winds, in nine days. These facts, however, apply only to the summer, and
+to favorable winds. The Romans did not navigate in the inclement
+seasons; but in summer the great inland sea was white with sails. Great
+fleets brought corn from Gaul, Spain, Sardinia, Africa, Sicily, and
+Egypt. This was the most important trade; but a considerable commerce
+was carried on also in ivory, tortoise-shell, cotton and silk fabrics,
+pearls and precious stones, gums, spices, wines, wool, and oil. Greek
+and Asiatic wines, especially the Chian and Lesbian, were in great
+demand at Rome. The transport of earthenware, made generally in the
+Grecian cities, of wild animals for the amphitheatre, of marble, of the
+spoils of eastern cities, of military engines and stores, and of horses,
+required very large fleets and thousands of mariners, which probably
+belonged chiefly to great maritime cities. These cities with their
+dependencies required even more vessels for communication with one
+another than for Rome herself,--the great central object of enterprise
+and cupidity.</p>
+
+<p>In this survey of ancient cities I have not yet spoken of the great
+central city,--the City of the Seven Hills, to which all the world was
+tributary. Whatever was costly or rare or beautiful, in Greece or Asia
+or Egypt, was appropriated by her citizen kings, since citizens were
+provincial governors. All the great highways, from the Atlantic to the
+Tigris, converged to the capital,--all roads led to Rome; all the ships
+of Alexandria and Carthage and Tarentum, and other commercial capitals,
+were employed in furnishing her with luxuries or necessities. Never was
+there so proud a city as this &quot;Epitome of the Universe.&quot; London, Paris,
+Vienna, Constantinople, St. Petersburg, Berlin, are great centres of
+fashion and power; but they are rivals, and excel only in some great
+department of human enterprise and genius, as in letters, or fashions,
+or commerce, or manufactures,--centres of influence and power in the
+countries of which they are capitals, yet they do not monopolize the
+wealth and energies of the world. London may contain more people than
+did ancient Rome, and may possess more commercial wealth; but London
+represents only the British monarchy, not a universal empire. Rome,
+however, monopolized every thing, and controlled all nations and
+peoples; she could shut up the schools of Athens, or disperse the ships
+of Alexandria, or regulate the shops of Antioch. What Lyons and Bordeaux
+are to Paris, Corinth and Babylon were to Rome,--mere dependent cities.
+Paul, condemned at Jerusalem, stretched out his arms to Rome, and Rome
+protected him. The philosophers of Greece were the tutors of Roman
+nobility. The kings of the East resorted to the palaces of Mount
+Palatine for favors or safety; the governors of Syria and Egypt,
+reigning in the palaces of ancient kings, returned to Rome to squander
+the riches they had accumulated. Senators and nobles took their turn as
+sovereign rulers of all the known countries of the world. The halls in
+which Darius and Alexander and Pericles and Croesus and Solomon and
+Cleopatra had feasted, became the witness of the banquets of Roman
+proconsuls. Babylon, Thebes, and Athens were only what Delhi and
+Calcutta are to the English of our day,--cities to be ruled by the
+delegates of the imperial Senate. Rome was the only &quot;home&quot; of the proud
+governors who reigned on the banks of the Thames, of the Seine, of the
+Rhine, of the Nile, of the Tigris. After they had enriched themselves
+with the spoils of the ancient monarchies they returned to their estates
+in Italy, or to their palaces on the Aventine. What a concentration of
+works of art on the hills, and around the Forum, and in the Campus
+Martius, and other celebrated quarters! There were temples rivalling
+those of Athens and Ephesus; baths covering more ground than the
+Pyramids, surrounded with Corinthian columns, and filled with the
+choicest treasures ransacked from the cities of Greece and Asia; palaces
+in comparison with which the Tuileries and Versailles are small;
+theatres which seated a larger audience than any present public
+buildings in Europe; amphitheatres more extensive and costly than
+Cologne, Milan, and York Minster cathedrals combined, and seating eight
+times as many spectators as could be crowded into St. Peter's Church;
+circuses where, it is said, three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+persons could witness the games and chariot-races at a time; bridges,
+still standing, which have furnished models for the most beautiful at
+Paris and London; aqueducts carried over arches one hundred feet in
+height, through which flowed the surplus water of distant lakes; drains
+of solid masonry in which large boats could float; pillars more than one
+hundred feet in height, coated with precious marbles or plates of brass,
+and covered with bas-reliefs; obelisks brought from Egypt; fora and
+basilicas connected together, and extending more than three thousand
+feet in length, every part of which was filled with &quot;animated busts&quot; of
+conquerors, kings, statesmen, poets, publicists, and philosophers;
+mausoleums greater and more splendid than that Artemisia erected to the
+memory of her husband; triumphal arches under which marched in stately
+procession the victorious armies of the Eternal City, preceded by the
+spoils and trophies of conquered empires.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the proud capital,--a city of palaces, a residence of nobles
+who were virtually kings, enriched with the accumulated treasures of
+ancient civilization. Great were the capitals of Greece and Asia, but
+how pre-eminent was Rome, since all were subordinate to her! How
+bewildering and bewitching to a traveller must have been the varied
+wonders of the city! Go where he would, his eye rested on something
+which was both a study and a marvel. Let him drive or walk about the
+suburbs,--there were villas, tombs, aqueducts looking like our railroads
+on arches, sculptured monuments, and gardens of surpassing beauty and
+luxury. Let him approach the walls,--they were great fortifications
+extending twenty-one miles in circuit, according to the measurement of
+Ammon as adopted by Gibbon, and forty-five miles according to other
+authorities. Let him enter any of the various gates that opened into the
+city from the roads which radiated to all parts of Italy and the
+world,--they were of monumental brass covered with bas-reliefs, on which
+the victories of generals for a thousand years were commemorated. Let
+him pass through any of the crowded thoroughfares,--he saw houses
+towering scarcely ever less than seventy feet, as tall as those of
+Edinburgh in its oldest sections. Most of the houses in which this vast
+population lived, according to Strabo, possessed pipes which gave a
+never-failing supply of water from the rivers that flowed into the city
+through the aqueducts and out again through the sewers into the Tiber.
+Let the traveller walk up the Via Sacra,--that short street, scarcely
+half a mile in length,--and he passed the Flavian Amphitheatre, the
+Temple of Venus and Rome, the Arch of Titus, the Temples of Peace, of
+Vesta, and of Castor, the Forum Romanum, the Basilica Julia, the Arch
+of Severus, the Temple of Saturn, and stood before the majestic ascent
+to the Capitoline Jupiter, with its magnificent portico and ornamented
+pediment, surpassing the fa&ccedil;ade of any modern church. On his left, as he
+emerged from beneath the sculptured Arch of Titus, was the Palatine
+Mount, nearly covered by the palace of the Caesars, the magnificent
+residences of the higher nobility, and various temples, of which that of
+Apollo was the most magnificent, built by Augustus, of solid white
+marble from Luna. Here were the palaces of Vaccus, of Flaccus, of
+Cicero, of Catiline, of Scaurus, of Antoninus, of Clodius, of Agrippa,
+and of Hortensius. Still on his left, in the valley between the Palatine
+and the Capitoline, though he could not see it, concealed from view by
+the great Temples of Vesta and of Castor, and the still greater edifice
+known as the Basilica Julia, was the quarter called the Velabrum,
+extending to the river, where the Pons Aemilius crossed it,--a low
+quarter of narrow streets and tall houses where the rabble lived and
+died. On his right, concealed from view by the Aedes Divi Julii and the
+Forum Romanum, was that magnificent series of edifices extending from
+the Temple of Peace to the Temple of Trajan, including the Basilica
+Pauli, the Forum Julii, the Forum Augusti, the Forum Trajani, the
+Basilica Ulpia,--a space more than three thousand feet in length, and
+six hundred in breadth, almost entirely surrounded by porticos and
+colonnades, and filled with statues and pictures,--displaying on the
+whole probably the grandest series of public buildings clustered
+together ever erected, especially if we include the Forum Romanum and
+the various temples and basilicas which connected the whole,--a forest
+of marble pillars and statues. Ascending the steps which led from the
+Temple of Concord to the Temple of Juno Moneta upon the Arx, or Tarpeian
+Rock, on the southwestern summit of the hill, itself one of the most
+beautiful temples in Rome, erected by Camillus on the spot where the
+house of M. Manlius Capitolinus had stood, and one came upon the Roman
+mint. Near this was the temple erected by Augustus to Jupiter Tonans,
+and that built by Domitian to Jupiter Custos. But all the sacred
+edifices which crowned the Capitoline were subordinate to the Templum
+Jovis Capitolini, standing on a platform of eight thousand square feet,
+and built of the richest materials. The portico which faced the Via
+Sacra consisted of three rows of Doric columns, the pediment profusely
+ornamented with the choicest sculptures, the apex of the roof surmounted
+by the bronze horses of Lysippus, and the roof itself covered with
+gilded tiles. The temple had three separate cells, though covered with
+one roof; in front of each stood colossal statues of the three deities
+to whom it was consecrated. Here were preserved what was most sacred in
+the eyes of Romans, and it was itself the richest of all the temples
+of the city.</p>
+
+<p>What a beautiful panorama was presented to the view from the summit of
+this consecrated hill, only mounted by a steep ascent of one hundred
+steps! To the south was the Via Sacra extending to the Colosseum, and
+beyond it the Appia Via, lined with monuments as far as the eye could
+reach. A little beyond the fora to the east was the Carinae, a
+fashionable quarter of beautiful shops and houses, and still farther off
+were the Baths of Titus, extending from the Carinae to the Esquiline
+Mount. To the northeast were the Viminal and Quirinal hills, after the
+Palatine the most ancient part of the city, the seat of the Sabine
+population, abounding in fanes and temples, the most splendid of which
+was the Temple of Quirinus, erected originally to Romulus by Numa, but
+rebuilt by Augustus, with a double row of columns on each of its sides,
+seventy-six in number. Near by was the house of Atticus, and the gardens
+of Sallust in the valley between the Quirinal and Pincian, afterward the
+property of the Emperor. Far back on the Quirinal, near the wall of
+Servius, were the Baths of Diocletian, and still farther to the east the
+Pretorian Camp established by Tiberius, and included within the wall of
+Aurelian. To the northeast the eye lighted on the Pincian Hill covered
+with the gardens of Lucullus, to possess which Messalina caused the
+death of Valerius Asiaticus, into whose possession they had fallen. In
+the valley which lay between the fora and the Quirinal was the
+celebrated Subura, the quarter of shops, markets, and artificers,--a
+busy, noisy, vulgar section, not beautiful, but full of life and
+enterprise and wickedness. The eye then turned to the north, and the
+whole length of the Via Flamina was exposed to view, extending from the
+Capitoline to the Flaminian gate, perfectly straight, the finest street
+in Rome, and parallel to the modern Corso; it was the great highway to
+the north of Italy. Monuments and temples and palaces lined this
+celebrated street; it was spanned by the triumphal arches of Claudius
+and Marcus Aurelius. To the west of it was the Campus Martius, with its
+innumerable objects of interest,--the Baths of Agrippa, the Pantheon,
+the Thermae Alexandrinae, the Column of Marcus Aurelius, and the
+Mausoleum of Augustus. Beneath the Capitoline on the west, toward the
+river, was the Circus Flaminius, the Portico of Octavius, the Theatre of
+Balbus, and the Theatre of Pompey, where forty thousand spectators were
+accommodated. Stretching beyond the Thermae Alexandrinae, near the
+Pantheon, was the magnificent bridge which crossed the Tiber, built by
+Hadrian when he founded his Mausoleum, to which it led, still standing
+under the name of the Ponte S. Angelo. The eye took in eight or nine
+bridges over the Tiber, some of wood, but generally of stone, of
+beautiful masonry, and crowned with statues. In the valley between the
+Palatine and the Aventine, was the great Circus Maximus, founded by the
+early Tarquin; it was the largest open space, inclosed by walls and
+porticos, in the city; it seated three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+spectators. How vast a city, which could spare nearly four hundred
+thousand of its population to see the chariot-races! Beyond was the
+Aventine itself. This also was rich in legendary monuments and in the
+palaces of the great, though originally a plebeian quarter. Here dwelt
+Trajan before he was emperor, and Ennius the poet, and Paula the friend
+of Saint Jerome. Beneath the Aventine, and a little south of the Circus
+Maximus, were the great Baths of Caracalla, the ruins of which, next to
+those of the Colosseum, made on my mind the strongest impression of all
+I saw that pertains to antiquity, though these were not so large as
+those of Diocletian. The view south took in the Caelian Hill, the
+ancient residence of Tullus Hostilius. This hill was the residence of
+many distinguished Romans, among whose palaces was that of Claudius
+Centumalus, which towered ten or twelve stories into the air. But
+grander than any of these palaces was that of Plautius Lateranus, on
+whose site now stands the basilica of St. John Lateran,--the gift of
+Constantine to the bishop of Rome,--one of the most ancient of the
+Christian churches, in which, for fifteen hundred years, daily services
+have been performed.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the objects of interest and grandeur that met the eye as it
+was turned toward the various quarters of the city, which contained
+between three and four millions of people. Lipsius estimates four
+millions as the population, including slaves, women, children, and
+strangers. Though this estimate is regarded as too large by Merivale and
+others, yet how enormous must have been the number of the people when
+there were nine thousand and twenty-five baths, and when those of
+Diocletian could accommodate thirty-two hundred bathers at a time! The
+wooden theatre of Scaurus contained eighty thousand seats; that of
+Marcellus twenty thousand; the Colosseum would seat eighty-seven
+thousand persons, and give standing space for twenty-two thousand more.
+The Circus Maximus would hold three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+spectators. If only one person out of four of the free population
+witnessed the games and spectacles at a time, we thus must have four
+millions of people altogether in the city. The Aurelian walls are now
+only thirteen miles in circumference, but Lipsius estimates the
+original circumference at forty-five miles, and Vopiscus at nearly
+fifty. The diameter of the city must have been eleven miles, since
+Strabo tells us that the actual limit of Rome was at a place between the
+fifth and sixth milestone from the column of Trajan in the Forum,--the
+central and most conspicuous object in the city except the capitol.</p>
+
+<p>Modern writers, taking London and Paris for their measure of material
+civilization, seem unwilling to admit that Rome could have reached such
+a pitch of glory and wealth and power. To him who stands within the
+narrow limits of the Forum, as it now appears, it seems incredible that
+it could have been the centre of a much larger city than Europe can now
+boast of. Grave historians are loath to compromise their dignity and
+character for truth by admitting statements which seem, to men of
+limited views, to be fabulous, and which transcend modern experience.
+But we should remember that most of the monuments of ancient Rome have
+entirely disappeared. Nothing remains of the Palace of the Caesars,
+which nearly covered the Palatine Hill; little of the fora which,
+connected together, covered a space twice as large as that inclosed by
+the palaces of the Louvre and Tuileries, with all their galleries and
+courts; almost nothing of the glories of the Capitoline Hill; and little
+comparatively of those Thermae which were a mile in circuit. But what
+does remain attests an unparalleled grandeur,--the broken pillars of the
+Forum; the lofty columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius; the Pantheon,
+lifting its spacious dome two hundred feet into the air; the mere
+vestibule of the Baths of Agrippa; the triumphal arches of Titus and
+Trajan and Constantine; the bridges which span the Tiber; the aqueducts
+which cross the Campagna; the Cloaca Maxima, which drained the marshes
+and lakes of the infant city; and, above all, the Colosseum. What glory
+and shame are associated with that single edifice! That alone, if
+nothing else remained of Pagan antiquity, would indicate a grandeur and
+a folly such as cannot now be seen on earth. It reveals a wonderful
+skill in masonry and great architectural strength; it shows the wealth
+and resources of rulers who must have had the treasures of the world at
+their command; it shows the restless passions of the people for
+excitement, and the necessity on the part of government of yielding to
+this taste. What leisure and indolence marked a city which could afford
+to give up so much time to the demoralizing sports! What facilities for
+transportation were afforded, when so many wild beasts could be brought
+to the capitol from the central parts of Africa without calling out
+unusual comment! How imperious a populace that compels the government to
+provide such expensive pleasures! The games of Titus, on the dedication
+of the Colosseum, lasted one hundred days, and five thousand wild beasts
+were slaughtered in the arena. The number of the gladiators who fought
+surpasses belief. At the triumph of Trajan over the Dacians, ten
+thousand gladiators were exhibited, and the Emperor himself presided
+under a gilded canopy, surrounded by thousands of his lords. Underneath
+the arena, strewed with yellow sand and sawdust, was a solid pavement,
+so closely cemented that it could be turned into an artificial lake, on
+which naval battles were fought. But it was the conflict of gladiators
+which most deeply stimulated the passions of the people. The benches
+were crowded with eager spectators, and the voices of one hundred
+thousand were raised in triumph or rage as the miserable victims sank
+exhausted in the bloody sport.</p>
+
+<p>Yet it was not the gladiatorial sports of the amphitheatre which most
+strikingly attested the greatness and splendor of the city; nor the
+palaces, in which as many as four hundred slaves were sometimes
+maintained as domestic servants for a single establishment,--twelve
+hundred in number according to the lowest estimate, but probably five
+times as numerous, since every senator, every knight, and every rich man
+was proud to possess a residence which would attract attention; nor the
+temples, which numbered four hundred and twenty-four, most of which
+were of marble, filled with statues, the contributions of ages, and
+surrounded with groves; nor the fora and basilicas, with their porticos,
+statues, and pictures, covering more space than any cluster of public
+buildings in Europe, a mile and a half in circuit; nor the baths, nearly
+as large, still more completely filled with works of art; nor the Circus
+Maximus, where more people witnessed the chariot races at a time than
+are nightly assembled in all the places of public amusement in Paris,
+London, and New York combined,--more than could be seated in all the
+cathedrals of England and France. It is not these which most
+impressively make us feel the amazing grandeur of the old capital of the
+world. The triumphal processions of the conquering generals were still
+more exciting to behold, for these appealed more directly to the
+imagination, and excited those passions which urged the Romans to a
+career of conquest from generation to generation. No military review of
+modern times equalled those gorgeous triumphs, even as no scenic
+performance compares with the gladiatorial shows; the sun has never
+shone upon any human assemblage so magnificent and so grand, so imposing
+and yet so guilty. Not only were displayed the spoils of conquered
+kingdoms, and the triumphal cars of generals, but the whole military
+strength of the capital; an army of one hundred thousand men, flushed
+with victory, followed the gorgeous procession of nobles and princes.
+The triumph of Aurelian, on his return from the East, gives us some idea
+of the grandeur of that ovation to conquerors. &quot;The pomp was opened by
+twenty elephants, four royal tigers, and two hundred of the most curious
+animals from every climate, north, south, east, and west. These were
+followed by sixteen hundred gladiators, devoted to the cruel amusement
+of the amphitheatre. Then were displayed the arms and ensigns of
+conquered nations, the plate and wardrobe of the Syrian queen. Then
+ambassadors from all parts of the earth, all remarkable in their rich
+dresses, with their crowns and offerings. Then the captives taken in the
+various wars,--Goths, Vandals, Samaritans, Alemanni, Franks, Gauls,
+Syrians, and Egyptians, each marked by their national costume. Then the
+Queen of the East, the beautiful Zenobia, confined by fetters of gold,
+and fainting under the weight of jewels, preceding the beautiful chariot
+in which she had hoped to enter the gates of Rome. Then the chariot of
+the Persian king. Then the triumphal car of Aurelian himself, drawn by
+elephants. Finally the most illustrious of the Senate and the army
+closed the solemn procession, amid the acclamations of the people, and
+the sound of musical instruments. It took from dawn of day until the
+ninth hour for the procession to pass to the capitol; and the festival
+was protracted by theatrical representations, the games of the circus,
+the hunting of wild beasts, combats of gladiators, and naval
+engagements.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Such were the material wonders of the ancient civilizations, culminating
+in their latest and greatest representative, and displayed in its proud
+capital,--nearly all of which became later the spoil of barbarians, who
+ruthlessly marched over the classic world, having no regard for its
+choicest treasures. Those old glories are now indeed succeeded by a
+prouder civilization,--the work of nobler races after sixteen hundred
+years of new experiments. But why such an eclipse of the glory of man?
+The reason is apparent if we survey the internal state of the ancient
+empires, especially of society as it existed under the Roman emperors.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>AUTHORITIES.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Titus Livius,
+Pausanias, on the geography and resources of the ancient nations. See an
+able chapter on Mediterranean prosperity in Louis Napoleon's History of
+Caesar. Smith's Dictionary of Ancient Geography is exhaustive. Wilkinson
+has revealed the civilization of ancient Egypt. Professor Becker's
+Handbook of Rome, as well as his Gallus and Charicles shed much light on
+manners and customs. Dyer's History of the City of Rome is the fullest
+description of its wonders that I have read. Niebuhr, Bunsen, and
+Platner, among the Germans, have written learnedly, but also have
+created much doubt about things supposed to be established. Mommsen,
+Curtius, and Merivale are also great authorities. Nor are the
+magnificent chapters of Gibbon to be disregarded by the student of Roman
+history, notwithstanding his elaborate and inflated style.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="THE_MILITARY_ART."></a>THE MILITARY ART.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>WEAPONS, ENGINES, DISCIPLINE.</p>
+
+<p>1300-100 A.D.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>In surveying the nations of antiquity nothing impresses us more forcibly
+than the perpetual wars in which they were engaged, and the fact that
+military art and science seem to have been among the earliest things
+that occupied the thoughts of men. Personal strife and tribal warfare
+are coeval with the earliest movements of humanity.</p>
+
+<p>The first recorded act in the Hebraic history of the world after the
+expulsion of Adam from Paradise is a murder. In patriarchal times we
+read of contentions between the servants of Abraham and of Lot, and
+between the petty kings and chieftains of the countries where they
+journeyed. Long before Abraham was born, violence was the greatest evil
+with which the world was afflicted. Before his day mighty conquerors
+arose and founded kingdoms. Babylon and Egypt were powerful military
+States in pre-historic times. Wars more or less fierce were waged before
+nations were civilized. The earliest known art, therefore, was the art
+of destruction, growing out of the wicked and brutal passions of
+men,--envy and hatred, ambition and revenge; in a word, selfishness.
+Race fought with race, kingdom with kingdom, and city with city, in the
+very infancy of society. In secular history the greatest names are those
+of conquerors and heroes in every land under the sun; and it was by
+conquerors that those grand monuments were erected the ruins of which
+astonish every traveller, especially in Egypt and Assyria.</p>
+
+<p>But wars in the earliest ages were not carried on scientifically, or
+even as an art. There was little to mark them except brute force. Armies
+were scarcely more than great collections of armed men, led by kings,
+either to protect their States from hostile invaders, or to acquire new
+territory, or to exact tribute from weaker nations. We do not read of
+military discipline, or of skill in strategy and tactics. A battle was
+lost or won by individual prowess; it was generally a hand-to-hand
+encounter, in which the strongest and bravest gained the victory.</p>
+
+<p>One of the earliest descriptions of war is to be found in the Iliad of
+Homer, where individual heroes fought with one another, armed with the
+sword, the lance, and the javelin, protected by shields, helmets, and
+coats of mail. They fought on foot, or from chariots, which were in use
+before cavalry. The war-horse was driven before he was ridden in Egypt
+or Palestine; but the Aryan barbarians in their invasion rode their
+horses, and fought on horseback, like the modern Cossacks.</p>
+
+<p>Until the Greeks became familiar with war as an art, armies were usually
+very large, as if a great part of the population of a country followed
+the sovereign who commanded them. Rameses the Great, the Sesostris of
+the Greeks, according to Herodotus led nearly a million of men in his
+expeditions. He was the most noted of ancient warriors until Cyrus the
+Persian arose, and was nearly contemporaneous with Moses. The Trojan war
+is supposed to have taken place during the period when the Israelites
+were subject to the Ammonites; and about the time that the Philistines
+were defeated by David, the Greeks were forced by war to found colonies
+in Asia Minor.</p>
+
+<p>After authentic history begins, war is the main subject with which it
+has to deal; and for three thousand years history is simply the record
+of the feats of warriors and generals, of their conquests and defeats,
+of the rise and fall of kingdoms and cities, of the growth or decline of
+military virtues. No arts of civilization have preserved nations from
+the sword of the conqueror, and war has been both the amusement and the
+business of kings. From the earliest ages, the most valued laurels have
+been bestowed for success in war, and military fame has eclipsed all
+other glories. The cry of the mourner has been unheeded in the blaze of
+conquest; even the aspirations of the poet and the labors of the artist
+have been as nought, except to celebrate the achievements of heroes.</p>
+
+<p>It is interesting then to inquire how far the ancients advanced in the
+arts of war, which include military weapons, movements, the structure of
+camps, the discipline of armies, the construction of ships and of
+military engines, and the concentration and management of forces under a
+single man. What was that mighty machinery by which nations were
+subdued, or rose to greatness on the ruin of States and Empires? The
+conquests of Rameses, of David, of Nebuchadnezzar, of Cyrus, of
+Alexander, of Hannibal, of Caesar, and other heroes are still the
+subjects of contemplation among statesmen and schoolboys. The exploits
+of heroes are the pith of history.</p>
+
+<p>The art of war must have made great progress in the infancy of
+civilization, when bodily energies were most highly valued, when men
+were fierce, hardy, strong, and uncorrupted by luxury; when mere
+physical forces gave law alike to the rich and the poor, to the learned
+and the ignorant; and when the avenue to power led across the field
+of battle.</p>
+
+<p>We must go to Egypt for the earliest development of art and science in
+all departments; and so far as the art of war consists in the
+organization of physical forces for conquest or defence, under the
+direction of a single man, it was in Egypt that this was first
+accomplished, about seventeen hundred years before Christ, as
+chronologists think, by Rameses the Great.</p>
+
+<p>This monarch, according to Wilkinson, the greatest and most ambitious of
+the Egyptian kings, to whom the Greeks gave the name of Sesostris,
+showed great ability in collecting together large bodies of his
+subjects, and controlling them by a rigid military discipline. He
+accustomed them to heat and cold, hunger and thirst, fatigue, and
+exposure to danger. With bodies thus rendered vigorous by labor and
+discipline, they were fitted for distant expeditions. Rameses first
+subdued the Arabians and Libyans, and annexed them to the Egyptian
+monarchy. While he inured his subjects to fatigue and danger, he was
+careful to win their affections by acts of munificence and clemency. He
+then made his preparations for the conquest of the known world, and
+collected an army, according to Diodorus Siculus, of six hundred
+thousand infantry, twenty-four thousand cavalry, and twenty-seven
+thousand war-chariots. It is difficult to understand how a small country
+like Egypt could furnish such an immense force. If the account of the
+historian be not exaggerated, Rameses must have enrolled the conquered
+Libyans and Arabians and other nations among his soldiers. He subjected
+his army to a stern discipline and an uncomplaining obedience to
+orders,--the first principle in the science of war, which no successful
+general in the world's history has ever disregarded, from Alexander to
+Napoleon. With this powerful army his march was irresistible. Ethiopia
+was first subdued, and an exaction made from the conquered of a tribute
+of gold, ivory, and ebony. In those ancient times a conquering army did
+not resettle or colonize the territories it had subdued, but was
+contented with overrunning the country and exacting tribute from the
+people. Such was the nature of the Babylonian and Persian conquests.
+After overrunning Ethiopia and some other countries near the Straits of
+Babelmandeb, the conqueror proceeded to India, which he overran beyond
+the Ganges, and ascended the high table-land of Central Asia; then
+proceeding westward, he entered Europe, nor halted in his devastating
+career until he reached Thrace. From thence he marched to Asia Minor,
+conquering as he went, and invaded Assyria, seating himself on the
+throne of Ninus and Semiramis. Then, laden with booty from the Eastern
+world, he returned to Egypt after an absence of thirty years and
+consolidated his empire, building those vast structures at Thebes, which
+for magnitude have never been surpassed. Thus was Egypt enriched with
+the spoil of nations, and made formidable for a thousand years. Rameses
+was the last of the Pharaohs who pursued the phantom of military renown,
+or sought glory in distant expeditions.</p>
+
+<p>We are in ignorance as to the details of the conquests and the generals
+who served under Rameses. There is doubtless some exaggeration in the
+statements of the Greek historian, but there is no doubt that this
+monarch was among the first of the great conquerors to establish a
+regular army, and to provide a fleet to co-operate with his land forces.</p>
+
+<p>The strength of the Egyptian army consisted mainly in archers. They
+fought either on foot or in chariots; cavalry was not much relied upon,
+although mention is frequently made of horsemen as well as of chariots.
+The Egyptian infantry was divided into regiments, and Wilkinson tells us
+that they were named according to the arms they bore,--as &quot;bowmen,
+spearmen, swordsmen, clubmen, slingers.&quot; These regiments were divided
+into battalions and companies, commanded by their captains. The
+infantry, heavily armed with spears and shields, formed a phalanx almost
+impenetrable of twelve men deep, who marched with great regularity. Each
+company had its standard-bearer, who was an officer of approved valor;
+the royal standards were carried by the royal princes or by persons of
+the royal household. The troops were summoned by the sound of trumpet,
+and also by the drum, both used from the earliest period. The offensive
+weapons were the bow, the spear, the javelin, the sword, the club, or
+mace, and the battle-axe. The chief defensive weapon was the shield,
+about three feet in length, covered with bull's hide, having the hair
+outward and studded with nails. The shape of the bow was not essentially
+different from that used in Europe in the Middle Ages, being about five
+feet and a half long, round, and tapering at the ends; the bowstring was
+of hide or catgut. The arrows of the archers averaged about thirty
+inches in length, and were made of wood or reeds, tipped with a metal
+point, or flint, and winged with feathers. Each bowman was furnished
+with a plentiful supply of arrows. When arrows were exhausted, the
+bowman fought with swords and battle-axes; his defensive armor was
+confined chiefly to the helmet and a sort of quilted coat. The spear was
+of wood, with a metal head, was about five or six feet in length, and
+used for thrusting. The javelin was lighter, for throwing. The sling was
+a thong of plaited leather, broad in the middle, with a loop at the end.
+The sword was straight and short, between two and three feet in length,
+with a double edge, tapering to a sharp point, and used for either cut
+or thrust; the handle was frequently inlaid with precious stones. The
+metal used in the manufacture of swords and spear-heads was bronze,
+hardened by a process unknown to us. The battle-axe had a handle about
+two-and a-half feet in length, and was less ornamented than other
+weapons. The cuirass, or coat of armor, was made of horizontal rows of
+metal plate, about an inch in breadth, well secured together by bronze
+pieces. The Egyptian chariot held two persons,--the charioteer, and the
+warrior armed with his bow-and-arrow and wearing a cuirass, or coat of
+mail. The warrior carried also other weapons for close encounter, when
+he should descend from his chariot to fight on foot. The chariot was of
+wood, the body of which was light, strengthened with metal; the pole was
+inserted in the axle; the two wheels usually had six spokes, but
+sometimes only four; the wheel revolved on the axle, and was secured by
+a lynch-pin. The leathern harness and housings were simple, and the
+bridles, or reins, were nearly the same as are now in use.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Egyptian chariot corps, like the infantry,&quot; says Wilkinson, &quot;were
+divided into light and heavy troops, both armed with bows,--the former
+chiefly employed in harassing the enemy with missiles; the latter called
+upon to break through opposing masses of infantry.&quot; The infantry, when
+employed in the assault of fortified towns, were provided with shields,
+under cover of which they made their approaches to the place to be
+attacked. In their attack they advanced under cover of the arrows of the
+bowmen, and instantly applied the scaling-ladder to the ramparts. The
+testudo, a wooden shelter, was also used, large enough to contain
+several men. The battering-ram and movable towers resembled those of the
+Romans a thousand years later.</p>
+
+<p>It would thus appear that the ancient Egyptians, in the discipline of
+armies, in military weapons offensive and defensive, in chariots and
+horses, and in military engines for the reduction of fortified towns,
+were scarcely improved upon by the Greeks and Romans, or by the
+Europeans in the Middle Ages. Yet the Egyptians were an ingenious rather
+than a warlike people, fond of peace, and devoted to agricultural
+pursuits.</p>
+
+<p>More warlike than they were the Assyrians and the Persians, although we
+fail to discover any essential difference in the organization of armies,
+or in military weapons. The great difference between the Persian and the
+Egyptian armies was in the use of cavalry. From their earliest
+settlements the Persians were skilful horsemen, and these formed the
+guard of their kings. Under Cyrus, the Persians became the masters of
+the world, but they rapidly degenerated, not being able to withstand the
+luxurious life of the conquered Babylonians; and when they were
+marshalled against the Greeks, and especially against the disciplined
+forces of Alexander, they were disgracefully routed in spite of their
+enormous armies, which could not be handled, and became mere mobs of
+armed men.</p>
+
+<p>The art of war made a great advance under the Greeks, although we do
+not notice any striking superiority of arms over the Eastern armies led
+by Sesostris or Cyrus. The Greeks were among the most warlike of all the
+races of men; they had a genius for war. The Grecian States were engaged
+in perpetual strifes with one another, and constant contention developed
+military strength; and yet the Greeks, until the time of Philip, had no
+standing armies. They relied for offence and defence on the volunteer
+militia, which was animated by intense patriotic ideas. All armies in
+the nature of things are more or less machines, moved by one commanding
+will; but the Greek armies owed much of their success to the individual
+bravery of their troops, who were citizens of States under
+constitutional forms of government.</p>
+
+<p>The most remarkable improvement in the art of war was made by the
+Spartans, who, in addition to their strict military discipline,
+introduced the <i>phalanx</i>,--files of picked soldiers, eight deep, heavily
+armed with spear, sword, and shield, placed in ranks of eight, at
+intervals of about six feet apart. This phalanx of eight files and eight
+ranks,--sixty-four men,--closely locked when the soldiers received or
+advanced to attack, proved nearly impregnable and irresistible. It
+combined solidity and the power of resistance with mobility. The picked
+men were placed in the front and rear; for in skilful evolutions the
+front often became the rear, and the rear became the front. Armed with
+spears projecting beyond the front, and with their shields locked
+together, the phalanx advanced to meet the enemy with regular step, and
+to the cadence of music; if beaten, it retired in perfect order. After
+battle, each soldier was obliged to produce his shield as a proof that
+he had fought or retired as a soldier should. The Athenian phalanx was
+less solid than that of Sparta,--Miltiades having decreased the depth to
+four ranks, in order to lengthen his front,--but was more efficient in a
+charge against the enemy. The Spartan phalanx was stronger in defence,
+the Athenian more agile in attack. The attack was nearly irresistible,
+as the soldiers advanced with accelerated motion, corresponding to the
+double-quick time of modern warfare. This was first introduced by
+Miltiades at Marathon.</p>
+
+<p>Philip of Macedon adopted the Spartan phalanx, but made it sixteen deep,
+which gave it greater solidity, and rendered it still more effective. He
+introduced the large oval buckler and a larger and heavier spear. When
+the phalanx was closed for action, each man occupied but three square
+feet of ground: as the pikes were twenty-four feet in length, and
+projected eighteen feet beyond the front, the formation presented an
+array of points such as had never been seen before. The greatest
+improvement effected by Philip, however, was the adoption of standing
+armies instead of the militia heretofore in use throughout the Grecian
+States. He also attached great importance to his cavalry, which was
+composed of the flower of the nobility, about twelve hundred in number,
+all covered with defensive armor; these he formed into eight squadrons,
+and constituted them his body-guard. The usual formation of the regular
+cavalry was in the form of a wedge, so as to penetrate and break the
+enemy's line,--a manoeuvre probably learned from Epaminondas of Thebes,
+a great master in the art of war, who defeated the Spartan phalanx by
+forming his columns upon a front less than their depth, thus enabling
+him to direct his whole force against a given point. By these tactics he
+gained the great victory at Leuctra, as Napoleon likewise prevailed over
+the Austrians in his Italian campaign. In like manner Philip's son
+Alexander, following the example of Epaminondas, concentrated his forces
+upon the enemy's centre, and easily defeated the Persian hosts by
+creating a panic. There was no resisting a phalanx sixteen files deep,
+with their projecting pikes, aided by the heavily armed cavalry, all
+under the strictest military discipline and animated by patriotic ardor.
+This terrible Macedonian phalanx was a great advance over the early
+armies of the Greeks, who fought without discipline in a hand to hand
+encounter, with swords and spears, after exhausting their arrows. They
+had learned two things of great importance,--a rigid discipline, and a
+concentration of forces which made an army a machine. Under Alexander,
+the grand phalanx consisted of 16,384 men, made up of four divisions and
+smaller phalanxes.</p>
+
+<p>In Roman armies we see a still further advance in the military art, as
+it existed in the time of Augustus, which required centuries to perfect.
+The hardy physique and stern nature of the Romans, exercised and
+controlled by their organizing genius, evolved the Roman legion, which
+learned to resist the impetuous assaults of the elephants of the East,
+the phalanx of the Greeks, and the Teutonic barbarians. The indomitable
+courage of the Romans, trained under severest discipline and directed by
+means of an organization divided and subdivided and officered almost as
+perfectly as our modern corps and divisions and brigades and regiments
+and companies and squads, marched over and subdued the world.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman soldier was trained to march twenty miles a day, under a
+burden of eighty pounds; to swim rivers, to climb mountains, to
+penetrate forests, and to encounter every kind of danger. He was taught
+that his destiny was to die in battle: death was at once his duty and
+his glory. He enlisted in the army with little hope of revisiting his
+home; he crossed seas and deserts and forests with the idea of spending
+his life in the service of his country. His pay was only a denarius
+daily, equal to about sixteen cents of our money. Marriage for him was
+discouraged or forbidden. However insignificant the legionary was as a
+man, he gained importance from the great body with which he was
+identified: he was both the servant and the master of the State. He had
+an intense <i>esprit de corps</i>; he was bound up in the glory of his
+legion. Both religion and honor bound him to his standards; the golden
+eagle which glittered in his front was the object of his fondest
+devotion. Nor was it possible to escape the penalty of cowardice or
+treachery or disobedience; he could be chastised with blows by his
+centurion, and his general could doom him to death. Never was the
+severity of military discipline relaxed; military exercises were
+incessant, in winter as in summer. In the midst of peace the Roman
+troops were familiarized with the practice of war.</p>
+
+<p>It was the spirit which animated the Roman legions, and the discipline
+to which they were inured that gave them their irresistible strength.
+When we remember that they had not our firearms, we can but be surprised
+at their efficiency, especially in taking strongly fortified cities.
+Jerusalem was defended by a triple wall, the most elaborate
+fortifications, and twenty-four thousand soldiers, besides the aid
+received from the citizens; and yet it fell in little more than four
+months before an army of eighty thousand under Titus. How great must
+have been the military science that could reduce a place of such
+strength, in so short a time, without the aid of other artillery than
+the ancient catapult and battering-ram! Whether the military science of
+the Romans was superior or inferior to our own, no one can question that
+it was as perfect as it could be, lacking any knowledge of gunpowder; we
+surpass them only in the application of this great invention, especially
+in artillery. There can be no doubt that a Roman army was superior to a
+feudal army in the brightest days of chivalry. The world has produced no
+generals greater than Caesar, Pompey, Sulla, and Marius. No armies ever
+won greater victories over superior numbers than the Roman, and no
+armies of their size ever retained in submission so vast an empire, and
+for so long a time. At no period in the history of the Roman empire were
+the armies so large as those sustained by France in time of peace. Two
+hundred thousand legionaries, and as many more auxiliaries, controlled
+diverse nations and powerful monarchies. The single province of Syria
+once boasted of a military force equal in the number of soldiers to that
+wielded by the Emperor Tiberius. Twenty-five Roman legions made the
+conquest of the world, and retained that conquest for five hundred
+years. The self-sustained energy of Caesar in Gaul puts to the blush
+the efforts of all modern generals, unless we except Frederic II.,
+Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Grant, Sherman, and a few other great
+geniuses whom warlike crises have developed; nor is there a better
+text-book on the art of war than that furnished by Caesar himself in his
+Commentaries. The great victories of the Romans over barbarians, over
+Gauls, over Carthaginians, over Greeks, over Syrians, over Persians,
+were not the result of a short-lived enthusiasm, like those of Attila
+and Tamerlane, but extended over a thousand years.</p>
+
+<p>The Romans were essentially military in all their tastes and habits.
+Luxurious senators and nobles showed the greatest courage and skill in
+the most difficult campaigns. Antony, Caesar, Pompey, and Lucullus at
+home were enervated and self-indulgent, but at the head of their legions
+they were capable of any privation and fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman legion was a most perfect organization, a great mechanical
+force, and could sustain furious attacks after vigor, patriotism, and
+public spirit had fled. For three hundred years a vast empire was
+sustained by mechanism alone. The legion is coeval with the foundation
+of Rome, but the number of the troops of which it was composed varied at
+different periods. It rarely exceeded six thousand men; Gibbon estimates
+the number at six thousand eight hundred and twenty-six men. For many
+centuries it was composed exclusively of Roman citizens. Up to the year
+B.C. 107, no one was permitted to serve among the regular troops except
+those who were regarded as possessing a strong personal interest in the
+stability of the republic. Marius admitted all orders of citizens; and
+after the close of the Social War, B.C. 87, the whole free population of
+Italy was allowed to serve in the regular army. Claudius incorporated
+with the legion the vanquished Goths, and after him the barbarians
+filled up the ranks on account of the degeneracy of the times. But
+during the period when the Romans were conquering the world every
+citizen was trained to arms, like the Germans of the present day, and
+was liable to be called upon to serve in the armies. In the early age of
+the republic the legion was disbanded as soon as the special service was
+performed, and was in all essential respects a militia. For three
+centuries we have no record of a Roman army wintering in the field; but
+when Southern Italy became the seat of war, and especially when Rome was
+menaced by foreign enemies, and still more when a protracted foreign
+service became inevitable, the same soldiers remained in activity for
+several years. Gradually the distinction between the soldier and the
+civilian was entirely obliterated. The distant wars of the
+republic--such as the prolonged operations of Caesar in Gaul, and the
+civil contests--made a standing army a necessity. During the civil wars
+between Caesar and Pompey the legions were forty in number; under
+Augustus, but twenty-five. Alexander Severus increased them to
+thirty-two. This was the standing force of the empire,--from one hundred
+and fifty thousand to two hundred and forty thousand men, stationed in
+the various provinces.</p>
+
+<p>The main dependence of the legion was on the infantry, which wore heavy
+armor consisting of helmet, breastplate, greaves on the right leg, and
+on the left arm a buckler, four feet in length and two and a half in
+width. The helmet was originally made of leather or untanned skin,
+strengthened and adorned by bronze or gold, and surmounted by a crest
+which was often of horse-hair, and so made as to give an imposing look.
+The crests served not only for ornament, but to distinguish the
+different centurions. The breastplate, or cuirass, was generally made of
+metal, and sometimes was highly ornamented. Chain-mail was also used.
+The greaves were of bronze or brass, with a lining of leather or felt,
+and reached above the knees. The shield worn by the heavy-armed infantry
+was not round, like that of the early Greeks, but oval or oblong,
+adapted to the shape of the body, such as was adopted by Philip and
+Alexander, and was made of wood or wicker-work. The weapons were a light
+spear, a pilum, or javelin, over six feet long, terminated by a steel
+point, and a short cut-and-thrust sword with a double edge. Besides the
+armor and weapons of the legionary, he usually carried on the marches
+provisions for two weeks, three or four stakes used in forming the
+palisade of the camp, besides various tools,--altogether a burden of
+sixty or eighty pounds per man. The legion was drawn up eight deep, and
+three feet intervened between rank and file, which disposition gave
+great activity, and made it superior to the Macedonian phalanx, the
+strength of which depended on sixteen ranks of long pikes wedged
+together. The general period of service for the infantry was twenty
+years, after which the soldier received a discharge, together with a
+bounty in money or land.</p>
+
+<p>The cavalry attached to each legion consisted of three hundred men, who
+originally were selected from the leading men in the State. They were
+mounted at the expense of the State, and formed a distinct order. The
+cavalry was divided into ten squadrons. To each legion was attached also
+a train of ten military engines of the largest size, and fifty-five of
+the smaller,--all of which discharged stones and darts with great
+effect. This train corresponded with our artillery.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman legion--whether it was composed of four thousand men, as in
+the early ages of the republic, or six thousand, as in the time of
+Augustus--was divided into ten cohorts, and each cohort was composed of
+Hastati (raw troops), Principes (trained troops), Triarii (veterans),
+and Velites (light troops, or skirmishers). The soldiers of the first
+line, called Hastati, consisted of youths in the bloom of manhood, who
+were distributed into fifteen companies, or maniples. Each company
+contained sixty privates, two centurions, and a standard-bearer. Two
+thirds were heavily armed, and bore the long shield; the remainder
+carried only a spear and light javelins. The second line, the Principes,
+was composed of men in the full vigor of life, divided also into fifteen
+companies, all heavily armed, and distinguished by the splendor of their
+equipments. The third body, the Triarii, was composed of tried veterans,
+in fifteen companies, the least trustworthy of which were placed in the
+rear; these formed three lines. The Velites were light-armed troops,
+employed on out-post duty, and mingled with the horsemen. The Hastati
+were so called because they were armed with the <i>hasta</i>, or spear; the
+Principes for being placed so near to the front; the Triarii, from
+having been arrayed behind the first two lines as a body of reserve. The
+Triarii were armed with the pilum, thicker and stronger than the Grecian
+lance, four and a half feet long, of wood, with a barbed head of
+iron,--so that the whole length of the weapon was six feet nine inches.
+It was used either to throw or thrust with, and when it pierced the
+enemy's shield the iron head was bent, and the spear, owing to the twist
+in the iron, still held to the shield. Each soldier carried two of these
+weapons, and threw the heavy pilum over the heads of their comrades in
+front, in order to break the enemy's line. In the time of the empire,
+when the legion was modified, the infantry wore cuirasses and helmets,
+and carried a sword and dagger. The select infantry were armed with a
+long spear and a shield; the rest, with a pilum. Each man carried a saw,
+a basket, a mattock, a hatchet, a leather strap, a hook, a chain, and
+provisions for three days. The Equites (cavalry) wore helmets and
+cuirasses, like the infantry, having a broadsword at the right side, and
+in the hand a long pole. A buckler swung at the horse's flank. They were
+also furnished with a quiver containing three or four javelins.</p>
+
+<p>The artillery were used both for hurling missiles in battle, and for the
+attack on fortresses. The <i>tormentum</i>, which was an elastic instrument,
+discharged stones and darts, and was held in general use until the
+discovery of gunpowder. In besieging a city, the ram was employed for
+destroying the lower part of a wall, and the <i>balista,</i> which discharged
+stones, was used to overthrow the battlements. The balista would project
+a stone weighing from fifty to three hundred pounds. The <i>aries</i>, or
+battering-ram, consisted of a large beam made of the trunk of a tree,
+frequently one hundred feet in length, to one end of which was fastened
+a mace of iron or bronze resembling in form the head of a ram; it was
+often suspended by ropes from a beam fixed transversely over it, so that
+the soldiers were relieved from supporting its weight, and were able to
+give it a rapid and forcible swinging motion backward and forward. When
+this machine was further perfected by rigging it upon wheels, and
+constructing over it a roof, so as to form a <i>testudo</i>, which protected
+the besieging party from the assaults of the besieged, there was no
+tower so strong, no wall so thick, as to resist a long-continued attack,
+the great length of the beam enabling the soldiers to work across the
+defensive ditch, and as many as one hundred men being often employed
+upon it. The Romans learned from the Greeks the art of building this
+formidable engine, which was used with great effect by Alexander, but
+with still greater by Titus in the siege of Jerusalem; it was first used
+by the Romans in the siege of Syracuse. The <i>vinea</i> was a sort of roof
+under which the soldiers protected themselves when they undermined
+walls. The <i>helepolis</i>, also used in the attack on cities, was a square
+tower furnished with all the means of assault. This also was a Greek
+invention; and the one used by Demetrius at the siege of Rhodes, B. C.
+306, was one hundred and thirty-five feet high and sixty-eight wide,
+divided into nine stories. The <i>turris</i>, a tower of the same class, was
+used both by Greeks and Romans, and even by Asiatics. Mithridates used
+one at the siege of Cyzicus one hundred and fifty feet in height. These
+most formidable engines were generally made of beams of wood covered on
+three sides with iron and sometimes with rawhides. They were higher than
+the walls and all the other fortifications of a besieged place, and
+divided into stories pierced with windows; in and upon them were
+stationed archers and slingers, and in the lower story was a
+battering-ram. The soldiers in the turris were also provided with
+scaling-ladders, sometimes on wheels; so that when the top of the wall
+was cleared by means of the turris, it might be scaled by means of the
+ladders. It was impossible to resist these powerful engines except by
+burning them, or by undermining the ground upon which they stood, or by
+overturning them with stones or iron-shod beams hung from a mast on the
+wall, or by increasing the height of the wall, or by erecting temporary
+towers on the wall beside them.</p>
+
+<p>Thus there was no ancient fortification capable of withstanding a long
+siege when the besieged city was short of defenders or provisions. With
+forces equal between the combatants an attack was generally a failure,
+for the defenders had always a great advantage; but when the number of
+defenders was reduced, or when famine pressed, the skill and courage of
+the assailants would ultimately triumph. Some ancient cities made a most
+obstinate resistance, like Tarentum; like Carthage, which stood a siege
+of four years; like Numantia in Spain, and like Jerusalem. When cities
+were of immense size, population, and resources, like Rome when besieged
+by Alaric, it was easier to take them by cutting off all ingress and
+egress, so as to produce famine. Tyre was taken by Alexander only by
+cutting off the harbor. Cyrus could not have taken Babylon by assault,
+since the walls were of such enormous height, and the ditch was too wide
+for the use of battering-rams; he resorted to an expedient of which the
+blinded inhabitants of that doomed city never dreamed, which rendered
+their impregnable fortifications useless. Nor probably would the Romans
+have prevailed against Jerusalem had not famine decimated and weakened
+its defenders. Fortified cities, though scarcely ever impregnable, were
+yet more in use in ancient than modern times, and greatly delayed the
+operations of advancing armies; and it was probably the fortified camp
+of the Romans, which protected an army against surprises and other
+misfortunes, that gave such permanent efficacy to the legions.</p>
+
+<p>The chief officers of the legion were the Tribunes; and originally
+there was one in each legion from the three tribes,--the Ramnes,
+Luceres, and Tities. In the time of Polybius the number in each legion
+was six. Their authority extended equally over the whole legion; but to
+prevent confusion, it was the custom for them to divide into three
+sections of two, and each pair undertook the routine duties for two
+months out of six; they nominated the centurions, and assigned each to
+the company to which he belonged. These tribunes at first were chosen
+the commanders-in-chief, by the kings and consuls; but during the palmy
+days of the republic, when the patrician power was pre-eminent, they
+were elected by the people, that is, the citizens. Later they were
+named, half by the Senate and half by the consuls. No one was eligible
+to this great office who had not served ten years in the infantry or
+five in the cavalry. The tribunes were distinguished by their dress from
+the common soldier. Next in rank to the tribunes, who corresponded to
+the rank of brigadiers and colonels in our times, were the Centurions,
+of whom there were sixty in each legion,--men who were more remarkable
+for calmness and sagacity than for courage and daring valor; men who
+would keep their posts at all hazards. It was their duty to drill the
+soldiers, to inspect arms, clothing, and food, to visit the sentinels
+and regulate the conduct of the men. They had the power of inflicting
+corporal punishment. They were chosen for merit solely, until the later
+ages of the empire, when their posts were bought, as is the case to some
+extent to-day in the English army. The centurions were of unequal
+rank,--those of the Triarii before those of the Principes, and those of
+the Principes before those of the Hastati. The first centurion of the
+first maniple of the Triarii stood next in rank to the tribunes, and had
+a seat in the military councils. His office was very lucrative. To his
+charge was intrusted the eagle of the legion. As the centurion might
+rise from the ranks by regular gradation through the different maniples
+of the Hastati, Principes, and Triarii, there was great inducement held
+out to the soldiers. It would, however, appear that the centurion
+received only twice the pay of the ordinary legionary. There was not
+therefore so much difference in rank between a private and a captain as
+there is in our day. There were no aristocratic distinctions in the
+ancient world so marked as those existing in the modern. In the Roman
+legion there was nevertheless a regular gradation of rank, although
+there were but few distinct offices. The gradation was determined not by
+length of service, but for merit alone, of which the tribunes were the
+sole judges; hence the tribune in a Roman legion had more power than
+that of a modern colonel. As the tribunes named the centurions, so the
+centurions appointed their lieutenants, who were called sub-centurions.
+Still below these were two sub-officers, or sergeants, and the
+<i>decanus</i>, or corporal, to every ten men.</p>
+
+<p>There was a change in the constitution and disposition of the legion
+after the time of Marius, until the fall of the republic. The legions
+were thrown open to men of all grades; they were all armed and equipped
+alike; the lines were reduced to two, with a space between every two
+cohorts, of which there were five in each line; the young soldiers were
+placed in the rear; the distinction between Hastati, Principes, and
+Triarii ceased; the Velites disappeared, their work being done by the
+foreign mercenaries; the cavalry ceased to be part of the legion, and
+became a distinct body; and the military was completely severed from the
+rest of the State. Formerly no one could aspire to office who had not
+completed ten years of military service, but in the time of Cicero a man
+could pass through all the great dignities of the State with a very
+limited experience of military life. Cicero himself did military service
+in but one campaign.</p>
+
+<p>Under the emperors there were still other changes. The regular army
+consisted of legions and supplementa,--the latter being subdivided into
+the imperial guards and the auxiliary troops.</p>
+
+<p>The Auxiliaries (<i>Socii</i>) consisted of troops from the States in
+alliance with Rome, or those compelled to furnish subsidies. The
+infantry of the allies was generally more numerous than that of the
+Romans, while the cavalry was three times as numerous. All the
+auxiliaries were paid by the State; their infantry received the same pay
+as the Roman infantry, but their cavalry received only two thirds of
+what was paid to the Roman cavalry. The common foot-soldier received in
+the time of Polybius three and a half asses a day, equal to about three
+cents; the horseman three times as much. The praetorian cohorts received
+twice as much as the legionaries. Julius Caesar allowed about six asses
+a day as the pay of the legionary, and under Augustus the daily pay was
+raised to ten asses,--little more than eight cents per day. Domitian
+raised the stipend still higher. The soldier, however, was fed and
+clothed by the government.</p>
+
+<p>The Praetorian Cohort was a select body of troops instituted by Augustus
+to protect his person, and consisted of ten cohorts, each of one
+thousand men, chosen from Italy. This number was increased by Vitellius
+to sixteen thousand, and they were assembled by Tiberius in a permanent
+camp, which was strongly fortified. They had peculiar privileges, and
+when they had served sixteen years received twenty thousand sesterces,
+or more than one hundred pounds sterling. Each praetorian had the rank
+of a centurion in the regular army. Like the body-guard of Louis XIV.
+they were all gentlemen, and formed gradually a great power, like the
+Janissaries at Constantinople, and frequently disposed of the
+purple itself.</p>
+
+<p>Our notice of the Roman legion would be incomplete without some
+description of the camp in which the soldier virtually lived. A Roman
+army never halted for a single night without forming a regular
+intrenchment capable of holding all the fighting men, the beasts of
+burden, and the baggage. During the winter months, when the army could
+not retire into some city, it was compelled to live in the camp, which
+was arranged and fortified according to a uniform plan, so that every
+company and individual had a place assigned. We cannot tell when this
+practice of intrenchment began; it was matured gradually, like all other
+things pertaining to all arts. The system was probably brought to
+perfection during the wars with Hannibal. Skill in the choice of ground,
+giving facilities for attack and defence, and for procuring water and
+other necessities, was of great account with the generals. An area of
+about five thousand square feet was allowed for a company of infantry,
+and ten thousand feet for a troop of thirty dragoons. The form of a camp
+was an exact square, the length of each side being two thousand and
+seventeen feet; there was a space of two hundred feet between the
+ramparts and the tents to facilitate the marching in and out of
+soldiers, and to guard the cattle and booty; the principal street was
+one hundred feet wide, and was called Principia. The defences of the
+camp consisted of a ditch, the earth from which was thrown inward, and
+of strong palisades of wooden stakes driven into the top of the
+earthwork so formed; the ditch was sometimes fifteen feet deep, and the
+<i>vallum</i>, or rampart, ten feet in height. When the army encamped for the
+first time the tribunes administered an oath to each individual,
+including slaves, to the effect that they would steal nothing out of the
+camp. Every morning at daybreak the centurions and the equites presented
+themselves before the tents of the tribunes, and the tribunes in like
+manner presented themselves before the praetorian, to learn the orders
+of the consuls, which through the centurions were communicated to the
+soldiers. Four companies took charge of the principal street, to see
+that it was properly cleaned and watered; one company took charge of the
+tent of the tribune; a strong guard attended to the horses, and another
+of fifty men stood beside the tent of the general, that he might be
+protected from open danger and secret treachery. The <i>velites</i> mounted
+guard the whole night and day along the whole extent of the vallum, and
+each gate was guarded by ten men; the <i>equites</i> were intrusted with the
+duty of acting as sentinels during the night, and most ingenious
+measures were adopted to secure their watchfulness and fidelity. The
+watchword for the night was given by the commander-in-chief. &quot;On the
+first signal being given by the trumpet, the tents were all struck and
+the baggage packed; at the second signal, the baggage was placed upon
+the beasts of burden; and at the third, the whole army began to move.
+Then the herald, standing at the right hand of the general, demands
+thrice if they are ready for war, to which they all respond with loud
+and repeated cheers that they are ready, and for the most part, being
+filled with martial ardor, anticipate the question, 'and raise their
+right hands on high with a shout.'&quot; <a name="FNanchor3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3"><sup>[3]</sup></a></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor3">[3]</a> Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, article &quot;Castra.&quot;
+
+<p>From what has come down to us of Roman military life, it appears to have
+been full of excitement, toil, danger, and hardship. The pecuniary
+rewards of the soldier were small; he was paid in glory. No profession
+brought so much honor as the military; and it was from the undivided
+attention of a great people to this profession, that it was carried to
+all the perfection which could be attained before the great invention of
+gunpowder changed the art of war. It was not the number of men employed
+in the Roman armies which particularly arrests attention, but the genius
+of organization which controlled and the spirit which animated them.
+The Romans loved war, but so reduced it to a science that it required
+comparatively small armies to conquer the world. Sulla defeated
+Mithridates with only thirty thousand men, while his adversary
+marshalled against him over one hundred thousand. Caesar had only ten
+legions to effect the conquest of Gaul, and none of these were of
+Italian origin. At the great decisive battle of Pharsalia, when most of
+the available forces of the empire were employed on one side or the
+other, Pompey commanded a legionary army of forty-five thousand men, and
+his cavalry amounted to seven thousand more, but among them were
+included the flower of the Roman nobility; the auxiliary force has not
+been computed, although it was probably numerous. In the same battle
+Caesar had under him only twenty-two thousand legionaries and one
+thousand cavalry. But every man in both armies was prepared to conquer
+or die. The forces were posted on the open plain, and the battle was
+really a hand-to-hand encounter, in which the soldiers, after hurling
+their lances, fought with their swords chiefly; and when the cavalry of
+Pompey rushed upon the legionaries of Caesar, no blows were wasted on
+the mailed panoply of the mounted Romans, but were aimed at the face
+alone, as that only was unprotected. The battle was decided by the
+coolness, bravery, and discipline of Caesar's veterans, inspired by the
+genius of the greatest general of antiquity. Less than one hundred
+thousand men, in all probability, were engaged in one of the most
+memorable conflicts which the world has seen.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was by blended art and heroism that the Roman legions prevailed
+over the armies of the ancient world. But this military power was not
+gained in a say; it took nearly two hundred years, after the expulsion
+of the kings, to regain supremacy over the neighboring people, and
+another century to conquer Italy. The Romans did not contend with
+regular armies until they were brought in conflict with the king of
+Epirus and the phalanx of the Greeks, &quot;which improved their military
+tactics, and introduced between the combatants those mutual regards of
+civilized nations which teach men to honor their adversaries, to spare
+the vanquished, and to lay aside wrath when the struggle is ended.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After the consolidation of Roman power in Italy, it took but one hundred
+and fifty years more to complete the conquest of the world,--of Northern
+Africa, Spain, Gaul, Illyria, Epirus, Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor,
+Pontus, Syria, Egypt, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pergamus, and the islands of
+the Mediterranean. The conquest of Carthage left Rome without a rival in
+the Mediterranean, and promoted intercourse with the Greeks. The
+Illyrian wars opened to the Romans the road to Greece and Asia, and
+destroyed the pirates of the Adriatic. The invasion of Cisalpine Gaul,
+now that part of Italy which is north of the Apennines, protected Italy
+from the invasion of barbarians. The Macedonian War against Philip put
+Greece under the protection of Rome, and that against Antiochus laid
+Syria at her mercy; when these kingdoms were reduced to provinces, the
+way was opened to further conquests in the East, and the Mediterranean
+became a Roman lake.</p>
+
+<p>But these conquests introduced luxury, wealth, pride, and avarice, which
+degrade while they elevate. Successful war created great generals, and
+founded great families; increased slavery, and promoted inequalities.
+Meanwhile the great generals struggled for supremacy; civil wars
+followed in the train of foreign conquests; Marius, Sulla, Pompey,
+Caesar, Antony, Augustus, sacrificed the State to their own ambitions.
+Good men lamented and protested, and hid themselves; Cato, Cicero,
+Brutus, spoke in vain. Degenerate morals kept pace with civil contests.
+Rome revelled in the spoils of all kingdoms and countries, was
+intoxicated with power, became cruel and tyrannical, and after
+sacrificing the lives of citizens to fortunate generals, yielded at last
+her liberties, and imperial despotism began its reign. War had added
+empire, but undermined prosperity; it had created a great military
+monarchy, but destroyed liberty; it had brought wealth, but introduced
+inequalities; it had filled the city with spoils, but sown the vices of
+self-interest. The machinery remained perfect, but life had fled. It
+henceforth became the labor of Emperors to keep together their vast
+possessions with this machinery, which at last wore out, since there was
+neither genius to repair it nor patriotism to work it. It lasted three
+hundred years, but was broken to pieces by the barbarians.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>AUTHORITIES.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>Wilkinson is the best authority pertaining to Egyptian armies. The
+highest authority in relation to the construction of an army is
+Polybius, contemporary with Scipio, when Roman discipline was most
+perfect. The eighth chapter of Livy is also very much prized. Salmasius
+and Lepsius wrote learned treatises. Tacitus, Sallust, Livy, Dion
+Cassius, Pliny, and Caesar reveal incidentally much that we wish to
+know, the last giving us the liveliest idea of the military habits and
+tactics of the Romans. Gibbon gives some important facts. The subject of
+ancient machines is treated by Folard's Commentary attached to his
+translation of Polybius. Josephus describes with great vividness the
+siege of Jerusalem. Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities is full of details
+in everything pertaining to the weapons, the armor, the military
+engines, the rewards and punishments of the soldiers. The articles
+&quot;Exercitus,&quot; in Smith's Dictionary, and &quot;Army,&quot; in the Encyclopedia
+Britannica, give a practical summary of the best writers.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="CICERO."></a>CICERO.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>106-43 B.C.</p>
+
+<p>ROMAN LITERATURE.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>Marcus Tullius Cicero is one of the great lights of history, because his
+genius and influence were directed to the conservation of what was most
+precious in civilization among the cultivated nations of antiquity.</p>
+
+<p>He was not a warrior, like so many of the Roman Senators, but his
+excellence was higher than that of a conqueror. &quot;He was doomed, by his
+literary genius, to an immortality,&quot; and was confessedly the most
+prominent figure in the political history of his time, next to Caesar
+and Pompey. His influence was greater than his power, reaching down to
+our time; and if his character had faults, let us remember that he was
+stained by no crimes and vices, in an age of violence and wickedness.
+Until lately he has received almost unmixed praise. The Fathers of the
+Church revered him. To Erasmus, as well as to Jerome and Augustine, he
+was an oracle.</p>
+
+<p>In presenting this immortal benefactor, I have no novelties to show.
+Novelties are for those who seek to upturn the verdicts of past ages by
+offering something new, rather than what is true.</p>
+
+<p>Cicero was born B.C. 106, in the little suburban town of Arpinum, about
+fifty miles from Rome,--the town which produced Marius. The period of
+his birth was one of marked national prosperity. Great military roads
+were built, which were a marvel of engineering skill; canals were dug;
+sails whitened the sea; commerce was prosperous; the arts of Greece were
+introduced, and its literature also; elegant villas lined the shores of
+the Mediterranean; pictures and statues were indefinitely
+multiplied,--everything indicated an increase of wealth and culture.
+With these triumphs of art and science and literature, we are compelled
+to notice likewise a decline in morals. Money had become the god which
+everybody worshipped. Religious life faded away; there was a general
+eclipse of faith. An Epicurean life produced an Epicurean philosophy.
+Pleasure-seeking was universal, and even revolting in the sports of the
+Amphitheatre. Sensualism became the convertible word for utilities. The
+Romans were thus rapidly &quot;advancing&quot; to a materialistic millennium,--an
+outward progress of wealth and industries, but an inward decline in
+&quot;those virtues on which the strength of man is based,&quot; accompanied with
+seditions among the people, luxury and pride among the nobles, and
+usurpations on the part of successful generals,--when Cicero began his
+memorable career.</p>
+
+<p>He was well-born, but not of noble ancestors. The great peculiarity of
+his youth was his precocity. He was an intellectual prodigy,--like Pitt,
+Macaulay, and Mill. Like them, he had a wonderful memory. He early
+mastered the Greek language; he wrote poetry, studied under eminent
+professors, frequented the Forum, listened to the speeches of different
+orators, watched the posture and gestures of actors, and plunged into
+the mazes of literature and philosophy. He was conscious of his
+marvellous gifts, and was, of course, ambitious of distinction.</p>
+
+<p>There were only three ways at Rome in which a man could rise to eminence
+and power. One was by making money, like army contractors and merchants,
+such as the Equites, to whose ranks he belonged; the second was by
+military service; and the third by the law,--an honorable profession.
+Like Caesar, a few years younger than he, Cicero selected the law. But
+he was a <i>new man</i>,--not a patrician, as Caesar was,--and had few
+powerful friends. Hence his progress was not rapid in the way of
+clients. He was twenty-five years of age before he had a case. He was
+twenty-seven when he defended Roscius, which seems to have brought him
+into notice,--even as the fortune of Erskine was made in the Greenwich
+Hospital case and that of Daniel Webster in the case of Dartmouth
+College. To have defended Roscius against all the influence of Sulla,
+then the most powerful man in Rome, was considered bold and audacious.
+His fame for great logical power rests on his defence of Milo,--the
+admiration of all lawyers.</p>
+
+<p>Cicero was not naturally robust. His figure was tall and spare, his neck
+long and slender, and his mouth anything but sensual. He looked more
+like an elegant scholar than a popular public speaker. Yet he was
+impetuous, ardent, and fiery, like Demosthenes, resorting to violent
+gesticulations. The health of such a young man could not stand the
+strain on his nervous system, and he was obliged to leave Rome for
+recreation; he therefore made the tour of Greece and Asia Minor, which
+every fashionable and cultivated man was supposed to do. Yet he did not
+abandon himself to the pleasures of cities more fascinating than Rome
+itself, but pursued his studies in rhetoric and philosophy under eminent
+masters, or &quot;professors&quot; as we should now call them. He remained abroad
+two years, returning when he was thirty years of age and settling down
+in his profession, taking at first but little part in politics. He
+married Terentia, with whom he lived happily for thirty years.</p>
+
+<p>But the Roman lawyer was essentially a politician, looking ultimately to
+political office, since only through the great public offices could he
+enter the Senate,--the object of ambition to all distinguished Romans,
+as a seat in Parliament is the goal of an Englishman. The Roman lawyer
+did not receive fees, like modern lawyers, but derived his support from
+presents and legacies. When he became a political leader, a man of
+influence with the great, his presents were enormous. Cicero
+acknowledged, late in life, to have received what would now be equal to
+more than a million of dollars from legacies alone. The great political
+leaders and orators were the stipendiaries of Eastern princes and nobles
+who wanted favors from the Senate, and who knew as well how to reward
+such services as do the railway kings in our times.</p>
+
+<p>Before Cicero, then, could be a Senator, he must pass through those
+great public offices which were in the gift of the people. The first
+step on the ladder of advancement was the office of quaestor, which
+entailed the duty of collecting revenues in one of the provinces. This
+office he was sufficiently influential to secure, being sent to Sicily,
+where he distinguished himself for his activity and integrity. At the
+end of a year he renewed his practice in the courts at Rome,--being
+hardly anything more than a mere lawyer for five years, when he was
+elected an Aedile, to whom the care of the public buildings was
+intrusted.</p>
+
+<p>It was while he was aedile-elect that Cicero appeared as the public
+prosecutor of Verres. This was one of the great cases of antiquity, and
+the one from which the orator's public career fairly dates. His
+residence in Sicily had prepared him for this duty; and he secured the
+conviction of this great criminal, whose peculations and corruptions
+would amaze our modern New Yorkers and all the &quot;rings&quot; of our great
+cities combined. But the Praetor of Sicily was a provincial
+governor,--more like Warren Hastings than Tweed. For this public service
+Cicero gained more <i>&eacute;clat</i> than Burke did for his prosecution of
+Hastings; since Hastings, though a corrupt man, laid, after Clive, the
+foundation of the English empire in India, and was a man of immense
+talents,--greater than those of any who has since filled his place.
+Hence the nation screened Hastings. But Verres had no virtues and no
+great abilities; he was an outrageous public robber, and hoped, from his
+wealth and powerful connections, to purchase immunity for his crimes. In
+the hands of such an orator as Cicero he could not escape the penalty of
+the law, powerful as he was, even at Rome. This case placed Cicero above
+Hortensius, hitherto the leader of the Roman bar.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this period that the extant correspondence of Cicero began,
+which is the best picture we have of the manners and habits of the Roman
+aristocracy at the time. History could scarcely spare those famous
+letters, especially to Atticus, in which also the private life and
+character of Cicero shine to the most advantage, revealing no vices, no
+treacheries,--only egotism, vanity, and vacillation, and a way that some
+have of speaking about people in private very differently from what they
+say in public, which looks like insincerity. In these letters Cicero
+appears as a very frank man, genial, hospitable, domestic, witty, whose
+society and conversation must have been delightful. In no modern
+correspondence do we see a higher perfection in the polished courtesies
+and urbanities of social life, with the alloy of vanity, irony, and
+discontent. But in these letters he also evinces a friendship which is
+immortal; and what is nobler than the capacity of friendship? In these
+he not only shines as a cultivated scholar, but as a great statesman and
+patriot, living for the good of his country, though not unmindful of the
+luxuries of home and the charms of country retirement, and those
+enjoyments which are ever associated with refined and favored life. We
+read here of pictures, books, medals, statues, curiosities of every
+kind, all of which adorned his various villas, as well as his
+magnificent palace on Mount Palatine, which cost him what would be equal
+in our money to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. To keep up this
+town house, and some fifteen villas in different parts of Italy, and to
+feast the greatest nobles, like Pompey and Caesar, would imply that his
+income was enormous, much greater than that of any modern professional
+man. And yet he seems to have lived, like Bacon and our Webster, beyond
+his income, and was in debt the greater part of his life,--another flaw
+in his character; for I do not wish to paint him without faults, but
+only as a good as well as a great man, for his times. His private
+character was as lofty as that of Chatham or Canning,--if we could
+forget his vanity, which after all is not so offensive as the
+intellectual pride of Burke and Pitt, and of sundry other great lights
+who might be mentioned, conscious of their gifts and attainments. There
+is something very different in the egotism of a silly and self-seeking
+aristocrat from that of a great benefactor who has something to be proud
+of, and with whose private experiences the greatest national deeds are
+connected. I speak of this fault because it has been handled too
+severely by modern critics. What were the faults of Cicero, compared
+with those of Theodosius or Constantine, to say nothing of his
+contemporaries, like Caesar, before whom so much incense has
+been burned?</p>
+
+<p>At the age of forty Cicero became Praetor, or Supreme Judge. This
+office, when it expired, entitled him to a provincial government,--the
+great ultimate ambition of a senator; since the administration of a
+province, even for a single year, usually secured an enormous fortune.
+But this tempting offer he resigned, since he felt he could not be
+spared from Rome in such a crisis of public affairs, when the fortunate
+generals were grasping power and the demagogues were almost preparing
+the way for despotism. Some might say he was a far-sighted and ambitious
+statesman, who could not afford to weaken his chances of being made
+Consul by absence from the capital.</p>
+
+<p>This great office, the consulship, the highest in the gift of the
+people,--which gave supreme executive control,--was rarely conferred,
+although elective, upon any but senators of ancient family and enormous
+wealth. It was as difficult for a &quot;new man&quot; to reach this dignity, under
+an aristocratic Constitution, as for a commoner a hundred years ago to
+become prime minister of England. Transcendent talents and services
+scarcely sufficed. Only generals who had won great military fame, or the
+highest of the nobles, stood much chance. For a lawyer to aim at the
+highest office in the State, without a great family to back him, would
+have been deemed as audacious as for such a man as Burke to aspire to a
+seat in the cabinet during the reign of George III. A lawyer at Rome,
+like a lawyer in London, might become a lord chancellor or praetor, but
+not easily a prime minister: he would be defeated by aristocratic
+influence and jealousies. Although the people had the right of election,
+they voted at the dictation of those who had money and power. Yet Cicero
+obtained the consulship, probably with the aid of senators, which he
+justly regarded as a great triumph. It was a very unusual thing. It was
+more marvellous than for a Jew to reign in Great Britain, or, like
+Mordecai, in the court of a Persian king.</p>
+
+<p>The most distinguished service of Cicero as consul was to ferret out the
+conspiracy of Catiline. Now, this traitor belonged to the very highest
+rank in a Senate of nobles; he was like an ancient duke in the British
+House of Peers. It was no easy thing for a plebeian consul to bring to
+justice so great a culprit. He was more formidable than Essex in the
+reign of Elizabeth, or Bassompierre in the time of Richelieu. He was a
+man of profligate life, but of marked ability and boundless ambition. He
+had a band of numerous and faithful followers, armed and desperate. He
+was also one of those oily and aristocratic demagogues who bewitch the
+people,--not, as in our times, by sophistries, but by flatteries. He was
+as debauched as Mirabeau, but without his patriotism, though like him he
+aimed to overturn the Constitution by allying himself with the
+democracy. The people, whom he despised, he gained by his money and
+promises; and he had powerful confederates of his own rank, so that he
+was on the point of deluging Rome with blood, his aim being nothing less
+than the extermination of the Senate and the magistrates by
+assassination, and a general division of the public treasure, with
+personal assumption of public power.</p>
+
+<p>But all his schemes were foiled by Cicero, who added unwearied activity
+to extraordinary penetration. For this great and signal service Cicero
+received the highest tribute the State could render. He was called the
+savior of his country; and he succeeded in staving off for a time the
+fall of his country's liberties. It was a mournful sight to him to see
+the ascendency which demagogues had already gained, since it betokened
+the approaching destruction of the Constitution, which, good or bad, was
+dear to him, and which as an aristocrat he sought to conserve.</p>
+
+<p>Cicero's evil star was not Catiline, but Clodius,--another aristocratic
+demagogue whose crimes he exposed, although he failed to bring him to
+justice. Clodius was shielded by his powerful connections; and he was,
+besides, a popular favorite, as well as a petted scion of one of the
+greatest families. Clodius showed his hostility to Cicero, and sought
+revenge by artfully causing the people to pass or revive a law that
+whoever had inflicted capital punishment on a citizen without a trial
+should be banished. This seemed to the people to be a protection to
+their liberties. Now Cicero, when consul, had executed some of the
+conspirators associated with Catiline, for which he was called the
+savior of his country. But by the law which was now passed or revived by
+the influence of Clodius, Cicero was himself a culprit, and it would
+seem that all the influence of the Senate and his friends could not
+prevent his exile. He appealed to his friend Pompey, but Pompey turned a
+deaf ear; and also to Caesar, but Caesar was then outside the walls of
+the city in command of an army. In fact, both these generals wished him
+out of the way, although they equally admired and feared him; for each
+of them was bent on being the supreme ruler of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>So it was permitted for the most illustrious patriot which Rome then
+held to go into exile. What a comment on the demoralization of the
+times! Here was the best, the most gifted, and the most accomplished man
+of the Republic,--a man who had rendered invaluable and acknowledged
+services, that man of consular dignity and one of the leaders of the
+Senate,--sent into inglorious banishment, on a mere technicality and for
+an act which saved the State. And the &quot;magnanimous&quot; Caesar and the
+&quot;illustrious&quot; Pompey allowed him to go! Where was salvation to a
+Republic which banished its savior, and for having saved it? The heart
+sickens over such a fact, although it occurred two thousand years ago.
+When the citizens of Rome saw that great man depart mournfully from
+among them, and to all appearance forever, for having rescued them from
+violence and slaughter, and by their own act,--they ought to have known
+that the days of the Republic were numbered. But this only a few
+far-seeing patriots felt. And not only was Cicero banished, but his
+palace was burned and his villas confiscated. He was not only disgraced,
+but ruined; he was an exile and a pauper. What a fall! What an unmerited
+treatment!</p>
+
+<p>Very few people conceive what a dreadful punishment it was in Greece and
+Rome to be banished; or, as the formula went, &quot;to be interdicted from
+fire and water,&quot;--the sacred fire of the hearth, the lustral water which
+served for sacrifices. The exile was deprived of these by being forced
+to extinguish the hearth-fire,--the elemental, fundamental religion of a
+Greek and Roman. &quot;He could not, deprived of this, hold property; having
+no longer a worship, he had no longer a family. He ceased to be a
+husband and father; his sons were no longer in his power, his wife was
+no longer his wife, and when he died he had not the right to be buried
+in the tombs of his ancestors.&quot; <a name="FNanchor4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4"><sup>[4]</sup></a></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor4">[4]</a> Coulanges: Ancient City.
+
+<p>Is it to be wondered at that even so good and great a man as Cicero
+should bitterly feel his disgrace and misfortunes? Is it surprising
+that, philosopher as he was, he should have given way to grief and
+despondency. He would have been more than human not to have lost his
+spirits and his hopes. How natural were grief and despair, in such
+complicated miseries, especially to a religious man! Chrysostom could
+support <i>his</i> exile with dignity; for Christianity had abolished the
+superstitions of Greece and Rome as to household gods. Cicero could not:
+he was not great enough for such a martyrdom. It is true we should have
+esteemed him higher, had he accepted his fate with resignation: no man
+should yield to despair. Had he been as old as Socrates, and had he
+accomplished his mission, possibly he would have shown more equanimity.
+But his work was not yet done. He was cut off in his prime and in the
+midst of usefulness from his home, his religion, his family, his honor,
+and his influence; he was utterly ruined. I think the critics make too
+much of the grief and misery of Cicero in his banishment. We may be
+disappointed that Cicero was not equal to his circumstances; but we need
+not be hard on him. My surprise is, not that he was overwhelmed with
+grief, but that he did not attempt to drown his grief in books and
+literature. His sole relief was in pathetic and unmanly letters.</p>
+
+<p>The great injustice of this punishment naturally produced a reaction.
+Nor could the Romans afford to lose the services of their greatest
+orator. They also craved the excitement of his speeches, more thrilling
+and delightful than the performance of any actor. So he was recalled.
+Cicero ought to have anticipated this; it seems, however, he had that
+unfortunate temperament which favors alternate depression and
+exhilaration of spirits, without measure or reason.</p>
+
+<p>His return was a triumph,--a grand ovation, an unbounded tribute to his
+vanity. His palace was rebuilt at the expense of the State, and his
+property was restored. His popularity was regained. In fact, his
+influence was never lost; and, because it was so great, his enemies
+wished him out of the way. He was one of the few who retain influence
+after they have lost power.</p>
+
+<p>The excess of his joy on his restoration to home and friends and
+property and fame and position, was as great as the excess of his grief
+in his short exile. But this is a defect in temperament, in his mental
+constitution, rather than a flaw in his character. We could have wished
+more placidity and equanimity; but to condemn him because he was not
+great in everything is unjust.</p>
+
+<p>On his return to Rome Cicero resumed his practice in the courts with
+greater devotion than ever. He was now past fifty years of age, in the
+prime of his strength and in the height of his forensic fame. But,
+notwithstanding his success and honors, his life was saddened by the
+growing dissensions between Caesar and Pompey, the decline of public
+spirit, and the approaching fall of the institutions in which he
+gloried. It was clear that one or the other of these fortunate generals
+would soon become the master of the Roman world, and that liberty was
+about to perish. His eloquence now became sad; he sings the death-song
+of departing glories; he wails his Jeremiads over the demoralization
+which was sweeping away not merely liberty, but religion, and
+extinguishing faith in the world. To console himself he retired to one
+of his beautiful villas and wrote that immortal essay, &quot;De Oratore,&quot;
+which has come down to us entire. His literary genius now blazed equally
+with his public speeches in the Forum and in the Senate. Literature was
+his solace and amusement, not a source of profit, or probably of
+contemporary fame. He wrote treatises on the same principles that he
+talked with friends, or that Fra Angelico painted pictures. He renewed
+his attempts in poetry, but failed. His poetry is in the transcendent
+rhythm of his prose compositions, like that of Madame de Sta&euml;l, and
+Macaulay, and Rousseau.</p>
+
+<p>But he was dragged from his literary and forensic life to accept the
+office of a governor of a province. It was forced upon him,--an honor to
+him without a charm. Had he been venal and unscrupulous, he would have
+seized it with avidity. He was too conscientious to enrich himself by
+public corruption, as other Senators did, and unless he could accumulate
+a fortune the command of a distant province was an honorable exile. He
+was fifty-six years of age when he became Proconsul of Cilicia, an
+Eastern province; and all historians have united in praising his
+proconsulate for its justice, its integrity, and its ability. He
+committed no extortions, and returned home, when his term of office
+expired, as poor as when he went. One of the highest praises which can
+be given to a public man who has chances of enriching himself is, that
+he remains poor. When a member of Congress, known not to be worth ten
+thousand dollars, returns to his home worth one hundred thousand
+dollars, the public have an instinct that he has, somehow or other, been
+untrue to himself and his country. When a great man returns home from
+Washington poorer than when he went, his influence is apt to survive his
+power; and this perpetuated influence is the highest glory of a public
+man,--the glory of Jefferson, of Hamilton, of Washington, like the voice
+of Gladstone during his retirement. Now Cicero had pre-eminently this
+influence as long as he lived; and it was ever exerted for the good of
+his country. Had his country been free, he would have died in honor. But
+his country was enslaved, and his voice was drowned, and he had to pay
+the penalty of speaking the truth about those unscrupulous men who
+usurped authority.</p>
+
+<p>On his return to Rome the state of public affairs was most alarming.
+Caesar and Pompey were in antagonism. He must choose between them, and
+he distrusted both. Caesar was the more able, accomplished, and
+magnanimous, but he was the more unscrupulous and dangerous. He had
+ventured to cross the Rubicon,--the first general who ever dared thus
+openly to assail his country's liberties. Pompey was pompous, overrated,
+and proud, and had been fortunate in the East. But then he sided with
+the Constitutional authorities,--that is, with the Senate,--so far as
+his ambition allowed. So Cicero took his side feebly, reluctantly, as
+the least of the evils he had to choose, but not without vacillation,
+which is one of the popular charges against him. &quot;His distraction almost
+took the form of insanity.&quot; &quot;His inconsistency was an incoherence.&quot;
+Never did a more wretched man than Cicero resort to Pompey's camp, where
+he remained until his cause was lost. He returned, after the battle of
+Pharsalia, a suppliant at the feet of Caesar, the conqueror. This, to
+me, is one of his weakest acts. It would have been more lofty and heroic
+to have perished in the camp of Pompey's sons.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of these public misfortunes which saddened his soul, his
+private miseries began. He was now prematurely an old man, under sixty
+years of age, almost broken down with grief. His beloved daughter
+Tullia, with whom his life was bound up, died; and he was divorced from
+his wife Terentia,--a proceeding the cause of which remains a mystery.
+Neither in his most confidential letters, nor in his conversations with
+most intimate friends, does it appear that he ever unbosomed himself,
+although he was the frankest and most social of men. In his impressive
+silence he has set one of the noblest examples of a man afflicted with
+domestic infelicities. He buries his conjugal troubles in eternal
+silence; although he is forced to give vent to sorrows, so plaintive and
+bitter that both friend and foe were constrained to pity. He expects no
+sympathy, even at Rome, for the sundering of conjugal relations, and he
+communicates no secrets. In his grief and sadness he does, however, a
+most foolish thing: he marries a young lady one-third his age. She
+accepted him for his name and rank; he sought her for her beauty, her
+youth, and her fortune. This union of May with December was of course a
+failure. Both parties were soon disenchanted and disappointed. Neither
+party found happiness, only discontent and chagrin. The everlasting
+incongruities of such a relation--he sixty and she nineteen--soon led to
+another divorce. <i>He</i> expected his young wife to mourn with him the loss
+of his daughter Tullia. <i>She</i> expected that her society and charms
+would be a compensation for all that he had lost; yea, more, enough to
+make him the most fortunate and happy of mortals. In truth, he was too
+old a man to have married a young woman whatever were the inducements.
+It was the great folly of his life; an illustration of the fact that, as
+a general thing, the older a man grows the greater fool he becomes, so
+far as women are concerned; a folly that disgraced and humiliated the
+two wisest and greatest men who ever sat on the Jewish throne.</p>
+
+<p>In his accumulated sorrows Cicero now plunged for relief into literary
+labors. It was thus that his private sorrows were the means which
+Providence employed to transmit his precious thoughts and experiences to
+future ages, as the most valued inheritance he could bestow on
+posterity. What a precious legacy to the mind of the world was the book
+of &quot;Ecclesiastes,&quot; yet by what bitter experiences was its wisdom earned!</p>
+
+<p>It was in the short period when Caesar rejoiced in the mighty power
+which he transmitted to the Roman Emperors that Cicero wrote, in
+comparative retirement, his history of &quot;Roman Eloquence,&quot; his inquiry as
+to the &quot;Greatest Good and Evil,&quot; his &quot;Cato,&quot; his &quot;Orator,&quot; his &quot;Nature
+of the Gods,&quot; and his treatises on &quot;Glory,&quot; on &quot;Fate,&quot; on &quot;Friendship,&quot;
+on &quot;Old Age,&quot; and his grandest work of all, the &quot;Offices.&quot;--the best
+manual in ethics which has come down to us from heathen antiquity. In
+his studious retirement he reminds us of Bacon after his fall, when on
+his estate, surrounded with friends, and in the enjoyment of elegant
+leisure, he penned the most valued of his immortal compositions. And in
+those degenerate days at Rome, when liberty was crushed under foot
+forever, it is beautiful to see the greatest of Roman statesmen and
+lawyers consoling himself and instructing posterity by his exhaustive
+treatises on the fundamental principles of law, of morality, and of
+philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>The assassination of Caesar by Roman senators, which Cicero seems to
+have foreseen, and in which he rejoiced, at this time shocked and
+disturbed the world. For nearly two thousand years the verdict of the
+civilized world respecting this great conqueror has been unanimous. But
+Mr. Froude has attempted to reverse this verdict, as he has in reference
+to Henry VIII., and as Carlyle--another idolater of force--has attempted
+in the cases of Oliver Cromwell and Frederick II. This remarkable
+word-painter, in his Life of Caesar,--which is, however, interesting
+from first to last, as everything he writes is interesting,--has
+presented him as an object of unbounded admiration, as I have already
+noticed in my lecture on Caesar. Whether in his eagerness to say
+something new, or from an ill-concealed hostility to aristocratic and
+religious institutions, or from an admiration of imperialism, or disdain
+of the people in their efforts at self-government, this able special
+pleader seems to hail the Roman conqueror as a benefactor to the cause
+of civilization. But imperialism crushed all alike,--the people, no
+longer able to send their best men to the Senate through the higher
+offices perchance to represent their interests, and the nobles, shorn of
+the administration of the Empire. Soldiers, not civilians, henceforth
+were to rule the world,--a dreary thought to a great lawyer like Cicero,
+or a landed proprietor like Brutus. Even if such a terrible revolution
+as occurred in Rome under Caesar may have been ordered wisely by a
+Superintending Power for those degenerate times, and as a preservation
+of the peace of the world, that Christianity might take root and spread
+in countries where all religions were dead,--still, the prostration of
+what was dearest to the hearts of all true citizens by the sword was a
+crime; and men are not to be commended for crime, even if those crimes
+may be palliated. &quot;It must need be that offences come, but woe to those
+by whom they come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Cicero was now sixty-three, prematurely old, discouraged, and
+heart-broken. And yet he braced himself up for one more grand
+effort,--for a life and death struggle with Antony, one of the ablest
+of Caesar's generals; a demagogue, eloquent and popular, but
+outrageously cruel and unscrupulous, and with unbridled passions. Had it
+not been for his infatuated love of Cleopatra, he probably would have
+succeeded to the imperial sceptre, for it was by the sword that he too
+sought to suppress the liberties of the Senate and people. Against him,
+as the enemy of his country, Cicero did not scruple to launch forth the
+most terrible of his invectives. In thirteen immortal philippics--some
+of which, however, were merely written and never delivered, after the
+fashion of Demosthenes, with whom as an orator and a patriot he can
+alone be compared--he denounced the unprincipled demagogue and general
+with every offensive epithet the language afforded,--unveiling his
+designs, exposing his forgeries, and proving his crimes. Nobler
+eloquence was never uttered, and wasted, than that with which Cicero
+pursued, in passionate vengeance, the most powerful and the most
+unscrupulous man in the Roman Empire. And Cicero must have anticipated
+the fate which impended over him if Antony were not decreed a public
+enemy. But the protests of the orator were in vain. He lived to utter
+them, as a witness of truth; and nothing was left to him but to die.</p>
+
+<p>Of course Antony, when he became Triumvir,--when he made a bargain that
+he never meant to keep with Octavius and Lepidus for a division of the
+Empire between them,--would not spare such an enemy as Cicero. The
+broken-hearted patriot fled mechanically, with a vacillating mind, when
+his proscription became known to him,--now more ready to die than live,
+since all hope in his country's liberties was utterly crushed. Perhaps
+he might have escaped to some remote corner of the Empire. But he did
+not wish for life, any more than did Socrates when summoned before his
+judges. Desponding, uncertain, pursued, he met his fate with the heroism
+of an ancient philosopher. He surrendered his wearied and exhausted body
+to the hand of the executioner, and his lofty soul to the keeping of
+that personal and supreme God in whom he believed as firmly as any man,
+perhaps, of Pagan antiquity. And surely of him, more than of any other
+Roman, could it be said,--as Sir Walter Scott said of Pitt, and as
+Gladstone quoted, and applied to Sir Robert Peel,--</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;Now is the stately column broke,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The <i>beacon light</i> is quenched in smoke;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The trumpet's silver voice is still,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The warder silent on the hill.&quot;<br>
+
+<p>With the death--so sad--of the most illustrious of the Romans whose fame
+was not earned on the battlefield, I should perhaps close my lecture.
+Yet it would be incomplete without a short notice of those services
+which--as statesman, orator, and essayist--he rendered to his country
+and to future ages and nations.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to his services as a statesman, they were rendered chiefly to
+his day and generation, for he elaborated no system of political wisdom
+like Burke, which bears (except casually and indirectly) on modern
+governments and institutions. It was his aim, as a statesman, to
+continue the Roman Constitution and keep the people from civil war. Nor
+does he seem to have held, like Rousseau, the <i>vox populi</i> as the voice
+of God. He could find no language sufficiently strong to express his
+abhorrence of those who led the people for their own individual
+advancement. He was equally severe on corrupt governors and venal
+judges. He upheld morality and justice as the only guides in public
+affairs. He loved popularity, but he loved his country better. He hated
+anarchy as much as did Burke. Like Bright, he looked upon civil war as
+the greatest of national calamities. He advocated the most enlightened
+views, based on the principles of immutable justice. He wished to
+preserve his country equally from unscrupulous generals and unprincipled
+politicians.</p>
+
+<p>As for his orations, they also were chiefly designed for his own
+contemporaries. They are not particularly valuable to us, except as
+models of rhetorical composition and transcendent beauty and grace of
+style. They are not so luminous with fundamental principles as they are
+vivid with invective, sarcasm, wit, and telling exaggeration,--sometimes
+persuasive and working on the sensibilities, and at other times full of
+withering scorn. They are more like the pleadings of an advocate than an
+appeal to universal reason. He lays down no laws of political
+philosophy, nor does he soar into the region of abstract truth, evolving
+great deductions in morals. But as an orator he was transcendently
+effective, like Demosthenes, though not equal to the Greek in force. His
+sentences are perhaps too involved for our taste; yet he always swayed
+an audience, whether the people from the rostrum, or the judges at the
+bar, or the senators in the Curia. He seldom lost a case; no one could
+contend with him successfully. He called out the admiration of critics,
+and even of actors. He had a wonderful electrical influence; his very
+tones and gestures carried everything before him; his action was superb;
+and his whole frame quivered from real (or affected) emotion, like
+Edward Everett in his happiest efforts. He was vehement in gesture, like
+Brougham and Mirabeau. He was intensely earnest and impressive, like
+Savonarola. He had exceeding tact, and was master of the passions of his
+audience. There was an irresistible music in his tones of voice, like
+that of St. Bernard when he fanned crusades. He was withering in his
+denunciations, like Wendell Phillips, whom in person he somewhat
+resembled. He was a fascination like Pericles, and the people could not
+long spare him from the excitement he produced. It was their desire to
+hear him speak which had no small share in producing his recall from
+banishment. They crowded around him as the people did around Chrysostom
+in Antioch. He amused like an actor, and instructed like a sage. His
+sentences are not short, terse, epigrammatic, and direct, but elaborate
+and artificial. Yet with all his arts of eloquence his soul, fired with
+great sentiments, rose in its inspired fervor above even the melody of
+voice, the rhythm of language, and the vehemence of action. A listener,
+who was not a critic, might fancy it was gesture, voice, and language
+combined; but, after all, it was the <i>man</i> communicating his soul to
+those who hung upon his lips, and securing conviction by his sincerity
+and appeals to conscience. He must have had a natural gift for oratory,
+aside from his learning and accomplishments and rhetorical arts,--a
+talent very rare and approaching to creative genius. But to his natural
+gifts--like Luther, or Henry Clay, born an orator--he added marvellous
+attainments. He had a most retentive memory. He was versed in the whole
+history of the world. He was always ready with apt illustrations, which
+gave interest and finish to his discourses. He was the most industrious
+and studious man of his age. His attainments were prodigious. He was
+master of all the knowledge then known, like Gladstone of our day. He
+was not so learned a man as Varro; but Varro's works have perished, as
+the great monuments of German scholars are perhaps destined to perish,
+for lack of style. Cicero's style embalmed his thoughts and made them
+imperishable. No writer is immortal who is not an artist; Cicero was a
+consummate artist, and studied the arrangement of sentences, like the
+historian Tacitus and the Grecian Thucydides.</p>
+
+<p>But greater than as an artist was he in the loftiness of his mind. He
+appealed to what is noblest in the soul. Transcendent eloquence ever
+&quot;raises mortals to the skies&quot; and never &quot;pulls angels down.&quot; Love of
+country, love of home, love of friends, love of nature, love of law,
+love of God, is brought out in all his discourses, exalting the noblest
+sentiments which move the human soul. He was the first to give to the
+Latin language beauty and artistic finish. He added to its richness,
+copiousness, and strength; he gave it music. For style alone he would be
+valued as one of the immortal classics. All men of culture have admired
+it, from Augustine to Bossuet, and acknowledged their obligations to
+him. We accord to the great poets the formation of languages,--Homer,
+Dante, Chaucer, Shakspeare; but I doubt if either Virgil or Horace
+contributed to the formation of the Latin language more than Cicero.
+Certainly they have not been more studied and admired. In every
+succeeding age the Orations of Cicero have been one of the first books
+which have been used as textbooks in colleges. Is it not something to
+have been one of the acknowledged masters of human composition? What a
+great service did Cicero render to the education of the Teutonic races!
+Whatever the Latin language has done for the modern world, Cicero comes
+in for a large share of the glory. More is preserved of his writings
+than of any other writer of antiquity.</p>
+
+<p>But not for style alone--seen equally in his essays and in his
+orations--is he admirable. His most enduring claim on the gratitude of
+the world is the noble tribute he rendered to those truths which save
+the world. His testimony, considering he was a pagan, is remarkable in
+reference to what is sound in philosophy and morals. His learning, too,
+is seen to most advantage in his ethical and philosophical writings. It
+is true he did not originate, like Socrates and Plato; but he condensed
+and sifted the writings of the Greeks, and is the best expounder of
+their philosophy. Who has added substantially to what the Greeks worked
+out of their creative brain? I know that no Roman ever added to the
+domain of speculative thought, yet what Roman ever showed such a
+comprehension and appreciation of Greek philosophy as did Cicero? He was
+profoundly versed in all the learning the Grecians ever taught. Like
+Socrates, he had a contempt for physical science, because science in his
+day was based on imperfect inductions. There were not facts enough known
+of the material world to construct sound theories. Physical science at
+that time was the most uncertain of all knowledge, although there were
+great pretenders then, as now, who maintained it was the only certainty.
+But the speculations of scientists disgusted him, for he saw nothing in
+them upon which to base incontrovertible truth. They were mere dreams
+and baseless theories on the origin of the universe. They were even
+puerile; and they were then, as now, atheistic in their tendency. They
+mocked the consciousness of mankind. They annihilated faith and
+Providence. At best, they made all things subject to necessity, to an
+immutable fate, not to an intelligent and ever-present Creator. But
+Cicero, like Socrates, believed in God and in providential
+interference,--in striking contrast with Caesar, who believed nothing.
+He taught moral obligation, on the basis of accountability to God. He
+repudiated expediency as the guide in life, and fell back on the
+principles of eternal right. As an ethical writer he was profounder and
+more enlightened than Paley. He did not seek to overturn the popular
+religion, like Grecian Sophists, only (like Socrates) to overturn
+ignorance, before a sound foundation could be laid for any system of
+truth. Nor did he ridicule religion, as Lucian did in after-times, but
+soared to comprehend it, like the esoteric priests of Egypt in the time
+of Moses or Pythagoras. He cherished as lofty views of God and his moral
+government as any moralist of antiquity. And all these lofty views he
+taught in matchless language,--principles of government, principles of
+law, of ethics, of theology, giving consolation not only to the men of
+his day, but to Christian sages in after-times. And there is nothing
+puerile or dreamy or demoralizing in his teachings; they all are
+luminous for learning as well as genius. He rivalled Bacon in the
+variety and profundity of his attainments. He gloried in the certitudes
+which consciousness reveals, as well as in the facts which experience
+and history demonstrate. With these he consoled himself in trouble; on
+these he reposed in the hour of danger. Like Pascal he meditated on the
+highest truths which task the intellect of man, but, unlike him, did not
+disdain those weapons which <i>reason</i> forged, and which no one used more
+triumphantly than Pascal himself. And these great meditations he
+transmitted for all ages to ponder, as among the most precious of the
+legacies of antiquity.</p>
+
+<p>Thus did he live, a shining light in a corrupt and godless age, in spite
+of all the faults which modern critics have enlarged upon in their
+ambitious desire for novelties, or in their thoughtless or malignant
+desire? to show up human frailties. He was a patriot, taking the side of
+his country's highest interests; a statesman, seeking to conserve the
+wisdom of his ancestors; an orator, exposing vices and defending the
+innocent; a philosopher, unfolding the wisdom of the Greeks; a moralist,
+laying down the principles of immutable justice; a sage, pondering the
+mysteries of life; ever active, studious, dignified; the charm and
+fascination of cultivated circles; as courteous and polished as the
+ornaments of modern society; revered by friends, feared by enemies,
+adored by all good people; a kind father, an indulgent husband, a
+generous friend; hospitable, witty, magnificent,--a most accomplished
+gentleman, one of the best men of all antiquity. What if he was vain and
+egotistical and vacillating, and occasionally weak? Can you expect
+perfection in him who &quot;is born of a woman&quot;? We palliate the backslidings
+of Christians; we excuse the crimes of a Constantine, a Theodosius, a
+Cromwell: shall we have no toleration for the frailties of a Pagan, in
+one of the worst periods of history? I have no patience with those
+critics who would hurl him from the pedestal on which he has stood for
+two thousand years. Contrast him with other illustrious men. How few
+Romans or Greeks were better than he! How few have rendered such exalted
+services! And even if he has not perpetuated a faultless character, he
+has yet bequeathed a noble example; and, more, has transmitted a legacy
+in the richness of which we forget the faults of the testator,--a legacy
+of imperishable thought, clothed in the language of imperishable art,--a
+legacy so valuable that it is the treasured inheritance of all civilized
+nations, and one which no nation can afford to lose.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>AUTHORITIES.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>Plutarch's Life of Cicero, Appian, Dion Cassius, Villeius Paterculus,
+are the original authorities,--next to the writings of Cicero himself,
+especially his Letters and Orations. Middleton's Life is full, but
+one-sided. Forsyth takes the opposite side in his Life. The last work in
+English is that of Anthony Trollope. In Smith's Biographical Dictionary
+is an able article. Dr. Vaughan has written an interesting lecture.
+Merivale has elaborately treated this great man in his valuable History
+of the Romans. Colley Cibber's Character and Conduct of Cicero,
+Drumann's Roman History, Rollin's Ancient History, Biographic
+Universelle. Mr. Froude alludes to Cicero in his Life of Caesar, taking
+nearly the same view as Forsyth.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="CLEOPATRA."></a>CLEOPATRA.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>69-30 B.C.</p>
+
+<p>THE WOMAN OF PAGANISM.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>It is my object in this lecture to present the condition of woman under
+the influences of Paganism, before Christianity enfranchised and
+elevated her. As a type of the Pagan woman I select Cleopatra, partly
+because she was famous, and partly because she possessed traits and
+accomplishments which made her interesting in spite of the vices which
+degraded her. She was a queen, the heir of a long line of kings, and
+ruled over an ancient and highly civilized country. She was
+intellectual, accomplished, beautiful, and fascinating. She lived in one
+of the most interesting capitals of the ancient world, and by birth she
+was more Greek than she was African or Oriental. She lived, too, in a
+great age, when Rome had nearly conquered the world; when Roman senators
+and generals had more power than kings; when Grecian arts and literature
+were copied by the imperial Romans; when the rich and fortunate were
+luxurious and ostentatious beyond all precedent; when life had reached
+the highest point of material splendor, and yet when luxury had not
+destroyed military virtues or undermined the strength of the empire. The
+&quot;eternal city&quot; then numbered millions of people, and was the grandest
+capital ever seen on this earth, since everything was there
+concentrated,--the spoils of the world, riches immeasurable, literature
+and art, palaces and temples, power unlimited,--the proudest centre of
+civilization which then existed, and a civilization which in its
+material aspects has not since been surpassed. The civilized world was
+then most emphatically Pagan, in both spirit and forms. Religion as a
+controlling influence was dead. Only a very few among speculative
+philosophers believed in any god, except in a degrading sense,--as a
+blind inexorable fate, or an impersonation of the powers of Nature. The
+future state was a most perplexing uncertainty. Epicurean
+self-indulgence and material prosperity were regarded as the greatest
+good; and as doubt of the darkest kind hung over the future, the body
+was necessarily regarded as of more value than the soul. In fact, it was
+only the body which Paganism recognized as a reality; the soul, God, and
+immortality were virtually everywhere ignored.</p>
+
+<p>It was in this godless, yet brilliant, age that Cleopatra appears upon
+the stage, having been born sixty-nine years before Christ,--about a
+century before the new revolutionary religion was proclaimed in Judea.
+Her father was a Ptolemy, and she succeeded him on the throne of Egypt
+when quite young,--the last of a famous dynasty that had reigned nearly
+three hundred years. The Ptolemies, descended from one of Alexander's
+generals, reigned in great magnificence at Alexandria, which was the
+commercial centre of the world, whose ships whitened the
+Mediterranean,--that great inland lake, as it were, in the centre of the
+Roman Empire, around whose shores were countless cities and villas and
+works of art. Alexandria was a city of schools, of libraries and
+museums, of temples and of palaces, as well as a mart of commerce. Its
+famous library was the largest in the world, and was the pride of the
+age and of the empire. Learned men from all countries came to this
+capital to study science, philosophy, and art. It was virtually a
+Grecian city, and the language of the leading people was Greek. It was
+rivalled in provincial magnificence only by Antioch, the seat of the old
+Syrian civilization, also a Greek capital, so far as the governing
+classes could make it one. Greece, politically ruined, still sent forth
+those influences which made her civilization potent in every land.</p>
+
+<p>Cleopatra, the last of the line of Grecian sovereigns in Egypt, was
+essentially Greek in her features, her language, and her manners. There
+was nothing African about her, as we understand the term African, except
+that her complexion may have been darkened by the intermarriage of the
+Ptolemies; and I have often wondered why so learned and classical a man
+as Story should have given to this queen, in his famous statue, such
+thick lips and African features, which no more marked her than Indian
+features mark the family of the Braganzas on the throne of Brazil. She
+was not even Coptic, like Athanasius and Saint Augustine. On the ancient
+coins and medals her features are severely classical.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it probable that any of the peculiarities of the ancient Egyptian
+kings marked the dynasty of the Ptolemies. No purely Egyptian customs
+lingered in the palaces of Alexandria. The old deities of Isis and
+Osiris gave place to the worship of Jupiter, Minerva, and Venus. The
+wonders of pristine Egypt were confined to Memphis and Thebes and the
+dilapidated cities of the Nile. The mysteries of the antique Egyptian
+temples were no more known to the learned and mercantile citizen of
+Alexandria than they are to us. The pyramids were as much a wonder then
+as now. The priests and jugglers alike mingled in the crowd of Jews,
+Syrians, Romans, Greeks, Parthians, Arabs, who congregated in this
+learned and mercantile city.</p>
+
+<p>So we have a right to presume that Cleopatra, when she first appeared
+upon the stage of history as a girl of fourteen, was simply a very
+beautiful and accomplished Greek princess, who could speak several
+languages with fluency, as precocious as Elizabeth of England, skilled
+in music, conversant with history, and surrounded with eminent masters.
+She was only twenty-one when she was an object of attraction to Caesar,
+then in the midst of his triumphs. How remarkable must have been her
+fascinations if at that age she could have diverted, even for a time,
+the great captain from his conquests, and chained him to her side! That
+refined, intellectual old veteran of fifty, with the whole world at his
+feet, loaded down with the cares of government, as temperate as he was
+ambitious, and bent on new conquests, would not have been chained and
+enthralled by a girl of twenty-one, however beautiful, had she not been
+as remarkable for intellect and culture as she was for beauty. Nor is it
+likely that Cleopatra would have devoted herself to this weather-beaten
+old general, had she not hoped to gain something from him besides
+caresses,--namely, the confirmation of her authority as queen. She also
+may have had some patriotic motives touching the political independence
+of her country. Left by her father's will at the age of eighteen joint
+heir of the Egyptian throne with her brother Ptolemy, she soon found
+herself expelled from the capital by him and the leading generals of the
+army, because they did not relish her precocious activity in
+government. Her gathered adherents had made but little advance towards
+regaining her rights when, in August, 48, Caesar landed in pursuit of
+Pompey, whom he had defeated at Pharsalia. Pompey's assassination left
+Caesar free, and he proceeded to Alexandria to establish himself for the
+winter. Here the wily and beautiful young exile sought him, and won his
+interest and his affection. After some months of revelry and luxury,
+Caesar left Egypt in 47 to chastise an Eastern rebel, and was in 46
+followed to Rome by Cleopatra, who remained there in splendid state
+until the assassination of Caesar drove her back to Egypt. Her whole
+subsequent life showed her to be as cunning and politic as she was
+luxurious and pleasure-seeking. Possibly she may have loved so
+interesting and brilliant a man as the great Caesar, aside from the
+admiration of his position; but he never became her slave, although it
+was believed, a hundred years after his death, that she was actually
+living in his house when he was assassinated, and was the mother of his
+son Caesarion. But Froude doubts this; and the probabilities are that he
+is correct, for, like Macaulay, he is not apt to be wrong in facts, but
+only in the way he puts them.</p>
+
+<p>Cleopatra was twenty-eight years of age when she first met Antony,--&quot;a
+period of life,&quot; says Plutarch, &quot;when woman's beauty is most splendid,
+and her intellect is in full maturity.&quot; We have no account of the style
+of her beauty, except that it was transcendent,--absolutely
+irresistible, with such a variety of expression as to be called
+infinite. As already remarked, from the long residence of her family in
+Egypt and intermarriages with foreigners, her complexion may have been
+darker than that of either Persians or Greeks. It probably resembled
+that of Queen Esther more than that of Aspasia, in that dark richness
+and voluptuousness which to some have such attractions; but in grace and
+vivacity she was purely Grecian,--not like a &quot;blooming Eastern bride,&quot;
+languid and passive and effeminate, but bright, witty, and intellectual.
+Shakspeare paints her as full of lively sallies, with the power of
+adapting herself to circumstances with tact and good nature, like a
+Madame R&eacute;camier or a Maintenon, rather than like a Montespan or a
+Pompadour, although her nature was passionate, her manner enticing, and
+her habits luxurious. She did not weary or satiate, like a mere
+sensual beauty.</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Her infinite variety.&quot;<br>
+
+<p>She certainly had the power of retaining the conquests she had
+won,--which rarely happens except with those who are gifted with
+intellectual radiance and freshness. She held her hold on Antony for
+eleven years, when he was burdened with great public cares and duties,
+and when he was forty-two years of age. Such a superior man as he was
+intellectually, and, after Caesar, the leading man of the empire,--a
+statesman as well as soldier,--would not have been enslaved so long by
+Cleopatra had she not possessed remarkable gifts and attainments, like
+those famous women who reigned in the courts of the Bourbons in the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and who, by their wit and social
+fascinations, gathered around their thrones the most distinguished men
+of France, and made them friends as well as admirers. The Pompadours of
+the world have only a brief reign, and at last become repulsive. But
+Cleopatra, like Maintenon, was always attractive, although she, could
+not lay claim to the virtues of the latter. She was as politic as the
+French beauty, and as full of expedients to please her lord. She may
+have revelled in the banquets she prepared for Antony, as Esther did in
+those she prepared for Xerxes; but with the same intent, to please him
+rather than herself, and win, from his weakness, those political favors
+which in his calmer hours he might have shrunk from granting. Cleopatra
+was a politician as well as a luxurious beauty, and it may have been her
+supreme aim to secure the independence of Egypt. She wished to beguile
+Antony as she had sought to beguile Caesar, since they were the masters
+of the world, and had it in their power to crush her sovereignty and
+reduce her realm to a mere province of the empire. Nor is there
+evidence that in the magnificent banquets she gave to the Roman general
+she ever lost her self-control. She drank, and made him drink, but
+retained her wits, &quot;laughing him out of patience and laughing him into
+patience,&quot; ascendant over him by raillery, irony, and wit.</p>
+
+<p>And Antony, again, although fond of banquets and ostentation, like other
+Roman nobles, and utterly unscrupulous and unprincipled, as Roman
+libertines were, was also general, statesman, and orator. He grew up
+amid the dangers and toils and privations of Caesar's camp. He was as
+greedy of honors as was his imperial master. He was a sunburnt and
+experienced commander, obliged to be on his guard, and ready for
+emergencies. No such man feels that he can afford to indulge his
+appetites, except on rare occasions. One of the leading peculiarities of
+all great generals has been their temperance. It marked Caesar,
+Charlemagne, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederic the Great, Cromwell, and
+Napoleon. When Alexander gave himself up to banquets, his conquests
+ended. Even such a self-indulgent, pleasure-seeking man as Louis XIV.
+always maintained the decencies of society amid his dissipated
+courtiers. We feel that a man who could discourse so eloquently as
+Antony did over the dead body of Caesar was something more than a
+sensualist or a demagogue. He was also the finest-looking man in Rome,
+reminding the people, it is said, of the busts of Hercules. He was
+lavish, like Caesar, but, like him, sought popularity, and cared but
+little what it cost. It is probable that Cicero painted him, in his
+famous philippics, in darker colors than he deserved, because he aimed
+to be Caesar's successor, as he probably would have been but for his
+infatuation for Cleopatra. Caesar sent him to Rome as master of the
+horse,--a position next in power to that of dictator. When Caesar was
+assassinated, Antony was the most powerful man of the empire. He was
+greater than any existing king; he was almost supreme. And after
+Caesar's death, when he divided his sovereignty of the world with
+Octavius and Lepidus, he had the fairest chance of becoming imperator.
+He had great military experience, the broad Orient as his domain, and
+half the legions of Rome under his control.</p>
+
+<p>It was when this great man was Triumvir, sharing with only two others
+the empire of the world, and likely to overpower them, when he was in
+Asia consolidating and arranging the affairs of his vast department,
+that he met the woman who was the cause of all his calamities. He was
+then in Cilicia, and, with all the arrogance of a Roman general, had
+sent for the Queen of Egypt to appear before him and answer to an
+accusation of having rendered assistance to Cassius before the fatal
+battle of Philippi. He had already known and admired Cleopatra in Rome,
+and it is not improbable that she divined the secret of his judicial
+summons. His envoy, struck with her beauty and intelligence, advised her
+to appear in her best attire. Such a woman scarcely needed such a hint.
+So, making every preparation for her journey,--money, ornaments,
+gifts,--a kind of Queen of Sheba, a Zenobia in her pride and glory, a
+Queen Esther when she had invited the king and his minister to a
+banquet,--she came to the Cydnus, and ascended the river in a
+magnificent barge, such as had never been seen before, and prepared to
+meet her judge, not as a criminal, but as a conqueror, armed with those
+weapons that few mortals can resist.</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Burn'd on the water; the poop was beaten gold;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Purple the sails, and so perfumed that<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The water, which they beat, to follow faster,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;It beggar'd all description: she did lie<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In her pavilion (cloth-of-gold of tissue)<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The fancy outwork nature: on each side her<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;With diverse-color'd fans....<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;... At the helm<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A seeming mermaid steers....<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;... From the barge<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A strange invisible perfume hits the sense<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Of the adjacent wharves. The city cast<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Her people out upon her; and Antony,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Enthroned i' the market-place, did sit alone,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Whistling to th' air; which, but for vacancy,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And made a gap in nature.&quot;<br>
+
+<p>On the arrival of this siren queen, Antony had invited her to
+supper,--the dinner of the Romans,--but she, with woman's instinct, had
+declined, till he should come to her; and he, with the urbanity of a
+polished noble,--for such he probably was,--complied, and found a
+banquet which astonished even him, accustomed as he was to senatorial
+magnificence, and which, with all the treasures of the East, he could
+not rival. From that fatal hour he was enslaved. She conquered him, not
+merely by her display and her dazzling beauty, but by her wit. Her very
+tones were music. So accomplished was she in languages, that without
+interpreters she conversed not only with Greeks and Latins, but with
+Ethiopians, Jews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes, and Parthians. So dazzled
+and bewitched was Antony, that, instead of continuing the duties of his
+great position, he returned with Cleopatra to Alexandria, there to keep
+holiday and squander riches, and, still worse, his precious time, to the
+shame and scandal of Rome, inglorious and without excuse,--a Samson at
+the feet of Delilah, or a Hercules throwing away his club to seize the
+distaff of Omphale, confessing to the potency of that mysterious charm
+which the sage at the court of an Eastern prince pronounced the
+strongest power on earth. Never was a strong man more enthralled than
+was Antony by this bewitching woman, who exhausted every art to please
+him. She played at dice with him, drank with him, hunted with him,
+rambled with him, jested with him, angled with him, flattering and
+reproving him by turn, always having some new device of pleasure to
+gratify his senses or stimulate his curiosity. Thus passed the winter of
+41-40, and in the spring he was recalled to Borne by political
+dissensions there.</p>
+
+<p>At this stage, however, it would seem that ambition was paramount with
+him, not love; for his wife Fulvia having died, he did not marry
+Cleopatra, but Octavia, sister of Octavius, his fellow-triumvir and
+general rival. It was evidently from political considerations that he
+married Octavia, who was a stately and noble woman, but tedious in her
+dignity, and unattractive in her person. And what a commentary on Roman
+rank! The sister of a Roman grandee seemed to the ambitious general a
+greater match than the Queen of Egypt. How this must have piqued the
+proud daughter of the Ptolemies,--that she, a queen, with all her
+charms, was not the equal in the eyes of Antony to the sister of
+Caesar's heir! But she knew her power, and stifled her resentment, and
+waited for her time. She, too, had a political end to gain, and was too
+politic to give way to anger and reproaches. She was anything but the
+impulsive woman that some suppose,--but a great actress and artist, as
+some women are when they would conquer, even in their loves, which, if
+they do not feign, at least they know how to make appear greater than
+they are. For about three years Antony cut loose from Cleopatra, and
+pursued his military career in the East, as the rival of Octavius might,
+having in view the sovereignty that Caesar had bequeathed to the
+strongest man.</p>
+
+<p>But his passion for Cleopatra could not long be suppressed, neither from
+reasons of state nor from the respect he must have felt for the
+admirable conduct of Octavia, who was devoted to him, and who was one of
+the most magnanimous and reproachless women of antiquity. And surely he
+must have had some great qualities to call out the love of the noblest
+and proudest woman of the age, in spite of his many vices and his
+abandonment to a mad passion, forgetful alike both of fame and duty. He
+had not been two years in Athens, the headquarters of his Eastern
+Department, before he was called upon to chastise the Parthians, who had
+thrown off the Roman yoke and invaded other Roman provinces. But hardly
+had he left Octavia, and set foot again in Asia, before he sent for his
+Egyptian mistress, and loaded her with presents; not gold, and silver,
+and precious stones, and silks, and curious works of art merely, but
+whole provinces even,--Phoenicia, Syria, Cilicia, and a part of Judea
+and Arabia,--provinces which belonged not to him, but to the Roman
+Empire. How indignant must have been the Roman people when they heard of
+such lavish presents, and presents which he had no right to give! And
+when the artful Cleopatra feigned illness on the approach of Octavia,
+pretending to be dying of love, and wasting her body by fasting and
+weeping by turns, and perhaps tearing her hair in a seeming paroxysm of
+grief,--for an actress can do even this,--Antony was totally disarmed,
+and gave up his Parthian expedition altogether, which was treason to the
+State, and returned to Alexandria more submissive than ever. This
+abandonment of duty and official trust disgusted and incensed the
+Romans, so that his cause was weakened. Octavius became stronger every
+day, and now resolved on reigning alone. This meant another civil war.
+How strong the party of Antony must have been to keep together and
+sustain him amid such scandals, treasons, and disgrace!</p>
+
+<p>Antony, perceiving a desperate contest before him, ending in his
+supremacy or ruin, put forth all his energies, assisted by the
+contributions of Cleopatra, who furnished two hundred ships and twenty
+thousand talents,--about twenty million dollars. He had five hundred
+war-vessels, beside galleys, one hundred thousand foot and twelve
+thousand horse,--one of the largest armies that any Roman general had
+ever commanded,--and he was attended by vassal kings from the East. The
+forces of Octavius were not so large, though better disciplined; nor was
+he a match for Antony in military experience. Antony with his superior
+forces wished to fight upon the land, but against his better judgment
+was overruled by Cleopatra, who, having reinforced him with sixty
+galleys, urged him to contend upon the sea. The rivals met at Actium,
+where was fought one of the great decisive battles of the world. For a
+while the fortunes of the day were doubtful, when Cleopatra, from some
+unexplained motive, or from panic, or possibly from a calculating
+policy, was seen sailing away with her ships for Egypt. And what was
+still more extraordinary, Antony abandoned his fleet and followed her.
+Had he been defeated on the sea, he still had superior forces on the
+land, and was a match for Octavius. His infatuation ended in a weakness
+difficult to comprehend in a successful Roman general. And never was
+infatuation followed by more tragic consequences. Was this madness sent
+upon him by that awful Power who controls the fate of war and the
+destinies of nations? Who sent madness upon Nebuchadnezzar? Who blinded
+Napoleon at the very summit of his greatness? May not that memorable
+defeat have been ordered by Providence to give consolidation and peace
+and prosperity to the Roman Empire, so long groaning under the
+complicated miseries of anarchy and civil war? If an imperial government
+was necessary for the existing political and social condition of the
+Roman world,--and this is maintained by most historians,--how fortunate
+it was that the empire fell into the hands of a man whose subsequent
+policy was peace, the development of resources of nations, and a
+vigorous administration of government!</p>
+
+<p>It is generally conceded that the reign of Octavius--or, as he is more
+generally known, Augustus Caesar--was able, enlightened, and efficient.
+He laid down the policy which succeeding emperors pursued, and which
+resulted in the peace and prosperity of the Roman world until vices
+prepared the way for violence. Augustus was a great organizer, and the
+machinery of government which he and his ministers perfected kept the
+empire together until it was overrun by the New Germanic races. Had
+Antony conquered at Actium, the destinies of the empire might have been
+far different. But for two hundred years the world never saw a more
+efficient central power than that exercised by the Roman emperors or by
+their ministers. Imperialism at last proved fatal to genius and the
+higher interests of mankind; but imperialism was the creation of Julius
+Caesar, as a real or supposed necessity; it was efficiently and
+beneficently continued by his grand-nephew Augustus; and its
+consolidated strength became an established institution which the
+civilized world quietly accepted.</p>
+
+<p>The battle of Actium virtually settled the civil war and the fortunes of
+Antony, although he afterwards fought bravely and energetically; but all
+to no purpose. And then, at last, his eyes were opened, and Shakspeare
+makes him bitterly exclaim,--</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;All is lost!<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;... Betray'd I am:<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;O this false soul of Egypt!&quot;<br>
+
+<p>And with his ruin the ruin of his paramour was also settled; yet her
+resources were not utterly exhausted. She retired into a castle or
+mausoleum she had prepared for herself in case of necessity, with her
+most valuable treasures, and sent messengers to Antony, who reported to
+him that she was dead,--that she had killed herself in despair. He
+believed it all. His wrath now vanished in his grief. He could not live,
+or did not wish to live, without her; and he fell upon his own sword.
+The wound was mortal, but death did not immediately follow. He lived to
+learn that Cleopatra had again deceived him,--that she was still alive.
+Even amid the agonies of the shadow of death, and in view of this last
+fatal lie of hers, he did not upbraid her, but ordered his servants to
+bear him to her retreat. Covered with blood, the dying general was
+drawn up by ropes and through a window--the only entrance to the queen's
+retreat that was left unbarred--into her presence, and soon expired.
+Shakspeare has Antony greet Cleopatra with the words, &quot;I am dying,
+Egypt, dying!&quot; This suggestive theme has been enlarged in a modern song
+of pathetic eloquence:--</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I am dying, Egypt, dying,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And the dark Plutonian shadows<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Gather on the evening blast;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Let thine arms, O Queen, enfold me,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Listen to the great heart-secrets<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>Thou</i>, and thou <i>alone</i>, must hear.<br>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Should the base plebeian rabble<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Dare assail my name at Rome,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Where my noble spouse Octavia<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Weeps within her widow'd home,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Seek her; say the gods bear witness--<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Altars, augurs, circling wings--<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;That her blood, with mine commingled,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Yet shall mount the throne of kings.<br>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;As for thee, star-ey'd Egyptian!<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Glorious sorceress of the Nile!<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Light the path to Stygian horrors<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;With the splendors of thy smile<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I can scorn the Senate's triumphs,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Triumphing in love like thine.<br>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Ah! no more amid the battle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Shall my heart exulting swell:<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Isis and Osiris guard thee!<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Cleopatra--Rome--farewell!<br>
+
+<p>Thus perished the great Triumvir, dying like a Roman, whose blinded but
+persistent love, whatever were its elements, ever shall make his name
+memorable. All the ages will point to him as a man who gave the world
+away for the caresses of a woman, and a woman who deceived and
+ruined him.</p>
+
+<p>As for her,--this selfish, heartless sorceress, gifted and beautiful as
+she was,--what does she do when she sees her lover dead,--dying for her?
+Does she share his fate? Not she. What selfish woman ever killed
+herself for love?</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;Some natural tears she shed, but wiped them soon.&quot;<br>
+
+<p>She may have torn her clothes, and beaten her breast, and disfigured her
+face, and given vent to mourning and lamentations. But she does not seek
+death, nor surrender herself to grief, nor court despair. She renews her
+strength. She reserves her arts for another victim. She hopes to win
+Octavius as she had won Julius and Antony; for she was only thirty-nine,
+and still a queen. And for what? That she might retain her own
+sovereignty, or the independence of Egypt,--still the most fertile of
+countries, rich, splendid, and with grand traditions which went back
+thousands of years; the oldest, and once the most powerful of
+monarchies. <i>Her</i> love was ever subservient to her interests. Antony
+gave up ambition for love,--whatever that love was. It took possession
+of his whole being, not pure and tender, but powerful, strange;
+doubtless a mad infatuation, and perhaps something more, since it never
+passed away,--admiration allied with desire, the worship of dazzling
+gifts, though not of moral virtues. Would such a love have been
+permanent? Probably not, since the object of it did not shine in the
+beauty of the soul, but rather in the graces and adornments of the body,
+intensified indeed by the lustre of bewitching social qualities and the
+brightness of a cultivated intellect. It is hard to analyze a passionate
+love between highly gifted people who have an intense development of
+both the higher and the lower natures, and still more difficult when the
+idol is a Venus Polyhymnia rather than a Venus Urania. But the love of
+Antony, whether unwise, or mysterious, or unfortunate, was not feigned
+or forced: it was real, and it was irresistible; he could not help it.
+He was enslaved, bound hand and foot. His reason may have rallied to his
+support, but his will was fettered. He may have had at times dark and
+gloomy suspicions,--that he was played with, that he was cheated, that
+he would be deserted, that Cleopatra was false and treacherous. And yet
+she reigned over him; he could not live without her. She was all in all
+to him, so long as the infatuation lasted; and it had lasted fourteen
+years, with increasing force, in spite of duty and pressing labors, the
+calls of ambition and the lust of power. In this consuming and abandoned
+passion, for fourteen years,--so strange and inglorious, and for a woman
+so unworthy, even if he were no better than she,--we see one of the
+great mysteries of our complex nature, not uncommon, but insoluble.</p>
+
+<p>I have no respect for Antony, and but little admiration. I speak of such
+mad infatuation as a humiliating exhibition of human weakness. Any one
+under its fearful spell is an object of pity. But I have more sympathy
+for him than for Cleopatra, although she was doubtless a very gifted
+woman. He was her victim; she was not his. If extravagant and reckless
+and sensual, he was frank, generous, eloquent, brave, and true to her.
+She was artful, designing, and selfish, and used him for her own ends,
+although we do not know that she was perfidious and false to him. But
+for her he would have ruled the world. He showed himself capable of an
+enormous sacrifice. She made no sacrifices for him. She could even have
+transferred her affections, since she afterwards sought to play her
+blandishments upon his rival. Conceive of Antony, if you can, as loving
+any one else than her who led him on to ruin. In the very degradation
+of love we see its sacredness. In his fidelity we find some palliation.
+Nor does it seem that Octavia, the slighted wife of Antony, gave way to
+vengeance. Her sense of injury was overshadowed by her pity. This lofty
+and dignified matron even took his six surviving children, three of whom
+were Cleopatra's, and brought them up in her own house as her own. Can
+Paganism show a greater magnanimity?</p>
+
+<p>The fate of Cleopatra was tragic also. She too destroyed herself, not
+probably by the bite of asps, as is the popular opinion, but by some
+potent and subtile poison that she ever carried with her, and which had
+the effect of benumbing the body and making her insensible to pain. Yet
+she does not kill herself because she cannot survive the death of
+Antony, but because she is too proud to be carried to Rome to grace the
+triumph of the new Caesar. She will not be led a captive princess up the
+Capitoline Hill. She has an overbearing pride. &quot;Know, sir,&quot; says she to
+Proculeius, &quot;that I</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Nor once be chastis'd with the sober eye<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Of dull Octavia....<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ... Rather a ditch in Egypt<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Be gentle grave to me!&quot;<br>
+
+<p>But whether pride or whether shame was the more powerful motive in
+committing suicide, I do not read that she was a victim of remorse. She
+had no moral sense. Nor did she give way to sentimental grief on the
+death of Antony. Her grief was blended with disappointment and rage. Nor
+did she hide her head, but wore a face of brass. She used all her arts
+to win Octavius. Her resources did not fail her; but she expended them
+on one of the coldest, most politic, and most astute men that ever
+lived. And the disappointment that followed her defeat--that she could
+not enslave another conqueror--was greater than the grief for Antony.
+Nor during her whole career do we see any signs of that sorrow and
+humility which, it would seem, should mark a woman who has made so great
+and fatal a mistake,--cut off hopelessly from the respect of the world
+and the peace of her own soul. We see grief, rage, despair, in her
+miserable end, as we see pride and shamefacedness in her gilded life,
+but not remorse or shame. And when she dies by her own hand, it is not
+in madness, but to escape humiliation. Suicide was one of the worst
+features of Pagan antiquity. It was a base and cowardly reluctance to
+meet the evils of life, as much as indifference to the future and a
+blunted moral sense.</p>
+
+<p>So much for the woman herself, her selfish spirit, her vile career; but
+as Cleopatra is one of the best known and most striking examples of a
+Pagan woman, with qualities and in circumstances peculiarly
+characteristic of Paganism, I must make a few remarks on these points.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most noticeable of these is that immorality seems to have
+been no bar to social position. Some of those who were most attractive
+and sought after were notoriously immoral. Aspasia, whom Socrates and
+Pericles equally admired, and whose house was the resort of poets,
+philosophers, statesmen, and artists, and who is said to have been one
+of the most cultivated women of antiquity, bore a sullied name. Sappho,
+who was ever exalted by Grecian poets for the sweetness of her verses,
+attempted to reconcile a life of pleasure with a life of letters, and
+threw herself into the sea because of a disappointed passion. Lais, a
+professional courtesan, was the associate of kings and sages as well as
+the idol of poets and priests. Agrippina, whose very name is infamy, was
+the admiration of courtiers and statesmen. Lucilla, who armed her
+assassins against her own brother, seems to have ruled the court of
+Marcus Aurelius.</p>
+
+<p>And all these women, and more who could be mentioned, were--like
+Cleopatra--cultivated, intellectual, and brilliant. They seem to have
+reigned for their social fascinations as much as by their physical
+beauty. Hence, that class of women who with us are shunned and excluded
+from society were not only flattered and honored, but the class itself
+seems to have been recruited by those who were the most attractive for
+their intellectual gifts as well as for physical beauty. No woman, if
+bright, witty, and beautiful, was avoided because she was immoral. It
+was the immoral women who often aspired to the highest culture. They
+sought to reign by making their homes attractive to distinguished men.
+Their houses seem to have been what the <i>salons</i> of noble and
+fascinating duchesses were in France in the last two centuries. The
+homes of virtuous and domestic women were dull and wearisome. In fact,
+the modest wives and daughters of most men were confined to monotonous
+domestic duties; they were household slaves; they saw but little of what
+we now call society. I do not say that virtue was not held in honor. I
+know of no age, however corrupt, when it was not prized by husbands and
+fathers. I know of no age when virtuous women did not shine at home, and
+exert a healthful influence upon men, and secure the proud regard of
+their husbands. But these were not the women whose society was most
+sought. The drudgeries and slaveries of domestic life among the ancients
+made women unattractive to the world. The women who were most attractive
+were those who gave or attended sumptuous banquets, and indulged in
+pleasures that were demoralizing. Not domestic women, but bright women,
+carried away those prizes which turned the brain. Those who shone were
+those that attached themselves to men through their senses, and
+possibly through their intellects, and who were themselves strong in
+proportion as men were weak. For a woman to appear in public assemblies
+with braided and decorated hair and ostentatious dress, and especially
+if she displayed any gifts of eloquence or culture, was to proclaim
+herself one of the immoral, leisurely, educated, dissolute class. This
+gives point to Saint Paul's strict injunctions to the women of Corinth
+to dress soberly, to keep silence in the assemblies, etc. The modest
+woman was to &quot;be in subjection.&quot; Those Pagan converts to the &quot;New Way&quot;
+were to avoid even the appearance of evil.</p>
+
+<p>Thus under Paganism the general influence of women was to pull men down
+rather than to elevate them, especially those who were attractive in
+society. Virtuous and domestic women were not sufficiently educated to
+have much influence except in a narrow circle. Even they, in a social
+point of view, were slaves. They could be given in marriage without
+their consent; they were restricted in their intercourse with men; they
+were confined to their homes; they had but few privileges; they had no
+books; they led a life of terror from the caprices of their lords and
+masters, and hence inspired no veneration. The wives and daughters of
+the rich tyrannized over their servants, decked themselves with costly
+ornaments, and were merely gilded toys, whose society was vapid and
+uninteresting. The wives and daughters of the poor were drudges and
+menials, without attraction or influence; noisy, quarrelsome, garrulous
+women, who said the least when they talked the most.</p>
+
+<p>Hence under Paganism home had none of those attractions which, in
+Christian countries, invest it with such charms. The home of the poor
+was squalid and repulsive; the home of the rich was gaudy and tinselled
+enough, but was dull and uninspiring. What is home when women are
+ignorant, stupid, and slavish? What glitter or artistic splendor can
+make home attractive when women are mere butterflies or slaves with
+gilded fetters? Deprive women of education, and especially of that
+respect which Christian chivalry inspires, and they cannot rise to be
+the equal companions of men. They are simply their victims or their
+slaves. What is a home where women are treated as inferiors? Paganism
+never recognized their equality with men; and if they ever ruled men, it
+was by appealing to their lower qualities, or resorting to arts and
+devices which are subversive of all dignity of character. When their
+personal beauty fled, their power also departed. A faded or homely
+woman, without intelligence or wit, was a forlorn object in a Pagan
+home,--to be avoided, derided, despised,--a melancholy object of pity or
+neglect, so far as companionship goes. She may have been valued as a
+cook or drudge, but she was only a menial. Of all those sins of omission
+of which Paganism is accused, the worst was that it gave to women no
+mental resources to assist them in poverty, or neglect, or isolation,
+when beauty or fortune deserted them. No home can be attractive where
+women have no resources; and women can have no resources outside of
+domestic duties, unless educated to some art or something calculated to
+draw out their energies and higher faculties by which they win the
+respect and admiration, not of men only, but of their own sex.</p>
+
+<p>It was this lack of education which Paganism withheld from women which
+not only destroyed the radiance of home, but which really made women
+inferior to men. All writers, poets, and satirists alike speak of the
+inferiority of women to men,--not physically only, but even
+intellectually; and some authors made them more vicious than men in
+natural inclination. And when the mind was both neglected and
+undervalued, how could respect and admiration be kindled, or continue
+after sensual charms had passed away? Paganism taught the inequality of
+the sexes, and produced it; and when this inequality is taught, or
+believed in, or insisted upon, then farewell to the glory of homes, to
+all unbought charms, to the graces of domestic life, to everything that
+gilds our brief existence with the radiance of imperishable joy.</p>
+
+<p>Nor did Paganism offer any consolations to the down-trodden, injured,
+neglected, uninteresting woman of antiquity. She could not rise above
+the condition in which she was born. No sympathetic priest directed her
+thoughts to another and higher and endless life. Nobody wiped away her
+tears; nobody gave encouragement to those visions of beauty and serenity
+for which the burdened spirit will, under any oppressions, sometimes
+aspire to enjoy. No one told her of immortality and a God of
+forgiveness, who binds up the bleeding heart and promises a future peace
+and bliss. Paganism was merciful only in this,--that it did not open
+wounds it could not heal; that it did not hold out hopes and promises it
+could not fulfil; that it did not remind the afflicted of miseries from
+which they could not rise; that it did not let in a vision of glories
+which could never be enjoyed; that it did not provoke the soul to
+indulge in a bitterness in view of evils for which there was no remedy;
+that it did not educate the mind for enjoyments which could never be
+reached; that it did not kindle a discontent with a condition from which
+there is no escape. If one cannot rise above debasement or misery, there
+is no use in pointing it out. If the Pagan woman was not seemingly aware
+of the degradation which kept her down, and from which it was impossible
+to rise, Paganism did not add stings to her misery by presenting it as
+an accident which it was easy to surmount. There would be no
+contentment or submission among animals if they were endowed with the
+reason of men. Give to a healthy, but ignorant, coarse, uncultivated
+country girl, surrounded only with pigs and chickens, almost without
+neighbors, a glimpse of the glories of cities, the wonders of art, the
+charms of social life, the triumphs of mind, the capacities of the soul,
+and would she be any happier, if obliged to remain for life in her
+rustic obscurity and labor, and with no possible chance of improving her
+condition? Such was woman under Paganism. She could rise only so far as
+men lifted her up; and they lifted her up only further to consummate her
+degradation.</p>
+
+<p>But there was another thing which kept women in degradation. Paganism
+did not recognize the immaterial and immortal soul: it only had regard
+to the wants of the body. Of course there were exceptions. There were
+sages and philosophers among the men who speculated on the grandest
+subjects which can elevate the mind to the regions of immortal
+truth,--like Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius,--even as there
+were women who rose above all the vile temptations which surrounded
+them, and were poets, heroines, and benefactors,--like Telessa, who
+saved Argos by her courage; and Volumnia, who screened Rome from the
+vengeance of her angry son; and Lucretia, who destroyed herself rather
+than survive the dishonor of her house. There are some people who rise
+and triumph over every kind of oppression and injury. Under Paganism
+there was the possibility of the emancipation of the soul, but not the
+probability. Its genius was directed to the welfare of the body,--to
+utilitarian ends of life, to ornaments and riches, to luxury and
+voluptuousness, to the pleasures which are brief, to the charms of
+physical beauty and grace. It could stimulate ambition and inculcate
+patriotism and sing of love, if it coupled the praises of Venus with the
+praises of wine. But everything it praised or honored had reference to
+this life and to the mortal body. It may have recognized the mind, but
+not the soul, which is greater than the mind. It had no aspirations for
+future happiness; it had no fears of future misery. Hence the frequency
+of suicide under disappointment, or ennui, or satiated desire, or fear
+of poverty, or disgrace, or pain.</p>
+
+<p>And thus, as Paganism did not take cognizance of the soul in its future
+existence, it disregarded man's highest aspirations. It did not
+cultivate his graces; it set but a slight value on moral beauty; it
+thought little of affections; it spurned gentleness and passive virtues;
+it saw no lustre in the tender eye; it heard no music in the tones of
+sympathy; it was hard and cold. That which constitutes the richest
+beatitudes of love it could not see, and did not care for. Ethereal
+blessedness it despised. That which raises woman highest, it was
+indifferent to. The cold atmosphere of Paganism froze her soul, and made
+her callous to wrongs and sufferings. It destroyed enthusiasm and poetic
+ardor and the graces which shine in misfortune. Woman was not kindled by
+lofty sentiments, since no one believed in them. The harmonies of home
+had no poetry and no inspiration, and they disappeared. The face of
+woman was not lighted by supernatural smiles. Her caresses had no
+spiritual fervor, and her benedictions were unmeaning platitudes. Take
+away the soul of woman, and what is she? Rob her of her divine
+enthusiasm, and how vapid and commonplace she becomes! Destroy her
+yearnings to be a spiritual solace, and how limited is her sphere! Take
+away the holy dignity of the soul, and how impossible is a lofty
+friendship! Without the amenities of the soul there can be no real
+society. Crush the soul of a woman, and you extinguish her life, and
+shed darkness on all who surround her. She cannot rally from pain, or
+labor, or misfortune, if her higher nature is ignored. Paganism ignored
+what is grandest and truest in a woman, and she withered like a stricken
+tree. She succumbed before the cold blasts that froze her noblest
+impulses, and sunk sullenly into obscurity. Oh, what a fool a man is to
+make woman a slave! He forgets that though he may succeed in keeping her
+down, chained and fettered by drudgeries, she will be revenged; that
+though powerless, she will instinctively learn to hate him; and if she
+cannot defy him she will scorn him,--for not even a brute animal will
+patiently submit to cruelty, still less a human soul become reconciled
+to injustice. And what is the possession of a human body without the
+sympathy of a living soul?</p>
+
+<p>And hence women, under Paganism,--having no hopes of future joy, no
+recognition of their diviner attributes, no true scope for energies, no
+field of usefulness but in a dreary home, no ennobling friendships, no
+high encouragements, no education, no lofty companionship; utterly
+unappreciated in what most distinguishes them, and valued only as
+household slaves or victims of guilty pleasure; adorned and bedecked
+with trinkets, all to show off the graces of the body alone, and with
+nothing to show their proud equality with men in influence, if not in
+power, in mind as well as heart,--took no interest in what truly
+elevates society. What schools did they teach or even visit? What
+hospitals did they enrich? What miseries did they relieve? What
+charities did they contribute to? What churches did they attend? What
+social gatherings did they enliven? What missions of benevolence did
+they embark in? What were these to women who did not know what was the
+most precious thing they had, or when this precious thing was allowed to
+run to waste? What was there for a woman to do with an unrecognized
+soul but gird herself with ornaments, and curiously braid her hair, and
+ransack shops for new cosmetics, and hunt for new perfumes, and recline
+on luxurious couches, and issue orders to attendant slaves, and join in
+seductive dances, and indulge in frivolous gossip, and entice by the
+display of sensual charms? Her highest aspiration was to adorn a
+perishable body, and vanity became the spring of life.</p>
+
+<p>And the men,--without the true sanctities and beatitudes of married
+life, without the tender companionship which cultivated women give,
+without the hallowed friendships which the soul alone can keep alive,
+despising women who were either toys or slaves,--fled from their dull,
+monotonous, and dreary homes to the circus and the theatre and the
+banqueting hall for excitement or self-forgetfulness. They did not seek
+society, for there can be no high society where women do not preside and
+inspire and guide. Society is a Christian institution. It was born among
+our German ancestors, amid the inspiring glories of chivalry. It was
+made for women as well as men of social cravings and aspirations, which
+have their seat in what Paganism ignored. Society, under Paganism, was
+confined to men, at banquets or symposia, where women seldom entered,
+unless for the amusement of men,--never for their improvement, and still
+less for their restraint.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until Christianity permeated the old Pagan civilization and
+destroyed its idols, that the noble Paulas and Marcellas and Fabiolas
+arose to dignify human friendships, and give fascination to reunions of
+cultivated women and gifted men; that the seeds of society were sown. It
+was not until the natural veneration which the Gothic nations seem to
+have had for women, even in their native forests, had ripened into
+devotion and gallantry under the teachings of Christian priests, that
+the true position of women was understood. And after their equality was
+recognized in the feudal castles of the Middle Ages, the <i>salons</i> of the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries established their claims as the
+inspiring geniuses of what we call society. Then, and not till then, did
+physical beauty pale before the brilliancy of the mind and the radiance
+of the soul,--at last recognized as the highest charm of woman. The
+leaders of society became, not the ornamented and painted <i>heterae</i>
+which had attracted Grecian generals and statesmen and men of letters,
+but the witty and the genial and the dignified matrons who were capable
+of instructing and inspiring men superior to themselves, with eyes
+beaming with intellectual radiance, and features changing with perpetual
+variety. Modern society, created by Christianity,--since only
+Christianity recognizes what is most truly attractive and ennobling
+among women--is a great advance over the banquets of imperial Romans
+and the symposia of gifted Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>But even this does not satisfy woman in her loftiest aspirations. The
+soul which animates and inspires her is boundless. Its wants cannot be
+fully met even in an assemblage of wits and beauties. The soul of Madame
+de Sta&euml;l pined amid all her social triumphs. The soul craves
+friendships, intellectual banquetings, and religious aspirations. And
+unless the emancipated soul of woman can have these wants gratified, she
+droops even amid the glories of society. She is killed, not as a hero
+perishes on a battle-field; but she dies, as Madame de Maintenon said
+that she died, amid the imposing splendors of Versailles. It is only the
+teachings and influences of that divine religion which made Bethany the
+centre of true social banquetings to the wandering and isolated Man of
+Sorrows, which can keep the soul alive amid the cares, the burdens, and
+the duties which bend down every son and daughter of Adam, however
+gilded may be the outward life. How grateful, then, should women be to
+that influence which has snatched them from the pollutions and heartless
+slaveries of Paganism, and given dignity to their higher nature! It is
+to them that it has brought the greatest boon, and made them triumphant
+over the evils of life. And how thoughtless, how misguided, how
+ungrateful is that woman who would exchange the priceless blessings
+which Christianity has brought to her for those ornaments, those
+excitements, and those pleasures which ancient Paganism gave as the only
+solace fox the loss and degradation of her immortal soul!</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>AUTHORITIES.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>Plutarch's Lives; Froude's Caesar; Shakspeare's Antony and Cleopatra;
+Plato's Dialogues; Horace, Martial, and Juvenal, especially among the
+poets; Lord's Old Roman World; Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars; Dion
+Cassius; Rollin's Ancient History; Merivale's History of the Romans;
+Biographic Universelle; Rees's Encyclopedia has a good article.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="PAGAN_SOCIETY."></a>PAGAN SOCIETY.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>GLORY AND SHAME.</p>
+
+<p>50 B.C.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>We have now surveyed what was most glorious in the States of antiquity.
+We have seen a civilization which in many respects rivals all that
+modern nations have to show. In art, in literature, in philosophy, in
+laws, in the mechanism of government, in the cultivated face of Nature,
+in military strength, in aesthetic culture, the Greeks and Romans were
+our equals. And this high civilization was reached by the native and
+unaided strength of man; by the power of will, by courage, by
+perseverance, by genius, by fortunate circumstances. We are filled with
+admiration by all these trophies of genius, and cannot but feel that
+only superior races could have accomplished such mighty triumphs.</p>
+
+<p>Yet all this splendid exterior was deceptive; for the deeper we
+penetrate the social condition of the people, the more we feel disgust
+and pity supplanting all feelings of admiration and wonder. The Roman
+empire especially, which had gathered into its strong embrace the whole
+world, and was the natural inheritor of all the achievements of all the
+nations, in its shame and degradation suggests melancholy feelings in
+reference to the destiny of man, so far as his happiness and welfare
+depend upon his own unaided efforts.</p>
+
+<p>It is a sad picture of oppression, injustice, crime, and wretchedness
+which I have now to present. Glory is succeeded by shame, strength by
+weakness, and virtue by vice. The condition of the mass is deplorable,
+and even the great and fortunate shine in a false and fictitious light.
+We see laws, theoretically good, practically perverted, and selfishness
+and egotism the mainsprings of life; we see energies misdirected, and
+art corrupted. All noble aspirations have fled, and the good and the
+wise retire from active life in despair and misanthropy. Poets flatter
+the tyrants who trample on human rights, while sensuality and luxurious
+pleasure absorb the depraved thoughts of a perverse generation.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing which arrests our attention as we survey the civilized
+countries of the old world, is the imperial despotism of Rome. The
+empire indeed enjoyed quietude, and society was no longer rent by
+factions and parties. Demagogues no longer disturbed the public peace,
+nor were the provinces ransacked and devastated to provide for the
+means of carrying on war. So long as men did not oppose the government
+they were safe from molestation, and were left to pursue their business
+and pleasure in their own way. Imperial cruelty was not often visited on
+the humble classes. It was the policy of the emperors to amuse and
+flatter the people, while depriving them of political rights. Hence
+social life was free. All were at liberty to seek their pleasures and
+gains; all were proud of their metropolis, with its gilded glories and
+its fascinating pleasures. Outrages, extortions, and disturbances were
+punished. Order reigned, and all classes felt secure; they could sleep
+without fear of robbery or assassination. In short, all the arguments
+which can be adduced in favor of despotism in contrast with civil war
+and violence, show that it was beneficial in its immediate effects.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, it was a most lamentable change from that condition of
+things which existed before the civil wars. Roman liberties were
+prostrated forever; noble sentiments and aspirations were rebuked. Under
+the Emperors we read of no more great orators like Cicero, battling for
+human rights and defending the public weal. Eloquence was suppressed.
+Nor was there liberty of speech even in the Senate. It was treason to
+find fault with any public acts. From the Pillars of Hercules to the
+Caspian Sea one stern will ruled all classes and orders. No one could
+fly from the agents and ministers of the Emperor; he controlled the
+army, the Senate, the judiciary, the internal administration of the
+empire, and the religious worship of the people; all offices, honors,
+and emoluments emanated from him. All influences conspired to elevate
+the man whom no one could hope successfully to rival. Revolt was
+madness, and treason absurdity. Nor did the Emperors attempt to check
+the gigantic social evils of the empire. They did not seek to prevent
+irreligion, luxury, slavery, and usury, the encroachments of the rich
+upon the poor, the tyranny of foolish fashions, demoralizing sports and
+pleasures, money-making, and all the follies which lax principles of
+morality allowed; they fed the rabble with corn, oil, and wine, and thus
+encouraged idleness and dissipation. The world never saw a more rapid
+retrogression in human rights, or a greater prostration of liberties.
+Taxes were imposed according to the pleasure or necessities of the
+government. Provincial governors became still more rapacious and cruel;
+judges hesitated to decide against the government. Patriotism, in its
+most enlarged sense, became an impossibility; all lofty spirits were
+crushed. Corruption in all forms of administration fearfully increased,
+for there was no safeguard against it.</p>
+
+<p>Theoretically, absolutism may be the best government, if rulers are
+wise and just; but practically, as men are, despotisms are generally
+cruel and revengeful. Despotism implies slavery, and slavery is the
+worst condition of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>It cannot be questioned that many virtuous princes reigned at Rome, who
+would have ornamented any age or country. Titus, Hadrian, Marcus
+Aurelius, Antoninus Pius, Alexander Severus, Tacitus, Probus, Carus,
+Constantine, Theodosius, were all men of remarkable virtues as well as
+talents. They did what they could to promote public prosperity. Marcus
+Aurelius was one of the purest and noblest characters of antiquity.
+Theodosius for genius and virtue ranks with the most illustrious
+sovereigns that ever wore a crown,--with Charlemagne, with Alfred, with
+William III., with Gustavus Adolphus.</p>
+
+<p>But it matters not whether the Emperors were good or bad, if the r&eacute;gime
+to which they consecrated their energies was exerted to crush the
+liberties of mankind. The imperial despotism, whether brilliant or
+disgraceful, was a mournful retrograde step in civilization; it implied
+the extinction of patriotism and the general degradation of the people,
+and would have been impossible in the days of Cato, Scipio, or Metellus.</p>
+
+<p>If we turn from the Emperors to the class which before the dictatorship
+of Julius Caesar had the ascendency in the State, and for several
+centuries the supreme power, we shall find but little that is
+flattering to a nation or to humanity. Under the Emperors the
+aristocracy had degenerated in morals as well as influence. They still
+retained their enormous fortunes, originally acquired as governors of
+provinces, and continually increased by fortunate marriages and
+speculations. Indeed, nothing was more marked and melancholy at Rome
+than the vast disproportion in fortunes. In the better days of the
+republic, property was more equally divided; the citizens were not
+ambitious for more land than they could conveniently cultivate. But the
+lands, obtained by conquest, gradually fell into the possession of
+powerful families. The classes of society widened as great fortunes were
+accumulated; pride of wealth kept pace with pride of ancestry; and when
+plebeian families had obtained great estates, they were amalgamated with
+the old aristocracy. The equestrian order, founded substantially on
+wealth, grew daily in importance. Knights ultimately rivalled senatorial
+families. Even freedmen in an age of commercial speculation became
+powerful for their riches. The pursuit of money became a passion, and
+the rich assumed all the importance and consideration which had once
+been bestowed upon those who had rendered great public services.</p>
+
+<p>As the wealth of the world flowed naturally to the capital, Rome became
+a city of princes, whose fortunes were almost incredible. It took
+eighty thousand dollars a year to support the ordinary senatorial
+dignity. Some senators owned whole provinces. Trimalchio, a rich
+freedman whom Petronius ridiculed, could afford to lose thirty millions
+of sesterces in a single voyage without sensibly diminishing his
+fortune. Pallas, a freedman of the Emperor Claudius, possessed a fortune
+of three hundred millions of sesterces. Seneca, the philosopher, amassed
+an enormous fortune.</p>
+
+<p>As the Romans were a sensual, ostentatious, and luxurious people, they
+accordingly wasted their fortunes by an extravagance in their living
+which has had no parallel. The pleasures of the table and the cares of
+the kitchen were the most serious avocation of the aristocracy in the
+days of the greatest corruption. They had around them regular courts of
+parasites and flatterers, and they employed even persons of high rank as
+their chamberlains and stewards. Carving was taught in celebrated
+schools, and the masters of this sublime art were held in higher
+estimation than philosophers or poets. Says Juvenal,--</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;To such perfection now is carving brought,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; That different gestures by our curious men<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Are used for different dishes, hare or hen.&quot;<br>
+
+<p>Their entertainments were accompanied with everything which could
+flatter vanity or excite the passions; musicians, male and female
+dancers, players of farce and pantomime, jesters, buffoons, and
+gladiators exhibited, while the guests reclined at table after the
+fashion of the Orientals. The tables were made of Thuja-root, with claws
+of ivory or Delian bronze. Even Cicero, in an economical age, paid six
+hundred and fifty pounds for his banqueting-table. Gluttony was carried
+to such a point that the sea and earth scarcely sufficed to set off
+their tables; they ate as delicacies water-rats and white worms. Fish
+were the chief object of the Roman epicures, of which the <i>mullus</i>, the
+<i>rhombus</i>, and the <i>asellus</i> were the most valued; it is recorded that a
+mullus (sea barbel), weighing but eight pounds, sold for eight thousand
+sesterces. Oysters from the Lucrine Lake were in great demand; snails
+were fattened in ponds for cooking, while the villas of the rich had
+their piscinae filled with fresh or salt-water fish. Peacocks and
+pheasants were the most highly esteemed among poultry, although the
+absurdity prevailed of eating singing-birds. Of quadrupeds, the greatest
+favorite was the wild boar,--the chief dish of a grand <i>coena</i>,--coming
+whole upon the table; and the practised gourmand pretended to
+distinguish by the taste from what part of Italy it came. Dishes, the
+very names of which excite disgust, were used at fashionable banquets,
+and held in high esteem. Martial devotes two entire books of his
+&quot;Epigrams&quot; to the various dishes and ornaments of a Roman banquet.</p>
+
+<p>The extravagance of that period almost surpasses belief. Cicero and
+Pompey one day surprised Lucullus at one of his ordinary banquets, when
+he expected no guests, and even that cost fifty thousand
+drachmas,--about four thousand dollars; his table-couches were of
+purple, and his vessels glittered with jewels. The halls of Heliogabalus
+were hung with cloth of gold, enriched with jewels; his table and plate
+were of pure gold; his couches were of massive silver, and his
+mattresses, covered with carpets of cloth of gold, were stuffed with
+down found only under the wings of partridges. His suppers never cost
+less than one hundred thousand sesterces. Crassus paid one hundred
+thousand sesterces for a golden cup. Banqueting-rooms were strewed with
+lilies and roses. Apicius, in the time of Trajan, spent one hundred
+millions of sesterces in debauchery and gluttony; having only ten
+millions left, he ended his life with poison, thinking he might die of
+hunger. Things were valued for their cost and rarity rather than their
+real value. Enormous prices were paid for carp, the favorite dish of the
+Romans as of the Chinese. Drusillus, a freedman of Claudius, caused a
+dish to be made of five hundred pounds weight of silver. Vitellius had
+one made of such prodigious size that he was obliged to build a furnace
+on purpose for it; and at a feast which he gave in honor of this dish,
+it was filled with the livers of the scarrus (fish), the brains of
+peacocks, the tongues of parrots, and the roes of lampreys caught in the
+Carpathian Sea.</p>
+
+<p>The nobles squandered money equally on their banquets, their stables,
+and their dress; and it was to their crimes, says Juvenal, that they
+were indebted for their gardens, their palaces, their tables, and their
+fine old plate.</p>
+
+<p>Unbounded pride, insolence, inhumanity, selfishness, and scorn marked
+this noble class. Of course there were exceptions, but the historians
+and satirists give the saddest pictures of their cold-hearted depravity.
+The sole result of friendship with a great man was a meal, at which
+flattery and sycophancy were expected; but the best wine was drunk by
+the host, instead of by the guest. Provinces were ransacked for fish and
+fowl and game for the tables of the great, and sensualism was thought to
+be no reproach. They violated the laws of chastity and decorum; they
+scourged to death their slaves; they degraded their wives and sisters;
+they patronized the most demoralizing sports; they enriched themselves
+by usury and monopolies; they practised no generosity, except at their
+banquets, when ostentation balanced their avarice; they measured
+everything by the money-standard; they had no taste for literature, but
+they rewarded sculptors and painters who prostituted art to their vanity
+or passions; they had no reverence for religion, and ridiculed the gods.
+Their distinguishing vices were meanness and servility, the pursuit of
+money by every artifice, the absence of honor, and unblushing
+sensuality.</p>
+
+<p>Gibbon has eloquently abridged the remarks of Ammianus Marcellinus
+respecting these people:--</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They contend with each other in the empty vanity of titles and
+surnames. They affect to multiply their likenesses in statues of bronze
+or marble; nor are they satisfied unless these statues are covered with
+plates of gold. They boast of the rent-rolls of their estates; they
+measure their rank and consequence by the loftiness of their chariots
+and the weighty magnificence of their dress; their long robes of silk
+and purple float in the wind, and as they are agitated by art or
+accident they discover the under garments, the rich tunics embroidered
+with the figures of various animals. Followed by a train of fifty
+servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move along the streets as if
+they travelled with post-horses; and the example of the senators is
+boldly imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose covered carriages are
+continually driving round the immense space of the city and suburbs.
+Whenever they condescend to enter the public baths, they assume, on
+their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and maintain a
+haughty demeanor, which perhaps might have been excused in the great
+Marcellus after the conquest of Syracuse. Sometimes these heroes
+undertake more arduous achievements: they visit their estates in Italy,
+and procure themselves, by servile hands, the amusements of the chase.
+And if at any time, especially on a hot day, they have the courage to
+sail in their gilded galleys from the Lucrine Lake to their elegant
+villas on the sea-coast of Puteoli and Cargeta, they compare these
+expeditions to the marches of Caesar and Alexander; yet should a fly
+presume to settle on the silken folds of their gilded umbrellas, should
+a sunbeam penetrate through some unguarded chink, they deplore their
+intolerable hardships, and lament, in affected language, that they were
+not born in the regions of eternal darkness. In the exercise of domestic
+jurisdiction they express an exquisite sensibility for any personal
+injury, and a contemptuous indifference for the rest of mankind. When
+they have called for warm water, should a slave be tardy in his
+obedience, he is chastised with a hundred lashes; should he commit a
+wilful murder, his master will mildly observe that he is a worthless
+fellow, and shall be punished if he repeat the offence. If a foreigner
+of no contemptible rank be introduced to these senators, he is welcomed
+with such warm professions that he retires charmed with their
+affability; but when he repeats his visit, he is surprised and mortified
+to find that his name, his person, and his country are forgotten. The
+modest, the sober, and the learned are rarely invited to their sumptuous
+banquets, only the most worthless of mankind,--parasites who applaud
+every look and gesture, who gaze with rapture on marble columns and
+variegated pavements, and strenuously praise the pomp and elegance
+which he is taught to consider as a part of his personal merit. At the
+Roman table the birds, the squirrels, the fish, which appear of uncommon
+size, are contemplated with curious attention, and notaries are summoned
+to attest, by authentic record, their real weight. Another method of
+introduction into the houses of the great is skill in games, which is a
+sure road to wealth and reputation. A master of this sublime art, if
+placed at a supper below a magistrate, displays in his countenance a
+surprise and indignation which Cato might be supposed to feel when
+refused the praetorship. The acquisition of knowledge seldom engages the
+attention of the nobles, who abhor the fatigue and disdain the
+advantages of study; and the only books they peruse are the 'Satires of
+Juvenal,' or the fabulous histories of Marius Maximus. The libraries
+they have inherited from their fathers are secluded, like dreary
+sepulchres, from the light of day; but the costly instruments of the
+theatre--flutes and hydraulic organs--are constructed for their use. In
+their palaces sound is preferred to sense, and the care of the body to
+that of the mind. The suspicion of a malady is of sufficient weight to
+excuse the visits of the most intimate friends. The prospect of gain
+will urge a rich and gouty senator as far as Spoleta; every sentiment of
+arrogance and dignity is suppressed in the hope of an inheritance or
+legacy, and a wealthy, childless citizen is the most powerful of the
+Romans. The distress which follows and chastises extravagant luxury
+often reduces the great to use the most humiliating expedients. When
+they wish to borrow, they employ the base and supplicating style of the
+slaves in the comedy; but when they are called upon to pay, they assume
+the royal and tragic declamations of the grandsons of Hercules. If the
+demand is repeated, they readily procure some trusty sycophant to
+maintain a charge of poison or magic against the insolent creditor, who
+is seldom released from prison until he has signed a discharge of the
+whole debt. And these vices are mixed with a puerile superstition which
+disgraces their understanding. They listen with confidence to the
+productions of haruspices, who pretend to read in the entrails of
+victims the signs of future greatness and prosperity; and this
+superstition is observed among those very sceptics who impiously deny or
+doubt the existence of a celestial power.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Such, in the latter days of the empire, was the leading class at Rome,
+and probably also in the cities which aped the fashions of the capital.
+Frivolity and luxury loosened all the ties of society. They were bound
+up in themselves, and had no care for the people except as they might
+extract more money from them.</p>
+
+<p>As for the miserable class whom the patricians oppressed, their
+condition became worse every day from the accession of the Emperors. The
+plebeians had ever disdained those arts which now occupied the middle
+classes; these were intrusted to slaves. Originally, they employed
+themselves upon the lands which had been obtained by conquest; but these
+lands were gradually absorbed or usurped by the large proprietors. The
+small farmers, oppressed with debt and usury, parted with their lands to
+their wealthy creditors. Even in the time of Cicero, it was computed
+that there were only about two thousand citizens possessed of
+independent property. These two thousand persons owned the world; the
+rest were dependent and powerless, and would have perished but for
+largesses. Monthly distributions of corn were converted into daily
+allowance for bread. The people were amused with games and festivals,
+fed like slaves, and of course lost at last even the semblance of
+manliness and independence. They loitered in the public streets, and
+dissipated in gaming their miserable pittance; they spent the hours of
+the night in the lowest resorts of crime and misery; they expired in
+wretched apartments without attracting the attention of government;
+pestilence, famine, and squalid misery thinned their ranks, and they
+would have been annihilated but for constant accession to their numbers
+from the provinces.</p>
+
+<p>In the busy streets of Rome might be seen adventurers from all parts of
+the world, disgraced by all the various vices of their respective
+countries. They had no education, and but small religious advantages;
+they were held in terror by both priests and nobles,--the priest
+terrifying them with Egyptian sorceries, the nobles crushing them by
+iron weight; like lazzaroni, they lived in the streets, or were crowded
+into filthy tenements; a gladiatorial show delighted them, but the
+circus was their peculiar joy,--here they sought to drown the
+consciousness of their squalid degradation; they were sold into slavery
+for trifling debts; they had no homes. The poor man had no ambition or
+hope; his wife was a slave; his children were precocious demons, whose
+prattle was the cry for bread, whose laughter was the howl of
+pandemonium, whose sports were the tricks of premature iniquity, whose
+beauty was the squalor of disease and filth; he fled from a wife in whom
+he had no trust, from children in whom he had no hope, from brothers for
+whom he felt no sympathy, from parents for whom he felt no reverence;
+the circus was his home, the fights of wild beasts were his consolation;
+the future was a blank, death was the release from suffering. There were
+no hospitals for the sick and the old, except one on an island in the
+Tiber; the old and helpless were left to die, unpitied and unconsoled.
+Suicide was so common that it attracted no attention.</p>
+
+<p>Superstition culminated at Rome, for there were seen the priests and
+devotees of all the countries that it governed,--&quot;the dark-skinned
+daughters of Isis, with drum and timbrel and wanton mien; devotees of
+the Persian Mithras; emasculated Asiatics; priests of Cybele, with their
+wild dances and discordant cries; worshippers of the great goddess
+Diana; barbarian captives with the rites of Teuton priests; Syrians,
+Jews, Chaldaean astrologers, and Thessalian sorcerers.... The crowds
+which flocked to Rome from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean
+brought with them practices extremely demoralizing. The awful rites of
+initiation, the tricks of magicians, the pretended virtues of amulets
+and charms, the riddles of emblematical idolatry with which the
+superstition of the East abounded, amused the languid voluptuaries who
+had neither the energy for a moral belief nor the boldness requisite for
+logical scepticism.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We cannot pass by, in this enumeration of the different classes of Roman
+society, the number and condition of slaves. A large part of the
+population belonged to this servile class. Originally brought in by
+foreign conquest, it was increased by those who could not pay their
+debts. The single campaign of Regulus introduced as many captives as
+made up a fifth part of the whole population. Four hundred were
+maintained in a single palace, at a comparatively early period; a
+freedman in the time of Augustus left behind him forty-one hundred and
+sixteen; Horace regarded two hundred as the suitable establishment for a
+gentleman; some senators owned twenty thousand. Gibbon estimates the
+number of slaves at about sixty millions,--one-half of the whole
+population. One hundred thousand captives were taken in the Jewish war,
+who were sold as slaves, and sold as cheap as horses. William Blair
+supposes that there were three slaves to one freeman, from the conquest
+of Greece to the reign of Alexander Severus. Slaves often cost two
+hundred thousand sesterces, yet everybody was eager to possess a slave.
+At one time the slave's life was at the absolute control of his master;
+he could be treated at all times with brutal severity. Fettered and
+branded, he toiled to cultivate the lands of an imperious master, and at
+night was shut up in a subterranean cell. The laws hardly recognized his
+claim to be considered a moral agent,--he was <i>secundum hominum genus</i>;
+he could acquire no rights, social or political,--he was incapable of
+inheriting property, or making a will, or contracting a legal marriage;
+his value was estimated like that of a brute; he was a thing and not a
+person, &quot;a piece of furniture possessed of life;&quot; he was his master's
+property, to be scourged, or tortured, or crucified. If a wealthy
+proprietor died under circumstances which excited suspicion of foul
+play, his whole household was put to torture. It is recorded that on the
+murder of a man of consular dignity by a slave, every slave in his
+possession was condemned to death. Slaves swelled the useless rabbles of
+the cities, and devoured the revenues of the State. All manual labor
+was done by slaves, in towns as well as the country; they were used in
+the navy to propel the galleys. Even the mechanical arts were cultivated
+by the slaves. Nay more, slaves were schoolmasters, secretaries, actors,
+musicians, and physicians, for in intelligence they were often on an
+equality with their masters. Slaves were procured from Greece and Asia
+Minor and Syria, as well as from Gaul and the African deserts; they were
+white as well as black. All captives in war were made slaves, also
+unfortunate debtors; sometimes they could regain their freedom, but
+generally their condition became more and more deplorable. What a state
+of society when a refined and cultivated Greek could be made to obey the
+most offensive orders of a capricious and sensual Roman, without
+remuneration, without thanks, without favor, without redress! What was
+to be expected of a class who had no object to live for? They became the
+most degraded of mortals, ready for pillage, and justly to be feared in
+the hour of danger.</p>
+
+<p>Slavery undoubtedly proved the most destructive canker of the Roman
+State. It was this social evil, more than political misrule, which
+undermined the empire. Slavery proved at Rome a monstrous curse,
+destroying all manliness of character, creating contempt of honest
+labor, making men timorous yet cruel, idle, frivolous, weak, dependent,
+powerless. The empire might have lasted centuries longer but for this
+incubus, the standing disgrace of the Pagan world. Paganism never
+recognized what is most noble and glorious in man; never recognized his
+equality, his common brotherhood, his natural rights. It had no
+compunction, no remorse in depriving human beings of their highest
+privileges; its whole tendency was to degrade the soul, and to cause
+forgetfulness of immortality. Slavery thrives best when the generous
+instincts are suppressed, when egotism, sensuality, and pride are the
+dominant springs of human action.</p>
+
+<p>The same influences which tended to rob man of the rights which God has
+given him, and produce cruelty and heartlessness in the general
+intercourse of life, also tended to degrade the female sex. In the
+earlier age of the republic, when the people were poor, and life was
+simple and primitive, and heroism and patriotism were characteristic,
+woman was comparatively virtuous and respected; she asserted her natural
+equality, and led a life of domestic tranquillity, employed upon the
+training of her children, and inspiring her husband to noble deeds. But
+under the Emperors these virtues had fled. Woman was miserably educated,
+being taught by a slave, or some Greek chambermaid, accustomed to ribald
+conversation, and fed with idle tales and silly superstitions; she was
+regarded as more vicious in natural inclination than man, and was
+chiefly valued for household labors; she was reduced to dependence; she
+saw but little of her brothers or relatives; she was confined to her
+home as if it were a prison; she was guarded by eunuchs and female
+slaves; she was given in marriage without her consent; she could be
+easily divorced; she was valued only as a domestic servant, or as an
+animal to prevent the extinction of families; she was regarded as the
+inferior of her husband, to whom she was a victim, a toy, or a slave.
+Love after marriage was not frequent, since woman did not shine in the
+virtues by which love is kept alive. She became timorous or frivolous,
+without dignity or public esteem; her happiness was in extravagant
+attire, in elaborate hair-dressings, in rings and bracelets, in a
+retinue of servants, in gilded apartments, in luxurious couches, in
+voluptuous dances, in exciting banquets, in demoralizing spectacles, in
+frivolous gossip, in inglorious idleness. If virtuous, it was not so
+much from principle as from fear. Hence she resorted to all sorts of
+arts to deceive her husband; her genius was sharpened by perpetual
+devices, and cunning was her great resource. She cultivated no lofty
+friendships; she engaged in no philanthropic mission; she cherished no
+ennobling sentiments; she kindled no chivalrous admiration. Her
+amusements were frivolous, her taste vitiated, her education neglected,
+her rights violated, her sympathy despised, her aspirations scorned.
+And here I do not allude to great and infamous examples that history has
+handed down in the sober pages of Suetonius and Tacitus, or that
+unblushing depravity which stands out in the bitter satires of those
+times; I speak not of the adultery, the poisoning, the infanticide, the
+debauchery, the cruelty of which history accuses the Messalinas and
+Agrippinas of imperial Rome; I allude not to the orgies of the Palatine
+Hill, or the abominations which are inferred from the paintings of
+Pompeii,--I mean the general frivolity and extravagance and
+demoralization of the women of the Roman empire. Marriage was considered
+inexpedient unless large dowries were brought to the husband. Numerous
+were the efforts of Emperors to promote honorable marriages, but the
+relation was shunned. Courtesans usurped the privileges of wives, and
+with unblushing effrontery. A man was derided who contemplated
+matrimony, for there was but little confidence in female virtue or
+capacity, and woman lost all her fascination when age had destroyed her
+beauty; even her very virtues were distasteful to her self-indulgent
+husband. When, as sometimes happened, the wife gained the ascendency by
+her charms, she was tyrannical; her relatives incited her to despoil her
+husband; she lived amid incessant broils; she had no care for the
+future, and exceeded man in prodigality. &quot;The government of her house is
+no more merciful,&quot; says Juvenal, &quot;than the court of a Sicilian tyrant.&quot;
+In order to render herself attractive, she exhausted all the arts of
+cosmetics and elaborate hair-dressing; she delighted in magical
+incantations and love-potions. In the bitter satire of Juvenal we get an
+impression most melancholy and loathsome:--</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;'T were long to tell what philters they provide,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;What drugs to set a son-in-law aside,--<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Women, in judgment weak, in feeling strong,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;By every gust of passion borne along.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To a fond spouse a wife no mercy shows;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Though warmed with equal fires, she mocks his woes,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And triumphs in his spoils; her wayward will<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Defeats his bliss and turns his good to ill.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Women support the bar; they love the law,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And raise litigious questions for a straw.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Nay, more, they fence! who has not marked their oil,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Their purple rigs, for this preposterous toil!<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A woman stops at nothing; when she wears<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Rich emeralds round her neck, and in her ears<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Pearls of enormous size,--these justify<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Her faults, and make all lawful in her eye.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;More shame to Rome! in every street are found<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The essenced Lypanti, with roses crowned;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The gay Miletan and the Tarentine,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Lewd, petulant, and reeling ripe with wine!&quot;<br>
+
+<p>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 class, 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
+mass 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 institution. 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. &quot;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.&quot;
+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. Titus 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! &quot;The Christians to the lions!&quot; was the cry of the
+brutal populace. What a sight was the old amphitheatre of Titus, 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.</p>
+
+<p>Probably no people abandoned themselves to pleasures more universally
+than the Romans, after war had ceased to be their master passion. All
+classes alike pursued them with restless eagerness. Amusements 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 Titus, 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 passion for gambling in every
+shape, we can form some idea of the effect of these amusements on the
+common mind,--destroying the taste for home pleasures, and for all that
+was intellectual and simple.</p>
+
+<p>What are we to think of a state of society where all classes 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 classes 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 appetite; 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 Titus, Caracalla, and
+Diocletian in Rome show that they were decorated with prodigal
+magnificence, and with everything that could excite the
+passions,--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.</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;Balnea, vina, Venus corrumpunt corpora nostra.&quot;<br>
+
+<p>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 factitious 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 godless 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
+accumulation 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
+pass 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 <i>had</i>, rather than for what he <i>was</i>; 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
+certitudes of love, esteem, and friendship, which, &quot;be they what they
+may, are yet the fountain-life of all our day,&quot;--but for the
+gratification of depraved and expensive tastes, of those short-lived
+enjoyments which ended with the decay of appetite and the <i>ennui</i> of
+realized expectation,--all of the earth, earthy; making a wreck of the
+divine image which was made for God 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.</p>
+
+<p>The fourteenth satire of Juvenal is directed mainly to the universal
+passion for gain and the demoralizing vices it brings in its train,
+which made Rome a Vanity Fair and even a Pandemonium.</p>
+
+<p>The old Greek philosophers gloried in their poverty; but poverty was the
+greatest reproach to a Roman. &quot;In exact proportion to the sum of money a
+man keeps in his chest,&quot; says Juvenal, &quot;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?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 passion
+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 passed away. The
+barbarians were advancing to conquer and desolate; there was no power to
+resist them but enervated and timid legions, with the accumulated 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 accumulation 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 nobler
+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: &quot;O haughty Rome, the divine chastisement
+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 gods shall save
+thee? For there shall be confusion over the face of the whole earth, and
+the fall of cities shall come.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>AUTHORITIES.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>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. Ammianus 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.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<hr class="full">
+<pre>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Beacon Lights of History, Volume III, by John
+Lord
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Beacon Lights of History, Volume III
+
+Author: John Lord
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2003  [eBook #10484]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME
+III***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+LORD'S LECTURES
+
+BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME III
+
+ANCIENT ACHIEVEMENTS.
+
+BY JOHN LORD, LL.D.,
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE OLD ROMAN WORLD," "MODERN EUROPE,"
+ETC., ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+GOVERNMENTS AND LAWS.
+
+GREEK AND ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.
+
+Governments and laws
+Oriental laws
+Priestly jurisprudence
+The laws of Lycurgus
+The laws of Solon
+Cleisthenes
+The Ecclesia at Athens
+Struggle between patricians and plebeians at Rome
+Tribunes of the people
+Roman citizens
+The Roman senate
+The Roman constitution
+Imperial power
+The Twelve Tables
+Roman lawyers
+Jurisprudence under emperors
+Labeo
+Capito
+Gaius
+Paulus
+Ulpian
+Justinian
+Tribonian
+Code, Pandects, and Institutes
+Roman citizenship
+Laws pertaining to marriage
+Extent of paternal power
+Transfer of property
+Contracts
+The courts
+Crimes
+Fines
+Penal statutes
+Personal rights
+Slavery
+Security of property
+Authorities
+
+
+THE FINE ARTS.
+
+ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, PAINTING.
+
+Early architecture
+Egyptian monuments
+The Temple of Karnak
+The pyramids
+Babylonian architecture
+Indian architecture
+Greek architecture
+The Doric order
+The Parthenon
+The Ionic order
+The Corinthian order
+Roman architecture
+The arch
+Vitruvius
+Greek sculpture
+Phidias
+Statue of Zeus
+Praxiteles
+Scopas
+Lysippus
+Roman sculpture
+Greek painters
+Polygnotus
+Apollodorus
+Zeuxis
+Parrhasius
+Apelles
+The decline of art
+Authorities
+
+
+ANCIENT SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.
+
+ASTRONOMY, GEOGRAPHY, ETC.
+
+Ancient astronomy
+Chaldaean astronomers
+Egyptian astronomy
+The Greek astronomers
+Thales
+Anaximenes
+Aristarchus
+Archimedes
+Hipparchus
+Ptolemy
+The Roman astronomers
+Geometry
+Euclid
+Empirical science
+Hippocrates
+Galen
+Physical science
+Geography
+Pliny
+Eratosthenes
+Authorities
+
+
+MATERIAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS.
+
+MECHANICAL AND USEFUL ARTS.
+
+Mechanical arts
+Material life in Egypt
+Domestic utensils
+Houses and furniture
+Entertainments
+Glass manufacture
+Linen fabrics
+Paper manufacture
+Leather and tanners
+Carpenters and boat-builders
+Agriculture
+Field sports
+Ornaments of dress
+Greek arts
+Roman luxuries
+Material wonders
+Great cities
+Commerce
+Roman roads
+Ancient Rome
+Architectural wonders
+Roman monuments
+Roman spectacles
+Gladiatorial shows
+Roman triumphs
+Authorities
+
+
+THE MILITARY ART.
+
+WEAPONS, ENGINES, DISCIPLINE.
+
+The tendency to violence and war
+Early wars
+Progress in the art of war
+Sesostris
+Egyptian armies
+Military weapons
+Chariots of war
+Persian armies, Cyrus
+Greek warfare
+Spartan phalanx
+Alexander the Great
+Roman armies
+Hardships of Roman soldiers
+Military discipline
+The Roman legion
+Importance of the infantry
+The cavalry
+Military engines
+Ancient fortifications
+Military officers
+The praetorian cohort
+Roman camps
+Consolidation of Roman power
+Authorities
+
+
+CICERO.
+
+ROMAN LITERATURE.
+
+Condition of Roman society when Cicero was born
+His education and precocity
+He adopts the profession of the law
+His popularity as an orator
+Elected Quaestor; his Aedileship
+Prosecution of Verres
+His letters to Atticus; his vanity
+His Praetorship; declines a province
+His Consulship; conspiracy of Catiline
+Banishment of Cicero: his weakness; his recall
+His law practice; his eloquence
+His provincial government
+His return to Rome
+His fears in view of the rivalry between Caesar and Pompey
+Sides with Pompey
+Death of Tullia and divorce of Terentia
+Second marriage of Cicero
+Literary labors: his philosophical writings
+His detestation of Imperialism
+His philippics against Antony
+His proscription, flight, and death
+His great services
+Character of his eloquence
+His artistic excellence of style
+His learning and attainments; his character
+His immortal legacy
+Authorities
+
+
+CLEOPATRA.
+
+THE WOMAN OF PAGANISM.
+
+Why Cleopatra represents the woman of Paganism
+Glory of Ancient Rome
+Paganism recognizes the body rather than the soul
+Ancestors of Cleopatra
+The wonders of Alexandria
+Cleopatra of Greek origin
+The mysteries of Ancient Egypt
+Early beauty and accomplishments of Cleopatra
+Her attractions to Caesar
+Her residence in Rome
+Her first acquaintance with Antony
+The style of her beauty
+Her character
+Character of Antony
+Antony and Cleopatra in Cilicia
+Magnificence of Cleopatra
+Infatuation of Antony
+Motives of Cleopatra
+Antony's gifts to Cleopatra
+Indignation of the Romans
+Antony gives up his Parthian expedition
+Returns to Alexandria
+Contest with Octavius
+Battle of Actium
+Wisdom of Octavius
+Death of Antony
+Subsequent conduct of Cleopatra
+Nature of her love for Antony
+Immense sacrifices of Antony
+Tragic fate of Cleopatra
+Frequency of suicide at Rome
+Immorality no bar to social position in Greece and Rome
+Dulness of home in Pagan antiquity
+Drudgeries of women
+Influence of women on men
+Paganism never recognized the equality of women with men
+It denied to them education
+Consequent degradation of women
+Paganism without religious consolation
+Did not recognize the value of the soul
+And thus took no cognizance of the higher aspirations of man
+The revenge of woman under degradation
+Women, under Paganism, took no interest in what elevates society
+Men, therefore, fled to public amusements
+No true society under Paganism
+Society only created by Christianity
+
+
+PAGAN SOCIETY.
+
+GLORY AND SHAME.
+
+Glories of the ancient civilization
+A splendid external deception
+Moral evils
+Imperial despotism
+Prostration of liberties
+Some good emperors
+Disproportionate fortunes
+Luxurious living
+General extravagance
+Pride and insolence of the aristocracy
+Gibbon's description of the nobles
+The plebeian class
+Hopelessness and disgrace of poverty
+Popular superstitions
+The slaves
+The curse of slavery
+Degradation of the female sex
+Bitter satires of Juvenal
+Games and festivals
+Gladiatorial shows
+General abandonment to pleasure
+The baths
+General craze for money-making
+Universal corruption
+Saint Paul's estimate of Roman vices
+Decline and ruin a logical necessity
+The Sibylline prophecy
+Authorities
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+VOLUME III.
+
+Cleopatra Tests the Poison which She Intends for Her
+Own Destruction on Her Slaves.... _Frontispiece_
+_After the painting by Alexander Cabanel_.
+
+Justinian Orders the Compilation of the Pandects
+_After the painting by Benjamin Constant_.
+
+The Temple of Karnak
+_After a photograph_.
+
+The Laocooen
+_After the photograph from the statue in the Vatican, Rome_.
+
+The Death of Archimedes
+_After the painting by E. Vimont_.
+
+Race of Roman Chariots
+_After the painting by V. Checa_.
+
+Sale of Slaves in a Roman Camp
+_After the painting by R. Coghe_.
+
+Marcus Tullius Cicero
+_From the bust in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence_.
+
+Cleopatra Obtains an Interview with Caesar
+_After the painting by J.L. Gerome_.
+
+Death of Cleopatra
+_After the painting by John Collier_.
+
+A Roman Bacchanal
+_After the painting by W. Kotarbinski_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+GOVERNMENTS AND LAWS.
+
+
+GREEK AND ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.
+
+624 B.C.-550 A.D.
+
+
+There is not much in ancient governments and laws to interest us, except
+such as were in harmony with natural justice, and were designed for the
+welfare of all classes in the State. A jurisprudence founded on the
+edicts of absolute kings, or on the regulations of a priestly caste, is
+necessarily partial, and may be unenlightened. But those laws which are
+gradually enacted for the interests of the whole body of the
+people,--for the rich and poor, the powerful and feeble alike,--have
+generally been the result of great and diverse experiences, running
+through centuries, the work of wise men under constitutional forms of
+government. The jurisprudence of nations based on equity is a growth or
+development according to public wants and necessities, especially in
+countries having popular liberty and rights, as in England and the
+United States.
+
+We do not find in the history of ancient nations such a jurisprudence,
+except in the free States of Greece and among the Romans, who had a
+natural genius or aptitude for government, and where the people had a
+powerful influence in legislation, until even the name of liberty was
+not invoked.
+
+Among the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians the only laws were the
+edicts of kings or the regulations of priests, mostly made with a view
+of cementing their own power, except those that were dictated by
+benevolence or the pressing needs of the people, who were ground down
+and oppressed, and protected only as slaves were once protected in the
+Southern States of America. Wise and good monarchs doubtless issued
+decrees for the benefit of all classes, such as conscience or knowledge
+dictated, whenever they felt their great responsibilities, as in some of
+the absolute monarchies of Europe; but they never issued their decrees
+at the suggestions or demands of those classes for whom the laws were
+made. The voice of the people was ignored, except so far as it moved the
+pity or appealed to the hearts and consciences of their rulers; the
+people had, and claimed, no _rights_. The only men to whom rulers
+listened, or by whom they were controlled, were those whom they chose as
+counsellors and ministers, who were supposed to advise with a view to
+the sovereign's benefit, and that of the empire generally.
+
+The same may be said in general of other Oriental monarchies,
+especially when embarked in aggressive wars, where the will of the
+monarch was supreme and unresisted, as in Persia. In India and China the
+government was not so absolute, since it was checked by feudatory
+princes, almost independent like the feudal barons and dukes of
+mediaeval Europe.
+
+Nor was there probably among Oriental nations any elaborate codification
+of the decrees and laws as in Greece and Rome, except by the priests for
+their ritual service, like that which marked the jurisprudence of the
+Israelites. There were laws against murder, theft, adultery, and other
+offences, since society cannot exist anywhere without such laws; but
+there was no complicated jurisprudence produced by the friction of
+competing classes striving for justice and right, or even for the
+interests of contending parties. We do not look to Egypt or to China for
+wise punishment of ordinary crimes; but we do look to Greece and Rome,
+and to Rome especially, for a legislation which shall balance the
+complicated relations of society on principles of enlightened reason.
+Moreover, those great popular rights which we now most zealously defend
+have generally been extorted in the strife of classes and parties,
+sometimes from kings, and sometimes from princes and nobles. Where there
+has been no opposition to absolutism these rights have not been secured;
+but whenever and wherever the people have been a power they have
+imperiously made their wants known, and so far as they have been
+reasonable they have been finally secured,--perhaps after angry
+expostulations and, disputations.
+
+Now, it is this kind of legislation which is remarkable in the history
+of Greece and Rome, secured by a combination of the people against the
+ruling classes in the interests of justice and the common welfare, and
+finally endorsed and upheld even by monarchs themselves. It is from this
+legislation that modern nations have learned wisdom; for a permanent law
+in a free country may be the result of a hundred years of discussion or
+contention,--a compromise of parties, a lesson in human experience. As
+the laws of Greece and Rome alone among the ancients are rich in moral
+wisdom and adapted more or less to all nations and ages in the struggle
+for equal rights and wise social regulations, I shall confine myself to
+them. Besides, I aim not to give useless and curious details, but to
+show how far in general the enlightened nations of antiquity made
+attainments in those things which we call civilization, and particularly
+in that great department which concerns so nearly all human
+interests,--that of the regulation of mutual social relations; and this
+by modes and with results which have had their direct influence upon our
+modern times.
+
+When we consider the native genius of the Greeks, and their marvellous
+achievements in philosophy, literature, and art, we are surprised that
+they were so inferior to the Romans in jurisprudence,--although in the
+early days of the Roman republic a deputation of citizens was sent to
+Athens to study the laws of Solon. But neither nations nor individuals
+are great in everything. Before Solon lived, Lycurgus had given laws to
+the Spartans. This lawgiver, one of the descendants of Hercules, was
+born, according to Grote, about eight hundred and eighty years before
+Christ, and was the uncle of the reigning king. There is, however, no
+certainty as to the time when he lived; it was probably about the period
+when Carthage was founded by the Phoenicians. He instituted the Spartan
+senate, and gave an aristocratic form to the constitution. But the
+senate, composed of about thirty old men who acted in conjunction with
+the two kings, did not differ materially from the council of chiefs, or
+old men, found in other ancient Grecian States; the Spartan chiefs
+simply modified or curtailed the power of the kings. In the course of
+time the senate, with the kings included in it, became the governing
+body of the State, and this oligarchical form of government lasted
+several hundred years. We know but little of the especial laws given by
+Lycurgus. We know the distinctions of society,--citizens and helots,
+and their mutual relations,--the distribution of lands to check luxury,
+the public men, the public training of youth, the severe discipline to
+which all were subjected, the cruelty exercised towards slaves, the
+attention given to gymnastic exercises and athletic sports,--in short,
+the habits and customs of the people rather than any regular system of
+jurisprudence. Lycurgus was the trainer of a military brotherhood rather
+than a law-giver. Under his regime the citizen belonged to the State
+rather than to his family, and all the ends of the State were warlike
+rather than peaceful,--not looking to the settlement of quarrels on
+principles of equity, or a development of industrial interests, which
+are the great aims of modern legislation.
+
+The influence of the Athenian Solon on the laws which affected
+individuals is more apparent than that of the Spartan Lycurgus, the
+earliest of the Grecian legislators. But Solon had a predecessor in
+Athens itself,--Draco, who in 624 was appointed to reduce to writing the
+arbitrary decisions of the archons, thus giving a form of permanent law
+and a basis for a court of appeal. Draco's laws were extraordinarily
+severe, punishing small thefts and even laziness with death. The
+formulation of any system of justice would have, as Draco's did, a
+beneficial influence on the growth of the State; but the severity of
+these bloody laws caused them to be hated and in practice neglected,
+until Solon arose. Solon was born in Athens about 638 B.C., and
+belonged to the noblest family of the State. He was contemporary with
+Pisistratus and Thales. His father having lost his property, Solon
+applied himself to merchandise,--always a respectable calling in a
+mercantile city. He first became known as a writer of love poems; then
+came into prominence as a successful military commander of volunteer
+forces in a disastrous war; and at last he gained the confidence of his
+countrymen so completely that in a period of anarchy, distress, and
+mutiny,--the poor being so grievously oppressed by the rich that a sixth
+part of the produce of land went to the landlord,--he was chosen archon,
+with authority to revise the laws, and might have made himself king. He
+abolished the custom of selling the body of a debtor for debt, and even
+annulled debts in a state of general distress,--which did not please the
+rich, nor even the poor, since they desired a redivision of lands such
+as Lycurgus had made in Sparta. He repealed the severe laws of Draco,
+which inflicted capital punishment for so many small offences, retaining
+the extreme penalty only for murder and treason. In order further to
+promote the interests of the people, he empowered any man whatever to
+enter an action for one that was injured. He left the great offices of
+state, however, in the hands of the rich, giving the people a share in
+those which were not so important. He re-established the council of the
+Areopagus, composed of those who had been archons, and nine were
+appointed annually for the general guardianship of the laws; but he
+instituted another court or senate of four hundred citizens, for the
+cognizance of all matters before they were submitted to the higher
+court. Although the poorest and most numerous class were not eligible
+for office, they had the right of suffrage, and could vote for the
+principal officers. It would at first seem that the legislation of Solon
+gave especial privileges to the rich, but it is generally understood
+that he was the founder of the democracy of Athens. He gave the
+Athenians, not the best possible code, but the best they were capable of
+receiving. He intended to give to the people as much power as was
+strictly needed, and no more; but in a free State the people continually
+encroach on the privileges of the rich, and thus gradually the chief
+power falls into their hands.
+
+Whatever the power which Solon gave to the people, and however great
+their subsequent encroachments, it cannot be doubted that he was the
+first to lay the foundations of constitutional government,--that is, one
+in which the people took part in legislation and in the election of
+rulers. The greatest benefit which he conferred on the State was in the
+laws which gave relief to poor debtors, those which enabled people to
+protect themselves by constitutional means, and those which prohibited
+fathers from selling their daughters and sisters for slaves,--an
+abomination which had long disgraced the Athenian republic.
+
+Some of Solon's laws were of questionable utility. He prohibited the
+exportation of the fruits of the soil in Attica, with the exception of
+olive-oil alone,--a regulation difficult to be enforced in a mercantile
+State. Neither would he grant citizenship to immigrants; and he released
+sons from supporting their parents in old age if the parents had
+neglected to give them a trade. He encouraged all developments of
+national industries, knowing that the wealth of the State depended on
+them. Solon was the first Athenian legislator who granted the power of
+testamentary bequests when a man had no legitimate children. Sons
+succeeded to the property of their parents, with the obligation of
+giving a marriage dowry to their sisters. If there were no sons, the
+daughters inherited the property of their parents; but a person who had
+no children could bequeath his property to whom he pleased. Solon
+prohibited costly sacrifices at funerals; he forbade evil-speaking of
+the dead, and indeed of all persons before judges and archons; he
+pronounced a man infamous who took part in a sedition.
+
+When this enlightened and disinterested man had finished his work of
+legislation, 494 B.C., he visited Egypt and Cyprus, and devoted his
+leisure to the composition of poems. He also, it is said, when a
+prisoner in the hands of the Persians, visited Croesus, the rich king of
+Lydia, and gave to him an admonitory lesson on the vicissitudes of life.
+After a prolonged absence, Solon returned to Athens about the time of
+the usurpation of his kinsman Peisistratus (560 B.C.), who, however,
+suffered the aged legislator and patriot to go unharmed, and even
+allowed most of his laws to remain in force.
+
+The constitution and laws of Athens continued substantially for about a
+hundred years after the archonship of Solon, when the democratic party
+under Cleisthenes gained complete ascendency. Some modification of the
+laws was then made. The political franchise was extended to all free
+native Athenians. The command of the military forces was given to ten
+generals, one from each tribe, instead of being intrusted to one of the
+archons. The Ecclesia, a formal assembly of the citizens, met more
+frequently. The people were called into direct action as _dikasts_, or
+jurors; all citizens were eligible to the magistracy, even to the
+archonship; ostracism,--which virtually was exile without
+disgrace,--became a political necessity to check the ascendency of
+demagogues.
+
+Such were the main features of the constitution and jurisprudence of
+Athens when the struggle between the patricians and plebeians of Rome
+began, to which we now give our attention. It was the real beginning of
+constitutional liberty in Rome. Before this time the government was in
+the hands either of kings or aristocrats. The patricians were
+descendants of the original Latin, Sabine, and Etruscan families; the
+plebeians were the throng of common folk brought in by conquest or later
+immigration,--mostly of Latin origin. The senate was the ruling power
+after the expulsion of the kings, and senators were selected from the
+great patrician families, who controlled by their wealth and influence
+the popular elections, the army and navy, and all foreign relations.
+Consuls, the highest magistrates, who commanded the armies, were
+annually elected by the people; but for several centuries the consuls
+belonged to great families. The constitution was essentially
+aristocratic, and the aristocracy was based on wealth. Power was in the
+hands of nobles, whether their ancestors were patricians or plebeians,
+although in the early ages of the Republic they were mostly patricians
+by birth. But with the growth of Rome new families that were not
+descended from the ancient tribes became prominent,--like the Claudii,
+the Julii, and the Servilii,--and were incorporated with the nobility.
+There are very few names in Roman history before the time of Marius
+which did not belong to this noble class. The _plebs_, or common people,
+had at first no political privileges whatever, not even the right of
+suffrage, and were not allowed to marry into patrician rank. Indeed,
+they were politically and socially oppressed.
+
+The first great event which gave the plebs protection and political
+importance was the appointment of representatives called "tribunes of
+the people,"--a privilege extorted from the patricians. The tribunes had
+the right to be present at the deliberations of the senate; their
+persons were inviolable, and they had the power of veto over obnoxious
+laws. Their power continually increased, until they were finally elected
+from the senatorial body. In 421 B.C. the plebs had gained sufficient
+influence to establish the _connubium_, by which they were allowed to
+intermarry with patricians. In the same year they were admitted to the
+quaestorship, which office entitled the possessor to a seat in the
+senate. The quaestors had charge of the public money. In 336 B.C. the
+plebeians obtained the praetorship, a judicial office.
+
+In the year 286 B.C. the distinctions vanished between plebeians and
+patricians, and the term _populus_ instead of _plebs_, was applied to
+all Roman people alike. Originally the _populus_ comprised strictly
+Roman citizens, those who belonged to the original tribes, and who had
+the right of suffrage. When the plebeians obtained access to the great
+offices of the state, the senate represented the whole people as it
+formerly represented the _populus_, and the term _populus_ was enlarged
+to embrace the entire community.
+
+The senate was an august body, and was very powerful. It was both
+judicial and legislative, and for several centuries was composed of
+patricians alone. Its members always belonged to the aristocracy,
+whether of patrician or plebeian descent, and were supposed to be rich.
+Under Augustus it required one million two hundred thousand sesterces
+annually to support the senatorial dignity. The senate, the members of
+which were chosen for life, had the superintendence of matters of
+religion and foreign relations; it commanded the levies of troops; it
+regulated duties and taxes; it gave audience to ambassadors; it
+determined upon the way that war should be conducted; it decreed to what
+provinces governors should be sent; it declared martial law in the
+appointment of dictators; and it decreed triumphs to fortunate generals.
+The senators, as a badge of distinction, wore upon their tunics a broad
+purple stripe, and they had the privilege of the best seats in the
+theatres. Their decisions were laws _(leges)._ A large part of them had
+held curule offices, which entitled them to a seat in the senate for
+life. The curule officers were the consuls, the praetors, the aediles,
+the quaestors, the tribunes; so that an able senator was sure of a great
+office in the course of his life. A man could scarcely be a senator
+unless he had held a great office, nor could he often have held a great
+office unless he were a senator. Thus it would seem that the Roman
+constitution for three hundred years after the expulsion of the kings
+was essentially aristocratic. The _plebs_ had but small consideration
+till the time of the Gracchi.
+
+But after the institution of tribunes a change in the constitution
+gradually took place, so that it was neither aristocratic nor popular
+exclusively, but was composed of both elements, and was a system of
+balance of power between the various classes. The more complete the
+balance of power, the closer is the resemblance to a constitutional
+government. When one class acted as a check against another class, as
+gradually came to pass, until the subversion of liberties by successful
+generals, the senate, the magistrates, and the people in their
+assemblies shared between them the political power, but the senate had a
+preponderating influence. The judicial, the legislative, and the
+executive authority was as well defined in Roman legislation as it is in
+English or American. No person was above the authority of the laws; no
+one class could subvert the liberties and prerogatives of another
+class,--even the senate could not override the constitution. The
+consuls, elected by the centuries, presided over the senate and over the
+assemblies of the people. There was no absolute power exercised at Rome
+until the subversion of the constitution, except by dictators chosen by
+the senate in times of imminent danger. Nor could senators elect members
+of their own body; the censors alone had the right of electing from the
+ex-magistrates, and of excluding such as were unworthy. The consuls
+could remain in office but a year, and could be called to account when
+their terms of office had expired. The tribunes of the people ultimately
+could prevent a consul from convening the senate, could seize a consul
+and imprison him, and could veto an ordinance of the senate itself. The
+nobles had no exclusive privilege like the feudal aristocracy of
+mediaeval Europe, although it was their aim to secure the high
+magistracies to the members of their own body. The term _nobilitas_
+implied that some one of a man's ancestors had filled a curule
+magistracy. A patrician, long before the reforms of the Gracchi, had
+become a man of secondary importance, but the nobles were aristocrats to
+the close of the republic, and continued to secure the highest offices;
+they prevented their own extinction by admitting into their ranks those
+who distinguished themselves,--that is, exercising their influence in
+the popular elections to secure the magistracies from among themselves.
+
+The Roman constitution then, as gradually developed by the necessities
+and crises that arose, which I have not space to mention, was a
+wonderful monument of human wisdom. The nobility were very powerful from
+their wealth and influence, but the people were not ground down. There
+were no oppressive laws to reduce them to practical slavery; what rights
+they gained they retained. They constantly extorted new privileges,
+until they were sufficiently powerful to be courted by demagogues. It
+was the demagogues, generally aristocratic ones, like Catiline and
+Caesar, who subverted the liberties of the people by buying votes. But
+for nearly five hundred years not a man arose whom the Roman people
+feared, and the proud symbol "SPQR," on the standards of the armies of
+the republic, bore the name of the Roman Senate and People to the ends
+of the earth.
+
+When, however, the senate came to be made up of men whom the great
+generals selected; when the tribunes played into the hands of the very
+men they were created to oppose; when the high-priest of a people,
+originally religious, was chosen politically and without regard to moral
+or religious consideration; when aristocratic nobles left their own
+ranks to steal the few offices which the people controlled,--then the
+constitution, under which the Romans had advanced to the conquest of the
+world, became subverted, and the empire was a consolidated despotism.
+
+Under the emperors there was no constitution, since they combined in
+their own persons all the great offices of state, and controlled the
+senate, the army, the tribunals of the law, the distant provinces, the
+city itself, and regulated taxes and imposed burdens as they pleased.
+The senate lost its independence, the courts their justice, the army its
+spirit, and the people their hopes. And yet the old forms remained; the
+senate met as in the days of the Gracchi, and there were consuls and
+praetors as before.
+
+However much we may deplore the subversion of the Roman constitution and
+the absolute reign of the emperors, in which most historians see a
+political necessity, there was yet under these emperors, whether good or
+bad, the reign of law, the bequest of five hundred years' experience.
+The emperors reigned despotically, but under the forms of legislation.
+Nor did they attempt to subvert laws which did not interfere with their
+own political power. What is called jurisprudence they even improved, as
+that later imperial despot Napoleon gave a code to the nation he ruled.
+It is this science of jurisprudence, for which the Romans had a genius,
+that gives them their highest claim to be ranked among the benefactors
+of mankind. They created legal science. Its aim was justice,--equity in
+the relations between man and man. This was the pride of the Roman
+world, even under the rule of tyrants and madmen, and this has survived
+all the calamities of fifteen hundred years. The Roman laws--founded by
+the Republic, but symmetrically completed by the Empire--have more
+powerfully affected the interests of civilization than have the
+philosophy and arts of Greece. Roman jurisprudence was not perfectly
+developed until five hundred years after the Christian era, when
+Justinian consolidated it into the Code, the Pandects, and the
+Institutes. The classical jurists, like Gaius, Ulpian, and Paulus, may
+have laid the foundation, but the superstructure was raised under the
+auspices of the imperial despots.
+
+The earliest code of Roman laws was called the Twelve Tables, framed
+from the report of the commissioners sent to Athens and other Greek
+States, to collect what was most useful in their legal systems. The laws
+of the Twelve Tables were the basis of all the Roman laws, civil and
+religious. But the edicts of the praetors, who were the great equity
+judges as well as the common-law magistrates, proclaimed certain changes
+which custom and the practice of the courts had introduced; and these,
+added to the _leges populi_, or laws proposed by the consul and passed
+by the centuries, the _plebiscita_, or laws proposed by the tribunes
+and passed by the tribes, and the _senatus consulta,_ or decrees of the
+senate, gradually swelled the laws to a great number. Three thousand
+engraved plates of brass containing these various laws were deposited in
+the capitol.
+
+Subtleties and fictions were in the course of litigations introduced by
+the lawyers to defeat the written statutes, and jurisprudence became
+complicated as early as the time of Cicero. Even the opinions of eminent
+lawyers were adopted by the legal profession as authoritative, and were
+recognized by the courts. The evils of a complicated jurisprudence were
+so evident in the seventh century of the city, that Q. Mucius Scaevola,
+a great lawyer, when consul, published a scientific elaboration of the
+civil law. Cicero studied law under him, and his contemporaries, Varus
+and Aelius Gallus, wrote learned treatises, from which extracts appear
+in the Digest made under the Emperor Justinian, 528 A.D. Julius Caesar
+contemplated a complete revision of the laws, but did not live long
+enough to carry out his intentions. His legislation, so far as he
+directed his mind to it, was very just. Among other laws established by
+him was one which ordained that creditors should accept lands as payment
+for their outstanding debts, according to the value determined by
+commissioners. In his time the relative value of money had changed, and
+was greatly diminished. The most important law of Augustus, deserving of
+all praise, was that which related to the manumission of slaves; but he
+did not interfere with the social relations of the people after he had
+deprived them of political liberty. He once attempted, by his _Lex
+Julia_, to counteract the custom which then prevailed, of abstaining
+from legal marriage and substituting concubinage instead, by which the
+free population declined; but this attempt to improve the morals of the
+people met with such opposition from the tribes and centuries that the
+next emperor abolished popular assemblies altogether, which Augustus had
+feared to do. The senate in the time of the emperors, composed chiefly
+of lawyers and magistrates, and entirely dependent upon them, became the
+great fountain of law. By the original constitution the people were the
+source of power, and the senate merely gave or refused its approbation
+to the laws proposed; but under the emperors the _comitia_, or popular
+assemblies, disappeared, and the senate passed decrees which had the
+force of laws, subject to the veto of the Emperor. It was not until the
+time of Septimus Severus and Caracalla (second century A.D.) that the
+legislative action of the senate ceased, and the edicts and rescripts of
+emperors took the place of all legislation.
+
+The golden age of Roman jurisprudence was from the birth of Cicero to
+the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus, 222 A.D.; before this period
+it was an occult science, confined to praetors, pontiffs, and patrician
+lawyers. But in the latter days of the republic law became the
+fashionable study of Roman youth, and eminent masters arose. The first
+great lawyer who left behind him important works was Q. Mucius Scaevola,
+who wrote a treatise in eighteen books on the civil law. "He was," says
+Cicero, "the most eloquent of jurists and the most learned of orators."
+This work, George Long thinks, had a great influence on contemporaries
+and on subsequent jurists, who followed it as a model. It is the oldest
+work from which there are any excerpts in the Digest.
+
+Servius Sulpicius, the friend of Cicero and his fellow-student in
+oratory, surpassed his teachers Balbus and Gallus, and was the equal in
+reputation of the great Mucius Scaevola, the Pontifex Maximus, who said
+it was disgraceful for a patrician and a noble to be ignorant of the law
+with which he had to do. Cicero ascribes the great superiority of
+Servius as a lawyer to the study of philosophy, which disciplined and
+developed his mind, and enabled him to deduce his conclusions from his
+premises with logical precision. He left behind him one hundred and
+eighty treatises, and had numerous pupils, among whom A. Ofilius and
+Alfenus Varus, Cato, Julius Caesar, Antony, and Cicero were great
+lawyers. Labeo, in the time of Augustus, wrote four hundred books on
+jurisprudence, spending six months in the year in giving instruction to
+his pupils and in answering legal questions, and the other six months in
+the country in writing books. Like all the great Roman jurists, he was
+versed in literature and philosophy, and so devoted to his profession
+that he refused political office. His rival Capito was equally learned
+in all departments of the law, and left behind him as many treatises as
+Labeo. These two jurists were the founders of celebrated schools, like
+the ancient philosophers, and each had distinguished followers. Gaius,
+who flourished in the time of the Antonines, was a great legal
+authority; and the recent discovery of his Institutes has revealed the
+least mutilated fragment of Roman jurisprudence which exists, and one of
+the most valuable, which sheds great light on ancient Roman law; it was
+found in the library of Verona. No Roman jurist had a higher reputation
+than Papinian, who was praefectus praetorio under Septimius Severus (193
+A.D.),--an office which made him second only to the Emperor, a sort of
+grand vizier, whose power extended over all departments of the State; he
+was beheaded by Caracalla. The great commentator Cujacius declares that
+he was the first of all lawyers who have been, or who are to be; that no
+one ever surpassed him in legal knowledge, and no one will ever equal
+him. Paulus was his contemporary, and held the same office as Papinian.
+He was the most fertile of Roman law-writers, and there is more taken
+from him in Justinian's Digest than from any other jurist, except
+Ulpian. There are two thousand and eighty-three excerpts from this
+writer,--one sixth of the whole Digest. No legal writer, ancient or
+modern, has handled so many subjects. In perspicuity he is said to be
+inferior to Ulpian, one of the most famous of jurists, who was his
+contemporary. Ulpian has also exercised a great influence on modern
+jurisprudence from the copious extracts of his writings in the Digest.
+He was the chief adviser of Alexander Severus, and like Paulus was
+praefectus praetorio. The number of excerpts in the Digest from him is
+said to be two thousand four hundred and sixty-two, and they form a
+third part of it. Some fragments of his writings remain. The last of the
+great civilians associated with Gaius, Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian, as
+oracles of jurisprudence, was Modestinus, who was a pupil of Ulpian. He
+wrote both in Greek and Latin. There are three hundred and forty-five
+excerpts in the Digest from his writings, the titles of which show the
+extent and variety of his labors.
+
+These eminent lawyers shed great glory on the Roman civilization. In the
+earliest times men sought distinction on the fields of battle, but in
+the latter days of the republic honor was conferred for forensic
+ability. The first pleaders of Rome were not jurisconsults, but
+aristocratic "patrons," who looked after their "clients,"--men of lower
+social grade, who in return for protection and assistance rendered
+service, sometimes political by voting, sometimes pecuniary, sometimes
+military. But when law became complicated, a class of men arose to
+interpret it. These men were held in great honor, and reached by their
+services the highest offices,--like Cicero and Hortensius. No
+remuneration was given originally for forensic pleading beyond the
+services which the client gave to a patron, but gradually the practice
+of the law became lucrative. Hortensius, as well as Cicero, gained an
+immense fortune; he had several villas, a gallery of paintings, a large
+stock of wines, parks, fish-ponds, and aviaries. Cicero had villas in
+all parts of Italy, a house on the Palatine with columns of Numidian
+marble, and a fortune of twenty millions of sesterces, equal to eight
+hundred thousand dollars. Most of the great statesmen of Rome in the
+time of Cicero were either lawyers or generals. Crassus, Pompey, P.
+Sextus, M. Marcellus, P. Clodius, Asinius Pollio, C. Cicero, M.
+Antonius, Julius Caesar, Caelius, Brutus, Catullus, were all celebrated
+for their forensic efforts. Candidates for the bar studied four years
+under a distinguished jurist, and were required to pass a rigorous
+examination. The judges were chosen from members of the bar, as well as
+in later times the senators. The great lawyers were not only learned in
+the law, but possessed great accomplishments. Varro was a lawyer, and
+was the most learned man that Rome ever produced. But under the emperors
+the lawyers were chiefly distinguished for their legal attainments, like
+Paulus and Ulpian.
+
+During this golden age of Roman jurisprudence many commentaries were
+written on the Twelve Tables, the Perpetual Edict, the Laws of the
+People, and the Decrees of the senate, as well as a vast mass of
+treatises on every department of the law, most of which have perished.
+The Institutes of Gaius, already mentioned, are the most valuable that
+remain, and have thrown great light on some important branches
+previously involved in obscurity. Their use in explaining the Institutes
+of Justinian is spoken of very highly by Mackenzie, since the latter are
+mainly founded on the long-lost work of Gaius. The great lawyers who
+flourished from Trajan to Alexander Severus, like Gaius, Ulpian, Paulus,
+Papinian, and Modestinus, had no successors who can be compared with
+them, and their works became standard authorities in the courts of law.
+
+After the death of Alexander Severus, 235 A.D., no great accession was
+made to Roman law until Theodosius II., 438 A.D., caused the
+constitutions, from Constantine to his own time, to be collected and
+arranged in sixteen books. This was called the Theodosian Code, which
+in the West was held in high esteem. It was very influential among the
+Germanic nations, serving as the chief basis of their early legislation;
+it also paved the way for the more complete codification that followed
+in the Justinian Code, which superseded it.
+
+To Justinian belongs the immortal glory of reforming the jurisprudence
+of the Romans. "In the space of ten centuries," says Gibbon, "the
+infinite variety of laws and legal opinions had filled many thousand
+volumes, which no fortune could purchase, and no capacity could digest.
+Books could not easily be found, and the judges, poor in the midst of
+riches, were reduced to the exercise of their illiterate discretion."
+The emperors had very early begun to issue ordinances, under the
+authority of the various offices gathered into their hands; and these,
+together with the answers to appeals from the lower courts made to the
+emperors directly, or to the sort of supreme court which they
+established, were called _imperial constitutions_ and _rescripts_.
+Justinian determined to unite in one body all the rules of law, whatever
+may have been their origin; and in the year 528 appointed ten
+jurisconsults, among whom was the celebrated Tribonian, to select and
+arrange the imperial constitutions and rescripts, leaving out what was
+obsolete or useless or contradictory, and to make such alterations as
+the circumstances required. This was called the _Code_, divided into
+twelve books, and comprising the constitutions from Hadrian to
+Justinian. It was published in fourteen months after it was undertaken.
+
+Justinian thereupon authorized Tribonian, then quaestor, _vir magnificus
+magisteria dignitate inter agentes decoratus,_--"for great titles were
+now given to the officers of the crown,"--to prepare, with the
+assistance of sixteen associates, a collection of extracts from the
+writings of the most eminent jurists, so as to form a body of law for
+the government of the empire, with power to select and omit and alter;
+and this immense work was done in three years, and published under the
+title of Digest, or Pandects. Says Lord Mackenzie:
+
+"All the judicial learning of former times was laid under contribution
+by Tribonian and his colleagues. Selections from the works of
+thirty-nine of the ablest lawyers, scattered over two thousand separate
+treatises, were collected in one volume; and care was taken to inform
+posterity that three millions of lines were abridged and reduced in
+these extracts to the modest number of one hundred and fifty thousand.
+Among the selected jurists only three names belonged to the age of the
+republic,--the civilians who flourished under the first emperors are
+seldom appealed to; so that most of the writers whose works have
+contributed to the Pandects lived within a period of one hundred years.
+More than a third of the whole Pandects is from Ulpian, and next to him
+the principal writers are Paulus, Papinian, Salvius Julianus, Pomponius,
+Q. Cervidius Scaevola, and Gaius. Though the variety of subjects is
+immense, the Digest has no claims to scientific arrangement. It is a
+vast cyclopedia of heterogeneous law badly arranged; everything is
+there, but everything is not in its proper place."
+
+Neither the Digest nor the Code was adapted to elementary instruction;
+it was therefore necessary to prepare a treatise on the principles of
+Roman law. This was intrusted to Tribonian and two professors,
+Theophilus and Dorotheus. It is probable that Tribonian merely
+superintended the work, which was founded chiefly on the Institutes of
+Gaius, divided into four books. It has been universally admired for its
+method and elegant precision. It was intended merely as an introduction
+to the Pandects and the Code, and was entitled the Institutes.
+
+The _Novels_, or _New Constitutions, of Justinian_ were subsequently
+published, being the new ordinances of the Emperor and the changes he
+thought proper to make, and were therefore of high authority. The Code,
+Pandects, Institutes, and Novels of Justinian comprise the Roman law as
+received in Europe, in the form given by the school of Bologna, and is
+called the "Corpus Juris Civilis." Savigny says:--
+
+"It was in that form that the Roman law became the common law of Europe;
+and when, four centuries later, other sources came to be added to it,
+the _Corpus Juris_ of the school of Bologna had been so universally
+received, and so long established as a basis of practice, that the new
+discoveries remained in the domain of science, and served only for the
+theory of the law. For the same reason, the Ante-Justinian law is
+excluded from practice."
+
+After Justinian the old texts were left to moulder as useless though
+venerable, and they have nearly all disappeared. The Code, the Pandects,
+and the Institutes were declared to be the only legitimate authority,
+and alone were admitted to the tribunals or taught in the schools. The
+rescripts of the early emperors recognized too many popular rights to
+suit the despotic character of Justinian; and the older jurists, like
+the Scaevolas, Sulpicius, and Labeo, were distasteful from their
+sympathy with free institutions. Different opinions have been expressed
+by the jurisconsults as to the merits of the Justinian collection. By
+some it is regarded as a vast mass of legal lumber; by others, as a
+beautiful monument of human labor. After the lapse of so many centuries
+it is certain that a large portion of it is of no practical utility,
+since it is not applicable to modern wants. But again, no one doubts
+that it has exercised a great and good influence on moral and political
+science, and introduced many enlightened views concerning the
+administration of justice as well as the nature of civil government, and
+thus has modified the codes of the Teutonic nations that sprang up on
+the ruins of the old Roman world. It was used in the Greek empire until
+the fall of Constantinople. It never entirely lost authority in Italy,
+although it remained buried for centuries, till the discovery of the
+Florentine copy of the Pandects at the siege of Amalfi in 1135. Peter
+Valence, in the eleventh century, made use of it in a law-book which he
+published.
+
+With the rise of the Italian cities, the study of Roman law revived, and
+Bologna became the seat from which it spread over Europe. In the
+sixteenth century the science of theoretical law passed from Italy to
+France, under the auspices of Francis I., when Cujas, or Cujacius,
+became the great ornament of the school of Bourges and the greatest
+commentator on Roman law until Dumoulin appeared. Grotius, in Holland,
+excited the same interest in civil law that Dumoulin did in France,
+followed by eminent professors in Leyden and the German universities. It
+was reserved for Pothier, in the middle of the eighteenth century, to
+reduce the Roman law to systematic order,--one of the most gigantic
+tasks that ever taxed the industry of man. The recent discoveries,
+especially that made by Niebuhr of the long-lost work of Gaius, have
+given a great impulse to the study of Roman law in Germany; and to this
+impulse no one has contributed so greatly as Savigny of Berlin.
+
+The great importance of the subject demands a more minute notice of the
+principles of the Roman law than the limits of this work properly allow.
+I shall therefore endeavor to abridge what has been written by eminent
+authorities, taking as a basis the late work of Lord Mackenzie and the
+learned and interesting essay of Professor Maine.
+
+The Institutes of Justinian began with the law of persons, recognizing
+the distinction of ranks. All persons are capable of enjoying civil
+rights, but not all in the same degree. Greater privileges are allowed
+to men than to women, to freemen than to slaves, to fathers than
+to children.
+
+In the eye of the law all Roman citizens were equal wherever they lived,
+whether in the capital or the provinces. Citizenship embraced both
+political and civil rights. Political rights had reference to the right
+of voting in the comitia; but this was not considered the essence of
+citizenship, which was the enjoyment of the _connubium_, and
+_commercium_. By the former the citizen could contract a valid marriage
+and acquire the rights resulting from it, particularly the paternal
+power; by the latter he could acquire and dispose of property.
+Citizenship was acquired by birth and by manumission; it was lost when a
+Roman became a prisoner of war, or had been exiled for crime, or became
+a citizen of another State. An unsullied reputation was required by law
+for a citizen to exercise his rights to their full extent.
+
+The Roman jurists acknowledged all persons originally free by natural
+law; and while they recognized slavery, they ascribed the power of
+masters entirely to the law and custom of nations. Persons taken in war
+were considered at the absolute control of their captors, and were
+therefore, _de facto_, slaves; the children of a female slave followed
+the condition of their mother, and belonged to her master. But masters
+could manumit their slaves, who thus became Roman citizens with some
+restrictions. After the emancipation of a slave, he was bound to render
+certain services to his former master as patron, and if the freedman
+died intestate his property reverted to his patron.
+
+Marriage was contracted by the simple consent of the parties, though in
+early times equality of condition was required. The _lex Canuleia_,
+A.U.C. 309, authorized connubium between patricians and plebeians, and
+the _lex Julia_, A.U.C. 757, allowed it between freedmen and freeborn.
+By the _conventio in manum_, a wife passed out of her family into that
+of her husband, who acquired all her property; without it, the woman
+remained in the power of her father, and retained the free disposition
+of her property. Polygamy was not permitted; and relationship within
+certain degrees rendered the parties incapable of contracting marriage.
+(These rules as to forbidden degrees have been substantially adopted in
+England.) Celibacy was discouraged. Concubinage was allowed, if a man
+had not a wife, and provided the concubine was not the wife of another
+man; this heathenish custom was abrogated by Justinian. The wife was
+entitled to protection and support from her husband, and she retained
+her property independent of him. On her marriage the father gave his
+daughter a dowry in proportion to his means, the management of which,
+with its usufruct during marriage, belonged to the husband; but he could
+not alienate real estate without the wife's consent, and on the
+dissolution of marriage the _dos_ reverted to the wife. Divorce existed
+in all ages at Rome, and was very common at the beginning of the empire;
+to check its prevalence, laws were passed inflicting severe penalties on
+those whose bad conduct led to it. Every man, whether married or not,
+could adopt children under certain restrictions, and they passed
+entirely under paternal power. But the marriage relation among the
+Romans did not accord after all with those principles of justice which
+we see in other parts of their legislative code. The Roman husband, like
+the father, was a tyrant. The facility of divorce destroyed mutual
+confidence, and inflamed every trifling dispute; for a word or a
+message or a letter or the mandate of a freedman was quite sufficient to
+secure a separation. It was not until Christianity became the religion
+of the empire that divorce could not be easily effected without a just
+cause. This facility of divorce was a great stigma on the Roman laws,
+and the degradation of woman was the principal consequence. But woman
+never was honored in any Pagan land, although her condition at Rome was
+better than it was at Athens. She always was regarded as a possession
+rather than as a person; her virtue was mistrusted, and her aspirations
+were scorned; she was hampered and guarded more like a slave than the
+equal companion of man. But the progress of legislation, as a whole, was
+in her favor, and she continued to gain new privileges until the fall of
+the empire. The Roman Catholic Church regards marriage as one of the
+sacraments, and through all the Middle Ages and down to our own day the
+great authority of the Church has been one of the strongest supports of
+that institution, as necessary to Christianity as to civilization. We
+Americans have improved on the morality of Jesus, of the early and later
+Church, and of the great nations of modern Europe; and in many of our
+States persons are allowed to slip out of the marriage tie about as
+easily as they get into it.
+
+Nothing is more remarkable in the Roman laws than the extent of
+paternal power. It was unjust, and bears the image of a barbarous age.
+Moreover, it seems to have been coeval with the foundation of the city.
+A father could chastise his children by stripes, by imprisonment, by
+exile, by sending them to the country with chains on their feet. He was
+even armed with the power of life and death. "Neither age nor rank,"
+says Gibbon, "nor the consular office, could exempt the most illustrious
+citizen from the bonds of filial subjection. Without fear, though not
+without danger of abuse, the Roman legislators had reposed unbounded
+confidence in the sentiments of paternal love, and the oppression was
+tempered by the assurance that each generation must succeed in its turn
+to the awful dignity of parent and master." By an express law of the
+Twelve Tables a father could sell his children as slaves. But the abuse
+of paternal power was checked in the republic by the censors, and
+afterward by emperors. Alexander Severus limited the right of the father
+to simple correction, and Constantine declared the father who should
+kill his son to be guilty of murder. The rigor of parents in reference
+to the disposition of the property of children was also gradually
+relaxed. Under Augustus, the son could keep absolute possession of what
+he had acquired in war; under Constantine, he could retain any property
+acquired in the civil service, and all property inherited from the
+mother could also be retained. In later times, a father could not give
+his son or daughter to another by adoption without their consent. Thus
+this _patria potestas_ was gradually relaxed as civilization advanced,
+though it remained a peculiarity of Roman law to the latest times, and
+was severer than is ever seen in the modern world. Fathers were bound to
+maintain their children when they had no separate means to supply their
+wants, and children were also bound to maintain their parents if in
+want. These reciprocal duties, creditable to the Roman lawgivers, are
+recognized in the French Code, but not in the English, which also
+recognizes the right of a father to bequeath his whole estate to
+strangers,--a thing which Roman fathers had not power to do. The age
+when children attained majority among the Romans was twenty-five years.
+Women were condemned to the perpetual tutelage of parents, husbands, or
+guardians, as it was supposed they never could attain to the age of
+reason and experience. The relation of guardian and ward was strictly
+observed by the Romans. They made a distinction between the right to
+govern a person and the right to manage his estate, although the tutor
+or guardian could do both. If the pupil was an infant, the tutor could
+act without the intervention of the pupil; if the pupil was above seven
+years of age, he was considered to have an imperfect will. The youth
+ceased to be a pupil, if a boy, at fourteen; if a girl, at twelve. The
+tutor managed the estate of the pupil, but was liable for loss
+occasioned by bad management. He could sell movable property when
+expedient, but not real estate, without judicial authority. The tutor
+named by the father was preferred to all others.
+
+The Institutes of Justinian pass from persons to things, or the law
+relating to real rights; in other words, that which pertains to
+property. Some things common to all, like air, light, the ocean, and
+things sacred, like temples and churches, are not classed as property.
+
+Two things were required for the transfer of property, for it is the
+essence of property that the owner of a thing should have the right to
+transfer it,--first, the consent of the owner to transfer the thing upon
+some just ground; and secondly, the actual delivery of the thing to the
+person who is to acquire it. Movables were presumed to be the property
+of the possessors, until positive evidence was produced to the contrary.
+A prescriptive title to movables was acquired by possession for one
+year, and to immovables by possession for two years. Undisturbed
+possession for thirty years constituted in general a valid title.
+
+When a Roman died, his heirs succeeded to all his property by hereditary
+right. If he left no will, his estate devolved upon his relatives in a
+certain order prescribed by law. The power of making a testament only
+belonged to citizens above puberty. Children under the paternal power
+could not make a will. Males above fourteen and females above twelve,
+when not under power, could make wills without the authority of their
+guardian; but pupils, lunatics, prisoners of war, criminals, and various
+other persons were incapable of making a testament. The testator could
+divide his property among his heirs in such proportions as he saw fit;
+but if there was no distribution, all the heirs participated equally. A
+man could disinherit either of his children by declaring his intentions
+in his will, but only for grave reasons,--such as grievously injuring
+his person or character or feelings, or attempting his life. No will was
+effectual unless one or more persons were appointed heirs to represent
+the deceased. Wills were required to be signed by the testator, or some
+person for him, in the presence of seven witnesses who were Roman
+citizens. If a will was made by a parent for distributing his property
+solely among his children, no witnesses were required; and the ordinary
+formalities were dispensed with among soldiers in actual service, and
+during the prevalence of pestilence. The testament was opened in the
+presence of the witnesses, or a majority of them; and after they had
+acknowledged their seals a copy was made, and the original was deposited
+in the public archives.
+
+According to the Twelve Tables, the powers of a testator in disposing
+of his property were unlimited; but in process of time, laws were
+enacted to restrain immoderate or unnatural bequests. By the Falcidian
+law, in the time of Augustus, no one could leave in legacies more than
+three fourths of his estate, so that the heirs could inherit at least
+one fourth. Again, a law was passed by which the descendants were
+entitled to one third of the succession, and to one half if there were
+more than four. In France, if a man die leaving one lawful child, he can
+dispose of only half his estate by will; if he leaves two children, he
+can dispose only of one third; if he leaves three or more children, then
+he can dispose by will of only one fourth of his estate. In England, a
+man can disinherit both his wife and children. These, and many other
+matters,--bequests in trust, succession of men dying intestate, heirs at
+law, etc.,--were regulated by the Romans in ways on which our modern
+legislators have improved little or none.
+
+In the matter of contracts the Roman law was especially comprehensive,
+and the laws of France and Scotland are substantially based upon the
+Roman system. The Institutes of Gaius and Justinian distinguish four
+sorts of obligations,--_aut re, aut verbis, aut literis, aut consensu_.
+Gibbon, in his learned chapter, prefers to consider the specific
+obligations of men to each other under promises, benefits, and
+injuries. Lord Mackenzie treats the subject in the order of the
+Institutes:--
+
+"Obligations contracted _re_--by the intervention of _things_--are
+called by the moderns real contracts, because they are not perfected
+till something has passed from one party to another. Of this description
+are the contracts of loan, deposit, and pledge,--security for
+indebtedness. Till the subject is actually lent, deposited, or pledged,
+it does not form the special contract of loan, deposit, or pledge."
+
+Next to the perfection of contracts by _re_,--the intervention of
+things,--were obligations contracted by _verbis_, spoken _words_, and by
+_literis_, or writings. The _verborum obligatio_ was contracted by
+uttering certain words of formal style,--an interrogation being put by
+one party, and an answer given by the other. These stipulations were
+binding. In England all guarantees must be in writing.
+
+The _obligatio literis_ was a written acknowledgment of debt, chiefly
+employed when money was borrowed; but the creditor could not sue upon a
+note within two years from its date, without being called upon also to
+prove that the money was in fact paid to the debtor.
+
+Contracts perfected by consent, _consensu_, had reference to sale,
+hiring; partnership, and mandate, or orders to be carried out by agents.
+All contracts of sale were good without writing.
+
+Acts which caused damage to another opened a new class of cases. The
+law obliged the wrong-doer to make reparation, and this responsibility
+extended to damages arising not only from positive acts, but from
+negligence or imprudence. In cases of libel or slander, the truth of the
+allegation might be pleaded in justification. In all cases it was
+necessary to show that an injury had been committed maliciously; but if
+damage arose in the exercise of a right, as killing a slave in
+self-defence, no claim for reparation could be maintained. If any one
+exercised a profession or trade for which he was not qualified, he was
+liable to all the damage his want of skill or knowledge might
+occasion,--a provision that some of our modern laws might advantageously
+revive. When any damage was done by a slave or an animal, the owner of
+the same was liable for the loss, though the mischief was done without
+his knowledge and against his will. If anything was thrown from a window
+giving on the public thoroughfare so as to injure any one by the fall,
+the occupier was bound to repair the damage, though done by a stranger.
+Legal claims might be transferred to a third person by sale, exchange,
+or donation; but to prevent speculators from purchasing debts at low
+prices, it was ordered that the assignee should not be entitled to exact
+from the debtor more than he himself had paid to acquire the debt, with
+interest,--a wise and just regulation.
+
+By the ancient constitution, the king had the prerogative of
+determining civil causes. The right then devolved on the consuls,
+afterward on the praetor, and in certain cases on the curule and
+plebeian ediles, who were charged with the internal police of the city.
+
+The praetor, a magistrate next in dignity to the consuls, acted as
+supreme judge of the civil courts, assisted by a council of
+jurisconsults to determine questions in law. At first one praetor was
+sufficient, but as the limits of the city and empire extended, he was
+joined by a colleague. After the conquest of Sicily, Sardinia, and the
+two Spains, new praetors were appointed to administer justice in the
+provinces. The praetor held his court in the comitium, wore a robe
+bordered with purple, sat in a curule chair, and was attended
+by lictors.
+
+The praetor delegated his power to three classes of judges, called
+respectively _judex_, _arbiter_, and _recuperator_. When parties were at
+issue about facts, it was the custom for the praetor to fix the question
+of law upon which the action turned, and then to remit to a delegate, or
+judge, to inquire into the facts and pronounce judgment according to
+them. In the time of Augustus there were four thousand judices, who were
+merely private citizens, generally senators or men of consideration. The
+judex was invested by the magistrate with a judicial commission for a
+single case only. After being sworn to duty, he received from the
+praetor a formula containing a summary of all the points under
+litigation, from which he was not allowed to depart. He was required not
+merely to investigate facts, but to give sentence; and as law questions
+were more or less mixed up with the case, he was allowed to consult one
+or more jurisconsults. If the case was beyond his power to decide, he
+could decline to give judgment. The arbiter, like the judex, received a
+formula from the praetor, and seemed to have more extensive power. The
+recuperators heard and determined cases, but the number appointed for
+each case was usually three or five.
+
+The _centumvirs_ constituted a permanent tribunal composed of members
+annually elected, in equal numbers, from each tribe; and this tribunal
+was presided over by the praetor, and divided into four chambers, which
+under the republic was placed under the ancient quaestors. The
+centumvirs decided questions of property, embracing a wide range of
+subjects. The Romans had no class of men like the judges of modern
+times; the superior magistrates were changed annually, and political
+duties were mixed with judicial. The evil was partially remedied by the
+institution of legal assessors, selected from the most learned
+jurisconsults. Under the empire the praetors were greatly increased;
+under Tiberius there were sixteen who administered justice, besides the
+consuls, six ediles, and ten tribunes of the people. The Emperor himself
+became the supreme judge, and he was assisted in the discharge of his
+judicial duties by a council composed of the consuls, a magistrate of
+each grade, and fifteen senators. At first, the duties of the praetorian
+prefects were purely military, but finally they discharged important
+judicial functions. The prefect of the city, in the time of the
+emperors, was a great judicial personage, who heard appeals from the
+praetors themselves.
+
+In all cases brought before the courts, the burden of proof was with the
+party asserting an affirmative fact. Proof by writing was generally
+considered most certain, but proof by witnesses was also admitted.
+Pupils, lunatics, infamous persons, interested parties, near relatives,
+and slaves could not bear evidence, nor any person who had a strong
+enmity against either party. The witnesses were required to give their
+testimony on oath. In most cases two witnesses were enough to prove a
+fact. When witnesses gave conflicting testimony, the judge regarded
+those who were most worthy of credit rather than those who were most
+numerous. In the English courts the custom used to be as with the
+Romans, of refusing testimony from those who were interested; but this
+has been removed. On the failure of regular proof, the Roman law allowed
+a party to refer the facts in a civil action to the oath of his
+adversary.
+
+Under the Roman republic there was no appeal in civil suits, but under
+the emperors a regular system was established. Under Augustus there was
+an appeal from all the magistrates to the prefect of the city, and from
+him to the praetorian prefect or even to the Emperor. In the provinces
+there was an appeal from the municipal magistrates to the governors, and
+from them to the Emperor, as Paul appealed from Festus to Caesar. Under
+Justinian no appeal was allowed from a suit which did not involve at
+least twenty pounds in gold.
+
+In regard to criminal courts among the Romans during the republic, the
+only body which had absolute power of life and death was the _comitia
+centuriata_. The senate had no jurisdiction in criminal cases, so far as
+Roman citizens were concerned. It was only in extraordinary emergencies
+that the senate, with the consuls, assumed the responsibility of
+inflicting summary punishment. Under the emperors, the senate was armed
+with the power of criminal jurisdiction; and as the senate was the tool
+of the imperator, he could crush whomsoever he pleased.
+
+As it was inconvenient, when Rome had become a very great city, to
+convene the comitia for the trial of offenders, the expedient was
+adopted of delegating the jurisdiction of the people to persons invested
+with temporary authority, called _quaestors_. These were finally
+established into regular and permanent courts, called _quaestores
+perpetui_. Every case submitted to these courts was tried by a judge and
+jury. It was the duty of the judge to preside and regulate proceedings
+according to law; and it was the duty of the jury, after hearing the
+evidence and pleadings, to decide on the guilt or innocence of the
+accused. As many as fifty persons frequently composed the jury, whose
+names were drawn out of an urn. Each party had a right to challenge a
+certain number, and the verdict was decided by a majority of votes. At
+first the judices were chosen from the senate, and afterward from the
+equestrians, and then again from both orders. But in process of time the
+quaestores perpetui gave place to imperial magistrates. The accused
+defended himself in person or by counsel.
+
+The Romans divided _crimes_ into public and private. Private crimes
+could be prosecuted only by the party injured, and were generally
+punished by pecuniary fines, as among the old Germanic nations.
+
+Of public crimes the _crimen laesae majestatis_, or treason, was
+regarded as the greatest; and this was punished with death and with
+confiscation of goods, while the memory of the offender was declared
+infamous. Greater severity could scarcely be visited on a culprit.
+Treason comprehended conspiracy against the government, assisting the
+enemies of Rome, and misconduct in the command of armies. Thus Manlius,
+in spite of his magnificent services, was hurled from the Tarpeian
+Rock, because he was convicted of an intention to seize upon the
+government. Under the empire not only any attempt on the life of the
+Emperor was treason, but disrespectful words or acts. The criminal was
+even tried after death, that his memory might become infamous; and this
+barbarous practice was perpetuated in France and Scotland as late as the
+beginning of the seventeenth century. In England men have been executed
+for treasonable words. Besides treason there were other crimes against
+the State, such as a breach of the peace, extortion on the part of
+provincial governors, embezzlement of public property, stealing sacred
+things, bribery,--most of which offences were punished by pecuniary
+penalties.
+
+But there were also crimes against individuals, which were punished with
+the death penalty. Wilful murder, poisoning, and parricide were
+capitally punished. Adultery was punished by banishment, besides a
+forfeiture of considerable property; Constantine made it a capital
+offence. Rape was punished with death and confiscation of goods, as in
+England till a late period, when transportation for life became the
+penalty. The punishments inflicted for forgery, coining base money, and
+perjury were arbitrary. Robbery, theft, patrimonial damage, and injury
+to person and property were private trespasses, and not punished by the
+State. After a lapse of twenty years without accusation, crimes were
+supposed to be extinguished. The Cornelian, Pompeian, and Julian laws
+formed the foundation of criminal jurisprudence. This however never
+attained the perfection that was seen in the Civil Code, in which the
+full maturity of Roman wisdom was reached. The emperors greatly
+increased the severity of punishments, as was probably necessary in a
+corrupt state of society. After the decemviral laws fell into disuse,
+the Romans in the days of the republic passed from extreme rigor to
+great lenity, as is observable in the transition from the Puritan regime
+to our own times in the United States. Capital punishment for several
+centuries was exceedingly rare, and was frequently prevented by
+voluntary exile. Under the empire, again, public executions were
+frequent and revolting.
+
+Fines were a common mode of punishment with the Romans, as with the
+early Germans. Imprisonment in a public jail was rare, the custom of
+bail being in general use. Although retaliation was authorized by the
+Twelve Tables for bodily injuries, it was seldom exacted, since
+pecuniary compensation was taken in lieu. Corporal punishments were
+inflicted upon slaves, but rarely upon citizens, except for military
+crimes; but Roman citizens could be sold into slavery for various
+offences, chiefly military, and criminals were often condemned to labor
+in the mines or upon public works. Banishment was common,--_aquae et
+ignis interdictio_; and this was equivalent to the deprivation of the
+necessities of life and incapacitating a person from exercising the
+rights of citizenship. Under the emperors persons were confined often on
+the rocky islands off the coast, or in a compulsory residence in a
+particular place assigned. Thus Chrysostom was sent to a dreary place on
+the banks of the Euxine, and Ovid was banished to Tomi. Death, when
+inflicted, was by hanging, scourging, and beheading; also by strangling
+in prison. Slaves were often crucified, and were compelled to carry
+their cross to the place of execution. This was the most ignominious and
+lingering of all deaths; it was abolished by Constantine, from reverence
+to the sacred symbol. Under the emperors, execution took place also by
+burning alive and exposure to wild beasts; it was thus the early
+Christians were tormented, since their offence was associated with
+treason. Persons of distinction were treated with more favor than the
+lower classes, and their punishments were less cruel and ignominious;
+thus Seneca, condemned for privity to treason, was allowed to choose his
+mode of death. The criminal laws of modern European States followed too
+often the barbarous custom of the Roman emperors until a recent date.
+Since the French Revolution the severity of the penal codes has been
+much modified.
+
+The penal statutes of Rome however, as Gibbon emphatically remarks,
+"formed a very small portion of the Code and the Pandects; and in all
+judicial proceedings the life or death of the citizen was determined
+with less caution and delay than the most ordinary question of covenant
+or inheritance." This was owing to the complicated relations of society,
+by which obligations are created or annulled, while duties to the State
+are explicit and well known, being inscribed not only on tables of
+brass, but on the conscience itself. It was natural, with the growth and
+development of commerce and dominion, that questions should arise which
+could not be ordinarily settled by ancient customs, and the practice of
+lawyers and the decisions of judges continually raised new difficulties,
+to be met only by new edicts. It is a pleasing fact to record, that
+jurisprudence became more just and enlightened as it became more
+intricate. The principles of equity were more regarded under the
+emperors than in the time of Cato. It is in the application of these
+principles that the laws of the Romans have obtained so high
+consideration; their abuse consisted in the expense of litigation, and
+the advantages which the rich thus obtained over the poor.
+
+But if delays and forms led to an expensive and vexatious administration
+of justice, these were more than compensated by the checks which a
+complicated jurisprudence gave to hasty or partial decisions. It was in
+the minuteness and precision of the forms of law, and in the foresight
+with which questions were anticipated in the various transactions of
+business, that the Romans in their civil and social relations were very
+much on a level with modern times. It would be difficult to find in the
+most enlightened of modern codes greater wisdom and foresight than
+appear in the legacy of Justinian as to all questions pertaining to the
+nature, the acquisition, the possession, the use, and the transfer of
+property. Civil obligations are most admirably defined, and all
+contracts are determined by the wisest application of the natural
+principles of justice. Nothing can be more enlightened than the laws
+which relate to leases, to sales, to partnerships, to damages, to
+pledges, to hiring of work, and to quasi-contracts. The laws pertaining
+to the succession to property, to the duties of guardians, to the rights
+of wards, to legacies, to bequests in trust, and to the general
+limitation of testamentary powers were singularly clear. The regulations
+in reference to intestate succession, and to the division of property
+among males and females, were wise and just; we find no laws of entail,
+no unequal rights, no absurd distinction between brothers, no peculiar
+privileges given to males over females, or to older sons. Particularly
+was everything pertaining to property and contracts and wills guarded
+with the most jealous care. A man was sure of possessing his own, and of
+transmitting it to his children. In the Institutes of Justinian we see
+on every page a regard to the principles of natural justice: but
+moreover we find that malicious witnesses should be punished; that
+corrupt judges should be visited with severe penalties; that libels and
+satires should subject their authors to severe chastisement; that every
+culprit should be considered innocent until his guilt was proved.
+
+No infringement on personal rights could be tolerated. A citizen was
+free to go where he pleased, to do whatsoever he would, if he did not
+trespass on the rights of another; to seek his pleasure unobstructed,
+and pursue his business without vexatious incumbrances. If he was
+injured or cheated, he was sure of redress; nor could he be easily
+defrauded with the sanction of the laws. A rigorous police guarded his
+person, his house, and his property; he was supreme and uncontrolled
+within his family. This security to property and life and personal
+rights was guaranteed by the greatest tyrants. Although political
+liberty was dead, the fullest personal liberty was enjoyed under the
+emperors, and it was under their sanction that jurisprudence in some of
+the most important departments of life reached perfection. If injustice
+was suffered it was not on account of the laws, but owing to the
+depravity of men, the venality of the rich, and the tricks of lawyers;
+the laws were wise and equal. The civil jurisprudence of the Romans
+could be copied with safety by the most enlightened of European States;
+indeed, it is already the foundation of their civil codes, especially in
+France and Germany.
+
+That there were some features in the Roman laws which we in these
+Christian times cannot indorse, and which we reprehend, cannot be
+denied. Under the republic there was not sufficient limit to paternal
+power, and the _pater familias_ was necessarily a tyrant. It was unjust
+that the father should control the property of his son, and cruel that
+he was allowed an absolute control not only over his children, but also
+his wife. Yet the limits of paternal power were more and more curtailed,
+so that under the later emperors fathers were not allowed to have more
+authority than was perhaps expedient.
+
+The recognition of slavery as a domestic institution was another blot,
+and slaves could be treated with the grossest cruelty and injustice
+without possibility of redress. But here the Romans were not sinners
+beyond all other nations, and our modern times have witnessed a
+parallel. It was not the existence of slavery, however, which was the
+greatest evil, but the facility by which slaves could be made. The laws
+pertaining to debt were severe, and were most disgraceful in dooming a
+debtor to the absolute power of a creditor. To subject men of the same
+race to slavery for trifling debts which they could not discharge, was
+the great defect of the Roman laws. But even these cruel regulations
+were modified, so that in the corrupt times of the empire there was no
+greater practical severity than was common in England as late as one
+hundred years ago. The temptations to fraud were enormous in a wicked
+state of society, and demanded a severe remedy. It is possible that our
+modern laws may show too great leniency to debtors who are not merely
+unfortunate, but dishonest. The problem is not yet solved, whether men
+should be severely handled who are guilty of reckless and unprincipled
+speculations and unscrupulous dealings, or whether they should be
+allowed immunity to prosecute their dangerous and disgraceful courses.
+
+Moreover, the penal code of the Romans in reference to breaches of trust
+or carelessness or ignorance, by which property was lost or squandered,
+may have been too severe, as is still the case in England in reference
+to hunting game on another's grounds. It was hard to doom a man to death
+who drove away his neighbor's cattle, or even entered in the night his
+neighbor's house; but severe penalties alone will keep men from crimes
+where there is a low state of virtue and religion, and general
+prosperity and contentment become impossible where there is no efficient
+protection to property. Society was never more secure and happy in
+England than when vagabonds could be arrested, and when petty larcenies
+were visited with certain retribution. Every traveller in France and
+England feels that in regard to the punishment of crime, those older
+countries, restricted as are their political privileges, are in most
+questions of secure and comfortable living vastly superior to our own.
+The Romans lost under the emperors their political rights, but gained
+protection and safety in their relations with society. Where quiet and
+industrious citizens feel safe in their homes, are protected from
+scoundrels in their dealings, have ample scope for industrial
+enterprise, and are free to choose their private pleasures, they resign
+themselves to the loss of electing their rulers without great
+unhappiness. There are greater evils in the world than the deprivation
+of the elective franchise, lofty and glorious as is this privilege. The
+arbitrary rule of the emperors was fatal to political aspirations and
+rights and the growth of a genuine manhood; yet it is but fair to note
+that the evils of political slavery were qualified and set off by the
+excellence of the civil code and the privileges of social freedom.
+
+The great practical evil connected with Roman jurisprudence was the
+intricacy and perplexity and uncertainty of the laws, together with the
+expense involved in litigation. The class of lawyers was large, and
+their gains were extortionate. Justice was not always to be found on the
+side of right. The law was uncertain as well as costly. The most learned
+counsel could be employed only by the rich, and even judges were venal,
+so that the poor did not easily find adequate redress. But all this is
+the necessary attendant on a factitious state of society, and by many is
+regarded as being quite as characteristic of modern, civilized Christian
+England and America as it was of Pagan Rome. Material civilization leads
+to an undue estimate of money; and when money purchases all that
+artificial people desire, then all classes will prostitute themselves
+for its possession, and justice, dignity, and elevation of sentiment
+will be forced to retreat,--as hermits sought a solitude when society
+had reached its lowest degradation, out of pure despair of its
+renovation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+The authorities for this chapter are very numerous. Since the Institutes
+of Gaius have been recovered, many eminent writers on Roman law have
+appeared, especially in Germany and France. Many might be cited, but for
+all ordinary purposes of historical study the work of Lord Mackenzie on
+Roman Law, together with the articles of George Long in Smith's
+Dictionary, will be found most useful. Maine's Treatise on Ancient Law
+is exceedingly interesting and valuable. Gibbon's famous chapter should
+also be read by every student. There is a fine translation of the
+Institutes of Justinian, which is quite accessible, by Dr. Harris of
+Oxford. The Code, Pandects, Institutes, and Novels are of course the
+original authority, with the long-lost Institutes of Gaius.
+
+In connection with the study of the Roman law, it would be well to read
+Sir George Bowyer's Commentaries on the Modern Civil Law. Also Irving,
+Introduction to the Study of the Civil Law; Lindley, Introduction to the
+Study of Jurisprudence; Wheaton's Elements of International Law; and
+Vattel, Le Droit des Gens.
+
+
+
+
+THE FINE ARTS.
+
+
+ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, PAINTING.
+
+500-430 B.C.
+
+
+My object in the present lecture is not a criticism of the principles
+of art so much as an enumeration of its various forms among the
+ancients, to show that in this department of civilization they reached
+remarkable perfection, and were not inferior to modern Christian nations.
+
+The first development of art among all the nations of antiquity was in
+architecture. The earliest buildings erected were houses to protect
+people from heat, cold, and the fury of the elements of Nature. At that
+remote period much more attention was given to convenience and practical
+utility than to beauty or architectural effect. The earliest houses were
+built of wood, and stone was not employed until temples and palaces
+arose. Ordinary houses were probably not much better than log-huts and
+hovels, until wealth was accumulated by private persons.
+
+The earliest monuments of enduring magnificence were the temples of
+powerful priests and the palaces of kings; and in Egypt and Assyria
+these appear earliest, as well as most other works showing civilization.
+Perhaps the first great monument which arose after the deluge of Noah
+was the Tower of Babel, built probably of brick. It was intended to be
+very lofty, but of its actual height we know nothing, nor of its style
+of architecture. Indeed, we do not know that it was ever advanced beyond
+its foundations; yet there are some grounds for supposing that it was
+ultimately finished, and became the principal temple of the Chaldaean
+metropolis.
+
+From the ruins of ancient monuments we conclude that architecture
+received its earliest development in Egypt, and that its effects were
+imposing, massive, and grand. It was chiefly directed to the erection of
+palaces and temples, the ruins of which attest grandeur and vastness.
+They were built of stone, in blocks so huge and heavy that even modern
+engineers are at loss to comprehend how they could have been transported
+and erected. All the monuments of the Pharaohs are wonders, especially
+such as appear in the ruins of Karnak,--a temple formerly designated as
+that of Jupiter Ammon. It was in the time of Sesostris, or Rameses the
+Great, the first of the Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty, that
+architecture in Egypt reached its greatest development. Then we find the
+rectangular-cut blocks of stone in parallel courses, the heavy pier, the
+cylindrical column with its bell-shaped capital, and the bold and
+massive rectangular architraves extending from pier to pier and column
+to column, surmounted by a deep covered coping or cornice.
+
+The imposing architecture of Egypt was chiefly owing to the impressive
+vastness of the public buildings. It was not produced by beauty of
+proportion or graceful embellishments; it was designed to awe the
+people, and kindle sentiments of wonder and astonishment. So far as this
+end was contemplated it was nobly reached; even to this day the
+traveller stands in admiring amazement before those monuments that were
+old three thousand years ago. No structures have been so enduring as the
+Pyramids; no ruins are more extensive and majestic than those of Thebes.
+The temple of Karnak and the palace of Rameses the Great were probably
+the most imposing ever built by man. This temple was built of blocks of
+stone seventy feet in length, on a platform one thousand feet long and
+three hundred wide, with pillars sixty feet in height. But this and
+other structures did not possess that unity of design which marked the
+Grecian temples. Alleys of colossal sphinxes formed the approach. At
+Karnak the alley was six thousand feet long, and before the main body
+of the edifice stood two obelisks commemorative of the dedication. The
+principal structures of Egyptian temples do not follow the straight
+line, but begin with pyramidal towers which flank the gateways; then
+follow, usually, a court surrounded with colonnades, subordinate
+temples, and houses for the priests. A second pylon, or pyramidal tower,
+leads to the interior and most considerable part of the temple,--a
+portico inclosed with walls, which receives light only through the
+entablature or openings in the roof. Adjoining this is the cella of the
+temple, without columns, enclosed by several walls, often divided into
+various small chambers with monolithic receptacles for idols or mummies
+or animals. The columns stand within the walls. The colonnade is not, as
+among the Greeks, an expansion of the temple; it is merely the wall with
+apertures. The walls, composed of square blocks, are perpendicular only
+on the inside, and bevelled externally, so that the thickness at the
+bottom sometimes amounts to twenty-four feet; thus the whole building
+assumes a pyramidal form, the fundamental principle of Egyptian
+architecture. The columns are more slender than the early Doric, are
+placed close together, and have bases of circular plinths; the shaft
+diminishes upward, and is ornamented with perpendicular or oblique
+furrows, but not fluted like Grecian columns. The capitals are of the
+bell form, ornamented with all kinds of foliage, and have a narrow but
+high abacus. They abound with sculptured decorations, the designs of
+which were borrowed from the vegetation of the country. The highest of
+the columns of the temple of Luxor is five and a quarter times the
+greatest diameter.
+
+But no monuments have ever excited so much curiosity and wonder as the
+Pyramids, not in consequence of any particular beauty or ingenuity in
+their construction, but because of their immense size and unknown age.
+None but sacerdotal monarchs would ever have erected them; none but a
+fanatical people would ever have toiled upon them. We do not know for
+what purpose they were raised, unless as sepulchres for kings. They are
+supposed to have been built at a remote antiquity, between two thousand
+and three thousand years before Christ. Lepsius thought that the oldest
+of these Pyramids were built more than three thousand years before
+Christ. The Pyramid of Cheops, at Memphis, covers a square whose side is
+seven hundred and sixty-eight feet, and rises into the air nearly five
+hundred feet. It is a solid mass of stone, which has suffered less from
+time than the mountains near it. Possibly it stands over an immense
+substructure, in which may yet be found the lore of ancient Egypt; it
+may even prove to be the famous labyrinth of which Herodotus speaks,
+built by the twelve kings of Egypt. According to this author, one
+hundred thousand men worked on this monument for forty years.
+
+The palaces of the kings are mere imitations of the temples, their only
+difference of architecture being that their rooms are larger and in
+greater numbers. Some think that the famous labyrinth was a collective
+palace of many rulers.
+
+Of Babylonian architecture we know little beyond what the Hebrew
+Scriptures and ancient authors tell us. But though nothing survives of
+ancient magnificence, we know that a city whose walls, according to
+Herodotus, were eighty-seven feet in thickness, three hundred and
+thirty-seven in height, and sixty miles in circumference, and in which
+were one hundred gates of brass, must have had considerable
+architectural splendor. This account of Babylon, however, is probably
+exaggerated, especially as to the height of the walls. The tower of
+Belus, the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Obelisk of Semiramis were
+probably wonderful structures, certainly in size, which is one of the
+conditions of architectural effect.
+
+The Tyrians must have carried architecture to considerable perfection,
+since the Temple of Solomon, one of the most magnificent in the ancient
+world, was probably built by artists from Tyre. It was not remarkable
+for size,--it was, indeed, very small,--but it had great splendor of
+decoration. It was of quadrangular outline, erected upon a solid
+platform of stone, and bearing a striking resemblance to the oldest
+Greek temples, like those of Aegina and Paestum. The portico of the
+Temple as rebuilt by Herod was one hundred and eighty feet high, and the
+Temple itself was entered by nine gates, thickly coated with silver and
+gold. The inner sanctuary was covered on all sides with plates of gold,
+and was dazzling to the eye. The various courts and porticos and palaces
+with which it was surrounded gave to it a very imposing effect.
+
+Architectural art in India was not so impressive and grand as in Egypt,
+and was directed chiefly to the erection of temples. Nor is it of very
+ancient date. There is no stone architecture now remaining in India,
+according to Sir James Fergusson, older than two and a half centuries
+before Christ; and this is in the form of Buddhist temples, generally
+traced to the great Asoka, who reigned from 272 B.C. to 236 B.C., and
+who established Buddhism as a state religion. There were doubtless
+magnificent buildings before his time, but they were of wood, and have
+all perished. We know, however, nothing about them.
+
+The Buddhist temples were generally excavated out of the solid rock, and
+only the facades were ornamented. These were not larger than ordinary
+modern parochial churches, and do not give the impression of
+extraordinary magnificence. Besides these rock-hewn temples in India
+there remain many examples of a kind of memorial monument called
+_stupas_, or _topes_. The earliest of these are single columns; but the
+later and more numerous are in the shape of cones or circular mounds,
+resembling domes, rarely exceeding one hundred feet in diameter. Around
+the apex of each was a balustrade, or some ornamental work, about six
+feet in diameter. These topes remind one of the Pantheon at Rome in
+general form, but were of much smaller size. They were built on a stone
+basement less than fifty feet in height, above which was the brickwork.
+In process of time they came to resemble pyramidal towers rather than
+rounded domes, and were profusely ornamented with carvings. The great
+peculiarity of all Indian architectural monuments is excessive
+ornamentation rather than beauty of proportion or grand effect.
+
+In course of time, however, Indian temples became more and more
+magnificent; and a Chinese traveller in the year 400 A.D. describes one
+in Gaudhava as four hundred and seventy feet high, decorated with every
+sort of precious substance. Its dome, as it appears in a bas-relief,
+must have rivalled that of St. Peter's at Rome; but no trace of it now
+remains. The topes of India, which were numerous, indicate that the
+Hindus were acquainted with the arch, both pointed and circular, which
+was not known to the Egyptians or the Greeks. The most important of
+these buildings, in which are preserved valuable relics, are found in
+the Punjab. They were erected about twenty years before Christ. In size,
+they are about one hundred and twenty-seven feet in diameter. Connected
+with the circular topes are found what are called _rails_, surrounding
+the topes, built in the form of rectangles, with heavy pillars. One of
+the most interesting of these was found to be two hundred and
+seventy-five feet long, having square pillars twenty-two feet in height,
+profusely carved with scenes from the life of Buddha, topped by capitals
+in the shape of elephants supporting a succession of horizontal stone
+beams, all decorated with a richness of carving unknown in any other
+country. The Amravati rail, one of the finest of the ancient monuments
+of India, is found to be one hundred and ninety-five by one hundred and
+sixty-five feet, having octagonal pillars ornamented with the most
+elaborate carvings.
+
+From an architectural point of view, the rails were surpassed by the
+_chaityas_, or temple-caves, in western India. These were cut in the
+solid rock. Some one thousand different specimens are to be found. The
+facades of these caves are perfect, generally in the form of an arch,
+executed in the rock with every variety of detail, and therefore
+imperishable without violence. The process of excavation extended
+through ten centuries from the time of Asoka; and the interiors as well
+as the facades were highly ornamented with sculptures. The temple-caves
+are seldom more than one hundred and fifty feet deep and fifty feet in
+width, and the roofs are supported by pillars like the interior of
+Gothic cathedrals, some of which are of beautiful proportions with
+elaborated capitals. Though these rock-hewn temples are no larger than
+ordinary Christian churches, they are very impressive from the richly
+decorated carvings; they were lighted from a single opening in the
+facade, sometimes in the shape of a horseshoe.
+
+Besides these chaityas, or temples, there are still more numerous
+_viharas_, or monasteries, found in India, of different dates, but none
+older than the third century before Christ. They show a central hall,
+surrounded on three sides by cells for the monks. On the fourth side is
+an open verandah; facing this is generally a shrine with an image of
+Buddha. These edifices are not imposing unless surrounded by galleries,
+as some were, supported by highly decorated pillars. The halls are
+constructed in several stories with heavy masonry, in the shape of
+pyramids adorned with the figures of men and animals. One of these halls
+in southern India had fifteen hundred cells. The most celebrated was
+the Nalanda monastery, founded in the first century by Nagarjuna, which
+accommodated ten thousand priests, and was enclosed by a wall measuring
+sixteen hundred feet by four hundred. It was to Central India what Mount
+Casino was to Italy, and Cluny was to France, in the Middle Ages,--the
+seat of learning and art.
+
+It was not until the Mohammedan conquest in India that architecture
+received a new impulse from the Saracenic influence. Then arose the
+mosques, minarets, and palaces which are a wonder for their
+magnificence, and in which are seen the influence of Greek art as well
+as that of India. There is an Oriental splendor in these palaces and
+mosques which has called out the admiration of critics, although it is
+different from those types of beauty which we are accustomed to praise.
+But these later edifices were erected in the Middle Ages, coeval with
+the cathedrals of Europe, and therefore do not properly come under the
+head of ancient art, in which the ancient Hindus, whether of Aryan or
+Turanian descent, did not particularly excel. It was in matters of
+religion and philosophy that the Hindus felt most interest, even as the
+ancient Jews thought more of theology than of art and science.
+
+Architecture, however, as the expression of genius and high
+civilization, was carried to perfection only by the Greeks, who excelled
+in so many things. It was among the ancient Dorians, who descended from
+the mountains of northern Greece eighty years after the fall of Troy,
+that architectural art worthy of the name first appeared. The Pelasgi
+erected Cyclopean structures fifteen hundred years before Christ, as
+seen in the massive walls of the Acropolis at Athens, constructed of
+huge blocks of hewn stone, and in the palaces of the princes of the
+heroic times. The lintel of the doorway of the Mycenaean treasury is
+composed of a single stone twenty-seven feet long and sixteen broad. But
+these edifices, which aimed at splendor and richness merely, were
+deficient in that simplicity and harmony which have given immortality to
+the temples of the Dorians. In this style of architecture everything was
+suitable to its object, and was grand and noble. The great thickness of
+the columns, the beautiful entablature, the ample proportion of the
+capital, the great horizontal lines of the architrave and cornice
+predominating over the vertical lines of the columns, the severity of
+geometrical forms produced for the most part by straight lines, gave an
+imposing simplicity to the Doric temple.
+
+How far the Greek architects were indebted to the Egyptian we cannot
+tell, for though columns are found amid the ruins of the Egyptian
+temples, they are of different shape from any made by the Greeks. In the
+structures of Thebes we find both the tumescent and the cylindrical
+columns, from which amalgamation might have been produced the Doric
+column. The Greeks seized on beauty wherever they found it, and improved
+upon it. The Doric column was not probably an entirely new creation, but
+shaped after models furnished by the most original of all the ancient
+nations, even the Egyptians. The Doric temples were uniform in plan. The
+columns were fluted, and were generally about six diameters in height;
+they diminished gradually upward from the base, with a slightly con
+vexed swelling; they were surmounted by capitals regularly proportioned
+according to their height. The entablature which the column supported
+was also of a certain number of diameters in height. So regular and
+perfect was the plan of the temple, that "if the dimensions of a single
+column and the proportion the entablature should bear to it were given
+to two individuals acquainted with the style, with directions to compose
+a temple, they would produce designs exactly similar in size,
+arrangement, and general proportions." The Doric order possessed a
+peculiar harmony, but taste and skill were nevertheless necessary in
+order to determine the number of diameters a column should have, and
+also the height of the entablature.
+
+The Doric was the favorite order of European Greece for one thousand
+years, and also of her colonies in Sicily and Magna Graecia. It was
+used exclusively until after the Macedonian conquest, and was chiefly
+applied to temples. The massive temples of Paestum, the colossal
+magnificence of the Sicilian ruins, and the more elegant proportions of
+the Athenian structures, like the Parthenon and Temple of Theseus, show
+the perfection of the Doric architecture. Although the general style of
+all the Doric temples is so uniform, hardly two temples were alike. The
+earlier Doric was more massive; the later was more elegant, and its
+edifices were rich in sculptured decorations. Nothing could surpass the
+beauty of a Doric temple in the time of Pericles. The stylobate, or
+general base upon which the columnar story stood, from two thirds to a
+whole diameter of a column in height, was built in three equal courses,
+which gradually receded upward and formed steps, as it were, of a grand
+platform. The column, simply set upon the stylobate, without base or
+pedestal, was from four to six diameters in height, with twenty flutes,
+having a capital of half a diameter. On this rested the entablature, two
+column-diameters in height, which was divided into architrave (lower
+mouldings), frieze (broad middle space), and cornice (upper mouldings).
+The great beauty of the temple was the portico in front,--a forest of
+columns supporting the triangular pediment, about a diameter and a half
+to the apex, making an angle at the base of about fourteen degrees.
+From the pediment projects the cornice, while in the apex and at the
+base of the flat three-cornered gable are sculptured ornaments,
+generally the figures of men or animals. The whole outline of columns
+supporting the entablature is graceful, while the variety of light and
+shade arising from the arrangement of mouldings and capitals produces a
+grand effect.
+
+The Parthenon, the most beautiful specimen of the Doric, has never been
+equalled, and it still stands august in its ruins, the glory of the old
+Acropolis and the pride of Athens. It was built of white Pentelic
+marble, and rested on a basement of limestone. It was two hundred and
+twenty-seven feet in length, one hundred and one in breadth, and
+sixty-five in height, surrounded with forty-eight fluted columns, six
+feet and two inches at the base and thirty-four feet in height, while
+within the peristyle, at either end, was an interior range of columns
+standing before the end of the cella. The frieze and the pediment were
+elaborately ornamented with reliefs and statues, and the cella, within
+and without, was adorned with the choicest sculptures of Phidias, The
+remains of the exquisite sculptures of the pediment and the frieze were
+in the early part of this century brought from Greece by Lord Elgin,
+purchased by the English government, and placed in the British Museum,
+where, preserved from further dilapidation, they stand as indisputable
+evidence of the perfection of Greek art. The grandest adornment of the
+temple was the colossal statue of Minerva in the eastern apartment of
+the cella, forty feet in height, composed of gold and ivory; the inner
+walls of the chamber were decorated with paintings, and the whole temple
+was a repository of countless treasure. But the Parthenon, so regular to
+the eye with its vertical, oblique, and horizontal lines, was curved in
+every line, with the exception of the gable,--with its entablature,
+architrave, frieze, and cornice, together with the basement, all arched
+upwards; and even the columns had a slight convexity of vertical line,
+amounting to 1/550 of the entire height of shaft, though so slightly as
+not to be perceptible. These curved lines gave to the structure a
+peculiar grace which cannot be imitated, as well as an effect
+of solidity.
+
+Nearly coeval with the Doric was the Ionic order, invented by the
+Asiatic Greeks, still more graceful, though not so imposing. The
+Acropolis is a perfect example of this order. The column is nine
+diameters in height, with a base, while the capital is more ornamented
+than the Doric. The shaft is fluted with twenty-four flutes and
+alternate fillets (flat longitudinal ridges), and the fillet is about a
+quarter the width of the flute. The pediment is flatter than that of
+the Doric order, and more elaborate. The great distinction of the Ionic
+column is a base, and a capital formed with volutes (spiral scrolls),
+the shaft also being more slender. Vitruvius, the greatest authority
+among the ancients in architecture, says that "the Greeks, in inventing
+these two kinds of columns, imitated in the one the naked simplicity and
+dignity of man, and in the other the delicacy and ornaments of woman;
+the base of the Ionic was the imitation of sandals, and the volutes of
+ringlets." The discoveries of many of the Ionic ornamentations among the
+remains of Assyrian architecture indicate the Oriental source of the
+Ionic ideas, just as the Doric style seems to have originated in Egypt.
+The artistic Greeks, however, always simplified and refined upon
+their masters.
+
+The Corinthian order exhibits a still greater refinement and elegance
+than the other two, and was introduced toward the end of the
+Peloponnesian War. Its peculiarity consists in columns with foliated
+capitals modelled after the acanthus leaf, and still greater height,
+about ten diameters, surmounted with a more ornamented entablature. Of
+this order the most famous temple in Greece was that of Minerva at
+Tegea, built by Scopas of Paros, but destroyed by fire four hundred
+years before Christ.
+
+Nothing more distinguished Greek architecture than the variety, the
+grace, and the beauty of the mouldings, generally in eccentric curves.
+The general outline of the moulding is a gracefully flowing cyma, or
+wave, concave at one end and convex at the other, like an Italic _f_,
+the concavity and convexity being exactly in the same curve, according
+to the line of beauty which Hogarth describes.
+
+The most beautiful application of Greek architecture was in the temples,
+which were very numerous and of extraordinary grandeur, long before the
+Persian War. Their entrance was always from the west or the east. They
+were built either in an oblong or round form, and were mostly adorned
+with columns. Those of an oblong form had columns either in the front
+alone, or in the eastern and western fronts, or on all the four sides.
+They generally had porticos attached to them, and were without windows,
+receiving their light from the door or from above. The friezes were
+adorned with various sculptures, as were sometimes the pediments, and no
+expense was spared upon them. The most important part of the temple was
+the cell (_cella,_ or temple proper, a square chamber), in which the
+statue of the deity was kept, generally surrounded with a balustrade. In
+front of the cella was the vestibule, and in the rear or back a chamber
+in which the treasures of the temple were kept. Names were applied to
+the temples as well as to the porticos, according to the number of
+columns in the portico at either end of the temple,--such as the
+tetrastyle (four columns in front), or hexastyle (when there were six).
+There were never more than ten columns across the front. The Parthenon
+had eight, but six was the usual number. It was the rule to have twice
+as many columns along the sides as in front. Some of the temples had
+double rows of columns on all sides, like that of Diana at Ephesus and
+of Quirinus at Rome. The distance between the columns varied from one
+diameter and a half to four diameters. About five eighths of a Doric
+temple were occupied by the cella, and three eighths by the portico.
+
+That which gives to the Greek temples so much simplicity and
+harmony,--the great elements of beauty in architecture,--is the simple
+outline in parallelogrammic and pyramidal forms, in which the lines are
+uninterrupted through their entire length. This simplicity and harmony
+are more apparent in the Doric than in any of the other orders, but
+pertain to all the Grecian temples of which we have knowledge. The Ionic
+and Corinthian, or the voluted and foliated orders, do not possess that
+severe harmony which pervades the Doric; but the more beautiful
+compositions are so consummate that they will ever be taken as models
+of study.
+
+There is now no doubt that the exteriors of the Grecian temples were
+ornamented in color,--perhaps with historical pictures, etc.,--although
+as the traces have mostly disappeared it is impossible to know the
+extent or mode of decoration. It has been thought that the mouldings
+also may have been gilded or colored, and that the background of the
+sculptures had some flat color laid on as a relief to the raised
+figures. We may be sure, however it was done, that the effect was not
+gaudy or crude, but restrained within the limits of refinement and good
+taste by the infallible artistic instinct of those masters of the
+beautiful.
+
+It is not the magnitude of the Greek temples and other works of art
+which most impresses us. It is not for this that they are important
+models; it is not for this that they are copied and reproduced in all
+the modern nations of Europe. They were generally small compared with
+the temples of Egypt, and with the vast dimensions of Roman
+amphitheatres; only three or four would compare in size with a Gothic
+cathedral,--the Parthenon, the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens, and
+the Temple of Diana at Ephesus; even the Pantheon at Rome is small,
+compared with the later monuments of the Caesars. The traveller is
+always disappointed in contemplating the ruins of Greek buildings so far
+as size is concerned. But it is their matchless proportions, their
+severe symmetry, the grandeur of effect, the undying beauty, the
+graceful form which impress us, and make us feel that they are perfect.
+By the side of the Colosseum they are insignificant in magnitude; they
+do not cover acres, like the baths of Caracalla. Yet who has copied the
+Flavian amphitheatre; who erects an edifice after the style of the
+Thermae? All artists, however, copy the Parthenon. That, and not the
+colossal monuments of the Caesars, reappears in the capitals of Europe,
+and stimulates the genius of a Michael Angelo or a Christopher Wren.
+
+The flourishing period of Greek architecture was during the period from
+Pericles to Alexander,--one hundred and thirteen years. The Macedonian
+conquest introduced more magnificence and less simplicity. The Roman
+conquest accelerated the decline in severe taste, when different orders
+began to be used indiscriminately.
+
+In this state the art passed into the hands of the masters of the world,
+and they inaugurated a new era in architecture. The art was still
+essentially Greek, although the Romans derived their first knowledge
+from the Etruscans. The Cloaca Maxima, or Great Sewer, was built during
+the reign of the second Tarquin,--the grandest monument of the reign of
+the kings. It is not probable that temples and other public buildings in
+Rome were either beautiful or magnificent until the conquest of Greece,
+after which Grecian architects were employed. The Romans adopted the
+Corinthian style, which they made even more ornamental; and by the
+successful combination of the Etruscan arch with the Grecian column they
+laid the foundation of a new and original style, susceptible of great
+variety and magnificence. They entered into architecture with the
+enthusiasm of their teachers, but in their passion for novelty lost
+sight of the simplicity which is the great fascination of a Doric
+temple. Says Memes:--
+
+"They [the Romans] deemed that lightness and grace were to be attained
+not so much by proportion between the vertical and the horizontal as by
+the comparative slenderness of the former. Hence we see a poverty in
+Roman architecture in the midst of profuse ornament. The great error was
+a constant aim to lessen the diameter while they increased the elevation
+of the columns. Hence the massive simplicity and severe grandeur of the
+ancient Doric disappear in the Roman, the characteristics of the order
+being frittered down into a multiplicity of minute details."
+
+When the Romans used the Doric at all, they used a base for the column,
+which was never done at Athens. They also altered the Doric capital,
+which cannot be improved. Again, most of the Grecian Doric temples were
+peripteral,--surrounded with pillars on all the sides. But the Romans
+built with porticos on one front only, which had a greater projection
+than the Grecian. They generally were projected three columns, while the
+Greek portico had usually but a single row. Many of the Roman temples
+are circular, like the Pantheon, which has a portico of eight columns
+projected to the depth of three. Nor did the Romans construct hypaethral
+or uncovered temples with internal columns, like the Greeks. The
+Pantheon is an exception, since the dome has an open eye; and one great
+ornament of this beautiful structure is in the arrangement of internal
+columns placed in the front of niches, composed of antae, or pier-formed
+ends of walls, to carry an entablature round under an attic on which the
+cupola rests. The Romans also adopted coupled columns, broken and
+recessed entablatures, and pedestals, which are considered blemishes.
+They again paid more attention to the interior than to the exterior
+decoration of their palaces and baths,--as we may infer from the ruins
+of Hadrian's villa at Tivoli and the excavations of Pompeii.
+
+The pediments (roof-angles) used in Roman architectural works are
+steeper than those made by the Greeks, varying in inclination from
+eighteen to twenty-five degrees, instead of fourteen. The mouldings are
+the same as the Grecian in general form, although they differ from them
+in contour; they are less delicate and graceful, but were used in great
+profusion. Roman architecture is overdone with ornament, every moulding
+carved, and every straight surface sculptured with foliage or historical
+subjects in relief. The ornaments of the frieze consist of foliage and
+animals, with a variety of other things. The great exuberance of
+ornament is considered a defect, although when applied to some
+structures it is exceedingly beautiful. In the time of the first Caesars
+Roman architecture had, from the huge size of the buildings, a character
+of grandeur and magnificence. Columns and arches appeared in all the
+leading public buildings,--columns generally forming the external and
+arches the internal construction. Fabric after fabric arose on the ruins
+of others. The Flavii supplanted the edifices of Nero, which ministered
+to debauchery, by structures of public utility.
+
+The Romans invented no new principle in architecture, unless it be the
+arch, which was known, though not practically applied, by the Assyrians,
+Egyptians, and Greeks. The Romans were a practical and utilitarian
+people, and needed for their various structures greater economy of
+material than was compatible with large blocks of stone, especially for
+such as were carried to great altitudes. The arch supplied this want,
+and is perhaps the greatest invention ever made in architecture. No
+instance of its adoption occurs in the construction of Greek edifices
+before Greece became a part of the Roman empire. Its application dates
+back to the Cloaca Maxima, and may have been of Etrurian invention. Some
+maintain that Archimedes of Sicily was the inventor of the arch; but to
+whomsoever the glory of the invention is due, it is certain that the
+Romans were the first of European nations to make a practical
+application of its wonderful qualities. It enabled them to rear vast
+edifices with the humblest materials, to build bridges, aqueducts,
+sewers, amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, as well as temples and
+palaces. The merits of the arch have never been lost sight of by
+succeeding generations, and it is an essential element in the
+magnificent Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Its application
+extends to domes and cupolas, to floors and corridors and roofs, and to
+various other parts of buildings where economy of material and labor is
+desired. It was applied extensively to doorways and windows, and is an
+ornament as well as a utility. The most imposing forms of Roman
+architecture may be traced to a knowledge of the properties of the arch,
+and as brick was more extensively used than any other material, the arch
+was invaluable. The imperial palace on Mount Palatine, the Pantheon
+(except its portico and internal columns), the temples of Peace, of
+Venus and Rome, and of Minerva Medica, were of brick. So were the great
+baths of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian, the villa of Hadrian, the
+city walls, the villa of Mecaenas at Tivoli, and most of the palaces of
+the nobility,--although, like many of the temples, they were faced with
+stone. The Colosseum was of travertine, a cheap white limestone, and
+faced with marble. It was another custom to stucco the surface of brick
+walls, as favorable to decorations. In consequence of the invention of
+the arch, the Romans erected a greater variety of fine structures than
+either the Greeks or Egyptians, whose public edifices were chiefly
+confined to temples. The arch entered into almost every structure,
+public or private, and superseded the use of long stone-beams, which
+were necessary in the Grecian temples, as also of wooden timbers, in the
+use of which the Romans were not skilled, and which do not really
+pertain to architecture: an imposing edifice must always be constructed
+of stone or brick. The arch also enabled the Romans to economize in the
+use of costly marbles, of which they were very fond, as well as of other
+stones. Some of the finest columns were made of Egyptian granite, very
+highly polished.
+
+The extensive application of the arch doubtless led to the deterioration
+of the Grecian architecture, since it blended columns with arcades, and
+thus impaired the harmony which so peculiarly marked the temples of
+Athens and Corinth; and as taste became vitiated with the decline of
+the empire, monstrous combinations took place, which were a great fall
+from the simplicity of the Parthenon and the interior of the Pantheon.
+
+But whatever defects marked the age of Diocletian and Constantine, it
+can never be questioned that the Romans carried architecture to a
+perfection rarely attained in our times. They may not have equalled the
+severe simplicity of their teachers the Greeks, but they surpassed them
+in the richness of their decorations, and in all buildings designed for
+utility, especially in private houses and baths and theatres.
+
+The Romans do not seem to have used other than semicircular arches. The
+Gothic, or Pointed, or Christian architecture, as it has been variously
+called, was the creation of the Middle Ages, and arose almost
+simultaneously in Europe after the first Crusade, so that it would seem
+to be of Eastern origin. But it was a graft on the old Roman arch, in
+the curve of the ellipse rather than the circle.
+
+Aside from this invention of the arch, to which we are indebted for the
+most beautiful ecclesiastical structures ever erected, we owe everything
+in architecture to the Greeks and Romans. We have found out no new
+principles which were not known to Vitruvius. No one man was the
+inventor or creator of the wonderful structures which ornamented the
+cities of the ancient world. We have the names of great architects, who
+reared various and faultless models, but they all worked upon the same
+principles, and these can never be subverted; so that in architecture
+the ancients are our schoolmasters, whose genius we revere the more we
+are acquainted with their works. What more beautiful than one of those
+grand temples which the cultivated heathen Greeks erected to the worship
+of their unknown gods!--the graduated and receding stylobate as a base
+for the fluted columns, rising at regular distances in all their severe
+proportion and matchless harmony, with their richly carved capitals
+supporting an entablature of heavy stones, most elaborately moulded and
+ornamented with the figures of plants and animals; and rising above
+this, on the ends of the temple, or over a portico several columns deep,
+the pediment, covered with chiselled cornices, with still richer
+ornaments rising from the apices and at the feet, all carved in white
+marble, and then spread over an area larger than any modern churches,
+making a forest of columns to bear aloft those ponderous beams of stone,
+without anything tending to break the continuity of horizontal lines, by
+which the harmony and simplicity of the whole are regulated! So
+accurately squared and nicely adjusted were the stones and pillars of
+which these temples were composed, that there was scarcely need even of
+cement. Without noise or confusion or sound of hammers did those
+temples rise, since all their parts were cut and carved in the distant
+quarries, and with mathematical precision. And within the cella, nearly
+concealed by surrounding columns, were the statues of the gods, and the
+altars on which incense was offered, or sacrifices made. In every part,
+interior and exterior, do we see a matchless proportion and beauty,
+whether in the shaft or the capital or the frieze or the pilaster or the
+pediment or the cornices, or even the mouldings,--everywhere grace and
+harmony, which grow upon the mind the more they are contemplated. The
+greatest evidence of the matchless creative genius displayed in those
+architectural wonders is that after two thousand years, and with all the
+inventions of Roman and modern artists, no improvement has been made;
+and those edifices which are the admiration of our own times are deemed
+beautiful as they approximate the ancient models, which will forever
+remain objects of imitation. No science can make two and two other than
+four; no art can make a Doric temple different from the Parthenon
+without departing from the settled principles of beauty and proportion
+which all ages have indorsed. Such were the Greeks and Romans in an art
+which is one of the greatest indices of material civilization, and which
+by them was derived from geometrical forms, or the imitation of Nature.
+
+The genius displayed by the ancients in sculpture is even more
+remarkable than their skill in architecture. Sculpture was carried to
+perfection only by the Greeks; but they did not originate the art, since
+we read of sculptured images from the remotest antiquity. The earliest
+names of sculptors are furnished by the Old Testament. Assyria and Egypt
+are full of relics to show how early this art was cultivated. It was not
+carried to perfection as early, probably, as architecture; but rude
+images of gods, carved in wood, are as old as the history of idolatry.
+The history of sculpture is in fact identified with that of idols. The
+Egyptians were probably the first who made any considerable advances in
+the execution of statues. Those which remain are rude, simple, uniform,
+without beauty or grace (except a certain serenity of facial expression
+which seems to pervade all their portraiture), but colossal and grand.
+Nearly two thousand years before Christ the walls of Thebes were
+ornamented with sculptured figures, even as the gates of Babylon were
+made of sculptured bronze. The dimensions of Egyptian colossal figures
+surpass those of any other nation. The sitting statues of Memnon at
+Thebes are fifty feet in height, and the Sphinx is twenty-five,--all of
+granite. The number of colossal statues was almost incredible. The
+sculptures found among the ruins of Karnak must have been made nearly
+four thousand years ago. They exhibit great simplicity of design, but
+have not much variety of expression. They are generally carved from the
+hardest stones, and finished so nicely that we infer that the Egyptians
+were acquainted with the art of hardening metals for their tools to a
+degree not known in our times. But we see no ideal grandeur among any of
+the remains of Egyptian sculpture; however symmetrical or colossal,
+there is no diversity of expression, no trace of emotion, no
+intellectual force,--everything is calm, impassive, imperturbable. It
+was not until sculpture came into the hands of the Greeks that any
+remarkable excellence in grace of form or expression of face was
+reached. But the progress of development was slow. The earliest carvings
+were rude wooden images of the gods, and more than a thousand years
+elapsed before the great masters were produced whose works marked the
+age of Pericles.
+
+It is not my object to give a history of the development of the plastic
+art, but to show the great excellence it attained in the hands of
+immortal sculptors.
+
+The Greeks had an intuitive perception of the beautiful, and to this
+great national trait we ascribe the wonderful progress which sculpture
+made. Nature was most carefully studied by the Greek artists, and that
+which was most beautiful in Nature became the object of their imitation.
+They even attained to an ideal excellence, since they combined in a
+single statue what could not be found in a single individual,--as Zeuxis
+is said to have studied the beautiful forms of seven virgins of Crotona
+in order to paint his famous picture of Venus. Great as was the beauty
+of Phryne or Aspasia or Lais, yet no one of them could have served for a
+perfect model; and it required a great sensibility to beauty in order to
+select and idealize what was most perfect in the human figure. Beauty
+was adored in Greece, and every means were used to perfect it,
+especially beauty of form, which is the characteristic excellence of
+Grecian statuary. The gymnasia were universally frequented; and the
+great prizes of the games, bestowed for feats of strength and agility,
+were regarded as the highest honors which men could receive,--the
+subject of the poet's ode and the people's admiration. Statues of the
+victors perpetuated their fame and improved the sculptor's art. From the
+study of these statues were produced those great creations which all
+subsequent ages have admired; and from the application of the principles
+seen in these forms we owe the perpetuation of the ideas of grace and
+beauty such as no other people besides the Greeks had ever discovered,
+or indeed scarcely appreciated. The sculpture of the human figure became
+a noble object of ambition in Greece, and was most munificently
+rewarded. Great artists arose, whose works adorned the temples of Greece
+so long as she preserved her independence, and when that was lost, her
+priceless productions were scattered over Asia and Europe. The Romans
+especially seized what was most prized, whether or not they could tell
+what was most perfect. Greece lived in her marble statues more than in
+her government or laws; and when we remember the estimation in which
+sculpture was held among the Greeks, the great prices paid for
+masterpieces, the care and attention with which they were guarded and
+preserved, and the innumerable works which were produced, filling all
+the public buildings, especially consecrated places, and even open
+spaces and the houses of the rich and great, calling from all classes
+admiration and praise,--we cannot think it likely that so great
+perfection will ever be reached again in those figures which are
+designed to represent beauty of form. Even the comparatively few statues
+which have survived the wars and violence of two thousand years,
+convince us that the moderns can only imitate; they can produce no
+creations equal to those by Athenian artists. "No mechanical copying of
+Greek statues, however skilful the copyist, can ever secure for modern
+sculpture the same noble and effective character it possessed among the
+Greeks, for the simple reason that the imitation, close as may be the
+resemblance, is but the result of the eye and hand, while the original
+is the expression of a true and deeply felt sentiment. Art was not
+sustained by the patronage of a few who affect to have what is called
+_taste_; in Greece the artist, having a common feeling for the beautiful
+with his countrymen, produced his works for the public, which were
+erected in places of honor and dedicated in temples of the gods."
+
+It was not until the Persian wars awakened among the Greeks the
+slumbering consciousness of national power, and Athens became the
+central point of Grecian civilization, that sculpture, like architecture
+and painting, reached its culminating point of excellence under Phidias
+and his contemporaries. Great artists had previously made themselves
+famous, like Miron, Polycletus, and Ageladas; but the great riches which
+flowed into Athens at this time gave a peculiar stimulus to art,
+especially under the encouragement of such a ruler as Pericles, whose
+age was the golden era of Grecian history.
+
+Pheidias, or Phidias, was to sculpture what Aeschylus was to tragic
+poetry,--the representative of the sublime and grand. He was born four
+hundred and eighty-four years before Christ, and was the pupil of
+Ageladas. He stands at the head of the ancient sculptors, not from what
+_we_ know of him, for his masterpieces have perished, but from the
+estimation in which he was held by the greatest critics of antiquity. It
+was to him that Pericles intrusted the adornment of the Parthenon, and
+the numerous and beautiful sculptures of the frieze and the pediment
+were the work of artists whom he directed. His great work in that
+wonderful edifice was the statue of the goddess Minerva herself, made of
+gold and ivory, forty feet in height, standing victorious, with a spear
+in her left hand and an image of victory in her right, with helmet on
+her head, and her shield resting by her side. The cost of this statue
+may be estimated when we consider that the gold alone used upon it was
+valued at forty-four talents, equal to five hundred thousand dollars of
+our money,--an immense sum in that age. Some critics suppose that this
+statue was overloaded with ornament, but all antiquity was unanimous in
+its admiration. The exactness and finish of detail were as remarkable as
+the grandeur of the proportions. Another of the famous works of Phidias
+was a colossal bronze statue of Athene Promachos, sixty feet in height,
+on the Acropolis between the Propylaea and the Parthenon. But both of
+these yielded to the colossal statue of Zeus in his great temple at
+Olympia, represented in a sitting posture, forty feet high, on a
+pedestal of twenty feet. The god was seated on a throne. Ebony, gold,
+ivory, and precious stones formed, with a multitude of sculptured and
+painted figures, the wonderful composition of this throne. In this his
+greatest work the artist sought to embody the idea of majesty and
+repose,--of a supreme deity no longer engaged in war with Titans and
+Giants, but enthroned as a conqueror, ruling with a nod the subject
+world, and giving his blessing to those victories which gave glory to
+the Greeks. So famous was this statue, which was regarded as the
+masterpiece of Grecian art, that it was considered a calamity to die
+without having seen it; and this served for a model for all subsequent
+representations of majesty and power in repose among the ancients. It
+was removed to Constantinople by Theodosius I., and was destroyed by
+fire in the year 475 A.D. Phidias executed various other famous works,
+which have perished; but even those that were executed under his
+superintendence which have come down to our times,--like the statues
+which ornamented the pediment of the Parthenon,--are among the finest
+specimens of art that exist, and exhibit the most graceful and
+appropriate forms which could have been selected, uniting grandeur with
+simplicity, and beauty with accuracy of anatomical structure. His
+distinguishing excellence was ideal beauty, and that of the
+sublimest order.
+
+Of all the wonders and mysteries of ancient art the colossal statues of
+ivory and gold were perhaps the most remarkable, and the difficulty of
+executing them has been set forth by the ablest of modern critics, like
+Winckelmann, Heyne, and De Quincey. "The grandeur of their dimensions,
+the perfection of their workmanship, the richness of their materials,
+their majesty, beauty, and ideal truth, the splendor of the architecture
+and pictorial decoration with which they were associated,--all conspired
+to impress the beholder with wonder and awe, and induce a belief of the
+actual presence of the god."
+
+After the Peloponnesian War a new school of art arose in Athens, which
+appealed more to the passions. Of this school was Praxiteles, who aimed
+to please without seeking to elevate or instruct. No one has probably
+ever surpassed him in execution. He wrought in bronze and marble, and
+was one of the artists who adorned the Mausoleum of Artemisia. Without
+attempting the sublime impersonation of the deity, in which Phidias
+excelled, he was unsurpassed in the softer graces and beauties of the
+human form, especially in female figures. His most famous work was an
+undraped statue of Venus, for his native town of Cnidus, which was so
+remarkable that people flocked from all parts of Greece to see it. He
+did not aim at ideal majesty so much as at ideal gracefulness; his works
+were formed from the most beautiful living models, and hence expressed
+only the ideal of sensuous charms. It is probable that the Venus de
+Medici of Cleomenes was a mere copy of the Aphrodite of Praxiteles,
+which was so highly extolled by, the ancient authors; it was of Parian
+marble, and modelled from the celebrated Phryne. His statues of Dionysus
+also expressed the most consummate physical beauty, representing the god
+as a beautiful youth crowned with ivy, and expressing tender and dreamy
+emotions. Praxiteles sculptured several figures of Eros, or the god of
+love, of which that at Thespiae attracted visitors to the city in the
+time of Cicero. It was subsequently carried to Rome, and perished by a
+conflagration in the time of Titus. One of the most celebrated statues
+of this artist was an Apollo, many copies of which still exist. His
+works were very numerous, but chiefly from the circle of Dionysus,
+Aphrodite, and Eros, in which adoration for corporeal attractions is the
+most marked peculiarity, and for which the artist was fitted by his
+dissolute life.
+
+Scopas was the contemporary of Praxiteles, and was the author of the
+celebrated group of Niobe, which is one of the chief ornaments of the
+gallery of sculpture at Florence. He flourished about three hundred and
+fifty years before Christ, and wrought chiefly in marble. He was
+employed in decorating the Mausoleum which Artemisia erected to her
+husband,--one of the wonders of the world. His masterpiece is said to
+have been a group representing Achilles conducted to the island of Leuce
+by the divinities of the sea, which ornamented the shrine of Domitius in
+the Flaminian Circus. In this, tender grace, heroic grandeur, daring
+power, and luxurious fulness of life were combined with wonderful
+harmony. Like the other great artists of this school, Scopas exhibited
+the grandeur and sublimity for which Phidias was celebrated, but a
+greater refinement and luxury, as well as skill in the use of drapery.
+
+Sculpture in Greece culminated, as an art, in Lysippus, who worked
+chiefly in bronze. He is said to have executed fifteen hundred statues,
+and was much esteemed by Alexander the Great, by whom he was extensively
+patronized. He represented men not as they were, but as they appeared to
+be; and if he exaggerated, he displayed great energy of action. He aimed
+to idealize merely human beauty, and his imitation of Nature was carried
+out in the minutest details. None of his works are extant; but as he
+alone was permitted to make the statue of Alexander, we infer that he
+had no equals. The Emperor Tiberius transferred one of his statues (that
+of an athlete) from the baths of Agrippa to his own chamber, which so
+incensed the people that he was obliged to restore it. His favorite
+subject was Hercules, and a colossal statue of this god was carried to
+Rome by Fabius Maximus, when he took Tarentum, and afterward was
+transferred to Constantinople; the Farnese Hercules and the Belvidere
+Torso are probably copies of this work. He left many eminent scholars,
+among whom were Chares (who executed the famous Colossus of Rhodes),
+Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus who sculptured the group of the
+"Laocooen." The Rhodian school was the immediate offshoot from the school
+of Lysippus at Sicyon; and from this small island of Rhodes the Romans,
+when they conquered it, carried away three thousand statues. The
+Colossus was one of the wonders of the world (seventy cubits in height);
+and the Laocooen (the group of the Trojan hero and his two sons encoiled
+by serpents) is a perfect miracle of art, in which pathos is exhibited
+in the highest degree ever attained in sculpture. It was discovered in
+1506, near the baths of Titus, and is one of the choicest remains of
+ancient plastic art.
+
+The great artists of antiquity did not confine themselves to the
+representation of man, but also carved animals with exceeding accuracy
+and beauty. Nicias was famous for his dogs, Myron for his cows, and
+Lysippus for his horses. Praxiteles composed his celebrated lion after a
+living animal. "The horses of the frieze of the Elgin Marbles," says
+Flaxman, "appear to live and move; to roll their eyes, to gallop,
+prance, and curvet; the veins of their faces and legs seem distended
+with circulation. The beholder is charmed with the deer-like lightness
+and elegance of their make; and although the relief is not above an inch
+from the background, and they are so much smaller than nature, we can
+scarcely suffer reason to persuade us they are not alive." The Greeks
+also carved gems, cameos, medals, and vases, with unapproachable
+excellence. Very few specimens have come down to our times, but those
+which we possess show great beauty both in design and execution.
+
+Grecian statuary began with ideal representations of the deities, and
+was carried to the greatest perfection by Phidias in his statues of
+Jupiter and Minerva. Then succeeded the school of Praxiteles, in which
+the figures of gods and goddesses were still represented, but in mortal
+forms. The school of Lysippus was famous for the statues of celebrated
+men, especially in cities where Macedonian rulers resided. Artists were
+expected henceforth to glorify kings and powerful nobles and rulers by
+portrait statues. From this period, however, plastic art degenerated;
+nor were works of original genius produced, but rather copies or
+varieties from the three great schools to which allusion has been made.
+Sculpture may have multiplied, but not new creations; although some
+imitations of great merit were produced, like the Hermaphrodite, the
+Torso, the Farnese Hercules, and the Fighting Gladiator. When Corinth
+was sacked by Mummius, some of the finest statues of Greece were carried
+to Rome; and after the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, the Greek
+artists emigrated to Italy. The fall of Syracuse introduced many works
+of priceless value into Rome; but it was from Athens, Delphi, Corinth,
+Elis, and other great centres of art that the richest treasures were
+brought. Greece was despoiled to ornament Italy.
+
+The Romans did not create a school of sculpture. They borrowed wholly
+from the Greeks, yet made, especially in the time of Hadrian, many
+beautiful statues. They were fond of this art, and all eminent men had
+statues erected to their memory. The busts of emperors were found in
+every great city, and Rome was filled with statues. The monuments of the
+Romans were even more numerous than those of the Greeks, and among them
+some admirable portraits are found. These sculptures did not express
+that consummation of beauty and grace, of refinement and sentiment,
+which marked the Greeks; but the imitations were good. Art had reached
+its perfection under Lysippus; there was nothing more to learn. Genius
+in that department could soar no higher. It will never rise to
+loftier heights.
+
+It is noteworthy that the purest forms of Grecian art arose in its
+earlier stages. From a moral point of view, sculpture declined from the
+time of Phidias. It was prostituted at Rome under the emperors. The
+specimens which have often been found among the ruins of ancient baths
+make us blush for human nature. The skill of execution did not decline
+for several centuries; but the lofty ideal was lost sight of, and gross
+appeals to human passions were made by those who sought to please
+corrupt leaders of society in an effeminate age. The turgidity and
+luxuriance of art gradually passed into tameness and poverty. The
+reliefs on the Arch of Constantine are rude and clumsy compared with
+those on the column of Marcus Aurelius.
+
+It is not my purpose to describe the decline of art, or enumerate the
+names of the celebrated masters who exalted sculpture in the palmy days
+of Pericles or even Alexander. I simply speak of sculpture as an art
+which reached a great perfection among the Greeks and Romans, as we have
+a right to infer from the specimens that have been preserved. How many
+more must have perished, we may infer from the criticisms of the ancient
+authors. The finest productions of our own age are in a measure
+reproductions; they cannot be called creations, like the statue of the
+Olympian Jove. Even the Moses of Michael Angelo is a Grecian god, and
+Powers's Greek Slave is a copy of an ancient Venus. The very tints which
+have been admired in some of the works of modern sculptors are borrowed
+from Praxiteles, who succeeded in giving to his statues an appearance of
+living flesh. The Museum of the Vatican alone contains several thousand
+specimens of ancient sculpture which have been found among the debris of
+former magnificence, many of which are the productions of Greek artists
+transported to Rome. Among them are antique copies of the Cupid and the
+Faun of Praxiteles, the statue of Demosthenes, the Minerva Medica, the
+Athlete of Lysippus, the Torso Belvedere sculptured by Apollonius, the
+Belvidere Antinous, of faultless anatomy and a study for Domenichino,
+the Laocooen, so panegyrized by Pliny, the Apollo Belvedere, the work of
+Agasias of Ephesus, the Sleeping Ariadne, with numerous other statues of
+gods and goddesses, emperors, philosophers, poets, and statesmen of
+antiquity. The Dying Gladiator, which ornaments the capitol, is alone a
+magnificent proof of the perfection to which sculpture was carried
+centuries after the art had culminated at Athens. And these are only a
+few which stand out among the twenty thousand recovered statues that now
+embellish Italy, to say nothing of those that are scattered over Europe.
+We have the names of hundreds of artists who were famous in their day.
+Not merely the figures of men are chiselled, but of animals and plants.
+Nature in all her forms was imitated; and not merely Nature, but the
+dresses of the ancients are perpetuated in marble. No modern sculptor
+has equalled, in delicacy of finish, the draperies of those ancient
+statues as they appear to us even after the exposure and accidents of
+two thousand years. No one, after a careful study of the museums of
+Europe, can question that of all the nations who have claimed to be
+civilized, the ancient Greeks and Romans deserve a proud pre-eminence in
+an art which is still regarded as among the highest triumphs of human
+genius. All these matchless productions of antiquity are the result of
+native genius alone, without the aid of Christian ideas. Nor with the
+aid of Christianity are we sure that any nation will ever soar to
+loftier heights than did the Greeks in that proud realm which was
+consecrated to Paganism.
+
+We are not so certain in regard to the excellence of the ancients in the
+art of painting as we are in regard to sculpture and architecture, since
+so few specimens of painting have been preserved. We have only the
+testimony of the ancients themselves; and as they had so severe a taste
+and so great a susceptibility to beauty in all its forms, we cannot
+suppose that their notions were crude in this great art which the
+moderns have carried to such great perfection. In this art the moderns
+doubtless excel, especially in perspective and drawing, and light and
+shade. No age, we fancy, can surpass Italy in the fifteenth and
+sixteenth centuries, when the genius of Raphael, Correggio, and
+Domenichino blazed with such wonderful brilliancy.
+
+Painting in some form, however, is very ancient, though not so ancient
+as are the temples of the gods and the statues that were erected to
+their worship. It arose with the susceptibility to beauty of form and
+color, and with the view of conveying thoughts and emotions of the soul
+by imitation of their outward expression. The walls of Babylon were
+painted after Nature with representations of different species of
+animals and of combats between them and man. Semiramis was represented
+as on horseback, striking a leopard with a dart, and her husband Ninus
+as wounding a lion. Ezekiel describes various idols and beasts portrayed
+upon the walls, and even princes painted in vermilion, with girdles
+around their loins. In ages almost fabulous there were some rude
+attempts in this art, which probably arose from the coloring of statues
+and reliefs. The wooden chests of Egyptian mummies are covered with
+painted and hieroglyphic presentations of religious subjects; but the
+colors were laid without regard to light and shade. The Egyptians did
+not seek to represent the passions and emotions which agitate the soul,
+but rather to authenticate events and actions; and hence their
+paintings, like hieroglyphics, are but inscriptions. It was their great
+festivals and religious rites which they sought to perpetuate, not ideas
+of beauty or of grace. Thus their paintings abound with dismembered
+animals, plants, and flowers, with censers, entrails,--whatever was used
+in their religious worship. In Greece also the original painting
+consisted in coloring statues and reliefs of wood and clay. At Corinth,
+painting was early united with the fabrication of vases, on which were
+rudely painted figures of men and animals. Among the Etruscans, before
+Rome was founded, it is said there were beautiful paintings, and it is
+probable that these people were advanced in art before the Greeks. There
+were paintings in some of the old Etruscan cities which the Roman
+emperors wished to remove, so much admired were they even in the days of
+the greatest splendor. The ancient Etruscan vases are famous for designs
+which have never been exceeded in purity of form, but it is probable
+that these were copied from the Greeks.
+
+Whether the Greeks or the Etruscans were the first to paint, however,
+the art was certainly carried to the greatest perfection among the
+former. The development of it was, like all arts, very gradual. It
+probably began by drawing the outline of a shadow, without intermediate
+markings; the next step was the complete outline with the inner
+markings,--such as are represented on the ancient vases, or like the
+designs of Flaxman. They were originally practised on a white ground;
+then light and shade were introduced, and then the application of colors
+in accordance with Nature. We read of a great painting by Bularchus, of
+the battle of Magnete, purchased by a king of Lydia seven hundred and
+eighteen years before Christ. As the subject was a battle, it must have
+represented the movement of figures, although we know nothing of the
+coloring or of the real excellence of the work, except that the artist
+was paid munificently. Cimon of Cleona is the first great name connected
+with the art in Greece. He is praised by Pliny, to whom we owe the
+history of ancient painting more than to any other author. Cimon was not
+satisfied with drawing simply the outlines of his figures, such as we
+see in the oldest painted vases, but he also represented limbs, and
+folds of garments. He invented the art of foreshortening, or the various
+representations of the diminution of the length of figures as they
+appear when looked at obliquely; and hence was the first painter of
+perspective. He first made muscular articulations, indicated the veins,
+and gave natural folds to drapery.
+
+A much greater painter than he was Polygnotus of Thasos, the
+contemporary of Phidias, who came to Athens about the year 463
+B.C.,--one of the greatest geniuses of any age, and one of the most
+magnanimous, who had the good fortune to live in an age of exceeding
+intellectual activity. He painted on panels, which were afterward let
+into the walls, being employed on the public buildings of Athens, and on
+the great temple of Delphi, the hall of which he painted gratuitously.
+He also decorated the Propylaea, which was erected under the
+superintendence of Phidias. The pictures of Polygnotus had nothing of
+that elaborate grouping, aided by the powers of perspective, so much
+admired in modern art. His greatness lay in statuesque painting, which
+he brought nearly to perfection by ideal expression, accurate drawing,
+and improved coloring. He used but few colors, and softened the rigidity
+of his predecessors by making the mouth of beauty smile. He gave great
+expression to the face and figure, and his pictures were models of
+excellence for the beauty of the eyebrows, the blush upon the cheeks,
+and the gracefulness of the draperies. He strove, like Phidias, to
+express character in repose. He imitated the personages and the subjects
+of the old mythology, and treated them in an epic spirit, his subjects
+being almost invariably taken from Homer and the Epic cycle.
+
+Among the works of Polygnotus, as mentioned by Pliny, are his paintings
+in the Temple at Delphi, in the Propylaea of the Acropolis, in the
+Temple of Theseus, and in the Temple of the Dioscuri at Athens. He
+painted in a truly religious spirit, and upon symmetrical principles,
+with great grandeur and freedom, resembling Michael Angelo more than any
+other modern artist.
+
+The use of oil was unknown to the ancients. The artists painted upon
+wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, but not upon canvas, which was
+not used till the time of Nero. They painted upon tablets or panels, and
+not upon the walls,--the panels being afterward framed and encased in
+the walls. The stylus, or cestrum, used in drawing and for spreading the
+wax colors was pointed on one end and flat on the other, and generally
+made of metal. Wax was prepared by purifying and bleaching, and then
+mixed with colors. When painting was practised in watercolors, glue was
+used with the white of an egg or with gums; but wax and resins were also
+worked with water, with certain preparations. This latter mode was
+called encaustic, and was, according to Plutarch, the most durable of
+all methods. It was not generally adopted till the time of Alexander the
+Great. Wax was a most essential ingredient, since it prevented the
+colors from cracking. Encaustic painting was practised both with the
+cestrum and the pencil, and the colors were also burned in.
+
+Fresco, or water-color, on fresh plaster, was used for coloring walls,
+which were divided into compartments or panels. The composition of the
+stucco, and the method of preparing the walls for painting, is described
+by the ancient writers: "They first covered the walls with a layer of
+ordinary plaster, over which, when dry, were successively added three
+other layers of a finer quality, mixed with sand. Above these were
+placed three layers of a composition of chalk and marble-dust, the upper
+one being laid on before the under one was dry; by which process the
+different layers were so bound together that the whole mass formed one
+beautiful and solid slab, resembling marble, and was capable of being
+detached from the wall and transported in a wooden frame to any
+distance. The colors were applied when the composition was still wet.
+The fresco wall, when painted, was covered with an encaustic varnish,
+both to heighten the color and to preserve it from the effects of the
+sun or the weather; but this process required so much care, and was
+attended with so much expense, that it was used only in the better
+houses and palaces." The later discoveries at Pompeii show the same
+correctness of design in painting as in sculpture, and also considerable
+perfection in coloring. The great artists of Greece--Phidias and
+Euphranor, Zeuxis and Protogenes, Polygnotus and Lysippus--were both
+sculptors and painters, like Michael Angelo; and the ancient writers
+praise the paintings of these great artists as much as their sculpture.
+The Aldobrandini Marriage, found on the Esquiline Mount during the
+pontificate of Clement VIII., and placed in the Vatican by Pius VII., is
+admired both for drawing and color. Polygnotus was praised by Aristotle
+for his designs, and by Lucian for his color.
+
+Dionysius and Mikon were the great contemporaries of Polygnotus, the
+former being celebrated for his portraits. His pictures were deficient
+in the ideal, but were remarkable for expression and elegant drawing.
+Mikon was particularly skilled in painting horses, and was the first who
+used for a color the light Attic ochre, and the black made from burnt
+vine-twigs. He painted three of the walls of the Temple of Theseus, and
+also the walls of the Temple of the Dioscuri.
+
+A greater painter still was Apollodorus of Athens. Through his labors,
+about 408 B.C., dramatic effect was added to the style of Polygnotus,
+without departing from his pictures as models. "The acuteness of his
+taste," says Fuseli, "led him to discover that as all men were connected
+by one general form, so they were separated each by some predominant
+power, which fixed character and bound them to a class. Thence he drew
+his line of imitation, and personified the central form of the class to
+which his object belonged, and to which the rest of its qualities
+administered without being absorbed. Agility was not suffered to destroy
+firmness, solidity, or weight; nor strength and weight, agility.
+Elegance did not degenerate into effeminacy, nor grandeur swell to
+hugeness." His aim was to deceive the eye of the spectator by the
+semblance of reality: he painted men and things as they really appeared.
+He also made a great advance in coloring: he invented chiaro-oscuro.
+Other painters had given attention to the proper gradation of light and
+shade; he heightened this effect by the gradation of tints, and thus
+obtained what the moderns call _tone_. He was the first who conferred
+due honor on the pencil,--_primusque gloriam penicillo jure contulit_.
+
+This great painter was succeeded by Zeuxis, who belonged to his school,
+but who surpassed him in the power to give ideal form to rich effects.
+He began his great career four hundred and twenty-four years before
+Christ, and was most remarkable for his female figures. His Helen,
+painted from five of the most beautiful women of Croton, was one of the
+most renowned productions of antiquity, to see which the painter
+demanded money. He gave away his pictures, because, with an artist's
+pride, he maintained that their price could not be estimated. There is
+a tradition that Zeuxis laughed himself to death over an old woman
+painted by him. He arrived at illusion of the senses, regarded as a high
+attainment in art,--as in the instance recorded of his grapes, at which
+the birds pecked. He belonged to the Asiatic school, whose headquarters
+were at Ephesus,--the peculiarities of which were accuracy of imitation,
+the exhibition of sensuous charms, and the gratification of sensual
+tastes. He went to Athens about the time that the sculpture of Phidias
+was completed, which modified his style. His marvellous powers were
+displayed in the contrast of light and shade, which he learned from
+Apollodorus. He gave ideal beauty to his figures, but it was in form
+rather than in expression. He taught the true method of grouping, by
+making each figure the perfect representation of the class to which it
+belonged. His works were deficient in those qualities which elevate the
+feelings and the character. He was the Euripides rather than the Homer
+of his art. He exactly imitated natural objects, which are incapable of
+ideal representation. His works were not so numerous as they were
+perfect in their way, in some of which, as in the Infant Hercules
+strangling the Serpent, he displayed great dramatic power. Lucian highly
+praises his Female Centaur as one of the most remarkable paintings of
+the world, in which he showed great ingenuity of contrasts. His Jupiter
+Enthroned is also extolled by Pliny, as one of his finest works. Zeuxis
+acquired a great fortune, and lived ostentatiously.
+
+Contemporaneous with Zeuxis, and equal in fame, was Parrhasius, a native
+of Ephesus, whose skill lay in accuracy of drawing and power of
+expression. He gave to painting true proportion, and attended to minute
+details of the countenance and the hair. In his gods and heroes, he did
+for painting what Phidias did in sculpture. His outlines were so perfect
+as to indicate those parts of the figure which they did not express. He
+established a rule of proportion which was followed by all succeeding
+artists. While many of his pieces were of a lofty character, some were
+demoralizing. Zeuxis yielded the palm to him, since Parrhasius painted a
+curtain which deceived his rival, whereas the grapes of Zeuxis had
+deceived only birds. Parrhasius was exceedingly arrogant and luxurious,
+and boasted of having reached the utmost limits of his art. He combined
+the magic tone of Apollodorus with the exquisite design of Zeuxis and
+the classic expression of Polygnotus.
+
+Many were the eminent painters that adorned the fifth century before
+Christ, not only in Athens, but in the Ionian cities of Asia. Timanthes
+of Sicyon was distinguished for invention, and Eupompus of the same
+city founded a school. His advice to Lysippus is memorable: "Let Nature,
+not an artist, be your model." Protogenes was celebrated for his high
+finish. His Talissus took him seven years to complete. Pamphilus was
+celebrated for composition, Antiphilus for facility, Theon of Samos for
+prolific fancy, Apelles for grace, Pausias for his chiaro-oscuro,
+Nicomachus for his bold and rapid pencil, Aristides for depth of
+expression.
+
+The art probably culminated in Apelles, who was at once a rich colorist
+and portrayer of sensuous charm and a scientific artist, while he added
+a peculiar grace of his own, which distinguished him above both his
+predecessors and contemporaries. He was contemporaneous with Alexander,
+and was alone allowed to paint the picture of the great conqueror.
+Apelles was a native of Ephesus, studied under Pamphilus of Amphipolis,
+and when he had gained reputation he went to Sicyon and took lessons
+from Melanthius. He spent the best part of his life at the court of
+Philip and Alexander, and painted many portraits of these great men and
+of their generals. He excelled in portraits, and labored so assiduously
+to perfect himself in drawing that he never spent a day without
+practising. He made great improvement in the mechanical part of his art,
+inventing some colors, and being the first to varnish pictures. By the
+general consent of ancient authors, Apelles stands at the head of all
+the painters of their world. His greatest work was his Venus Anadyomene,
+or Venus rising out of the sea, in which female grace was personified;
+the falling drops of water from her hair gave the appearance of a
+transparent silver veil over her form. This picture cost one hundred
+talents, was painted for the Temple of Aesculapius at Cos, and afterward
+placed by Augustus in the temple which he dedicated to Julius Caesar.
+The lower part of it becoming injured, no one could be found to repair
+it; nor was there an artist who could complete an unfinished picture
+which Apelles left. He feared no criticism, and was unenvious of the
+fame of rivals.
+
+After Apelles, the art of painting declined, although great painters
+occasionally appeared, especially from the school of Sicyon, which was
+renowned for nearly two hundred years. The destruction of Corinth by
+Mummius, 146 B.C., gave a severe blow to Grecian art. This general
+destroyed, or carried to Rome, more works than all his predecessors
+combined. Sulla, when he spoiled Athens, inflicted a still greater
+injury; and from that time artists resorted to Rome and Alexandria and
+other flourishing cities for patronage and remuneration. The
+masterpieces of famous artists brought enormous prices, and Greece and
+Asia were ransacked for old pictures. The paintings which Aemilius
+Paulus brought from Greece required two hundred and fifty wagons to
+carry them in the triumphal procession. With the spoliation of Greece,
+the migration of artists began; and this spoliation of Greece, Asia, and
+Sicily continued for two centuries. We have already said that such was
+the wealth of Rhodes in works of art that three thousand statues were
+found there by the conquerors; nor could there have been less at Athens,
+Olympia, and Delphi. Scaurus had all the public pictures of Sicyon
+transported to Rome. Verres plundered every temple and public building
+in Sicily.
+
+Thus Rome was possessed of the finest paintings in the world, without
+the slightest claim to the advancement of the art. And if the opinion of
+Sir Joshua Reynolds is correct, art could advance no higher in the realm
+of painting, as well as of statuary, than the Greeks had already borne
+it. Yet the Romans learned to place as high value on the works of
+Grecian genius as the English do on the paintings of the old masters of
+Italy and Flanders. And if they did not add to the art, they gave such
+encouragement that under the emperors it may be said to have been
+flourishing. Varro had a gallery of seven hundred portraits of eminent
+men. The portraits as well as the statues of the great were placed in
+the temples, libraries, and public buildings. The baths especially were
+filled with paintings.
+
+The great masterpieces of the Greeks were either historical or
+mythological. Paintings of gods and heroes, groups of men and women, in
+which character and passion could be delineated, were the most highly
+prized. It was in the expression given to the human figure--in beauty of
+form and countenance, in which all the emotions of the soul, as well as
+the graces of the body were portrayed--that the Greek artists sought to
+reach the ideal, and to gain immortality. And they painted for a people
+who had both a natural and a cultivated taste and sensibility.
+
+Among the Romans portrait, decorative, and scene painting engrossed the
+art, much to the regret of such critics as Pliny and Vitruvius. Nothing
+could be in more execrable taste than a colossal painting of Nero, one
+hundred and twenty feet high. From the time of Augustus landscape
+decorations were common, and were carried out with every species of
+license. Among the Greeks we do not read of landscape painting. This has
+been reserved for our age, and is much admired, as it was at Rome in the
+latter days of the empire. Mosaic work, of inlaid stones or composition
+of varying shades and colors, gradually superseded painting in Rome; it
+was first used for floors, and finally walls and ceilings were
+ornamented with it. It is true, the ancients could show no such
+exquisite perfection of colors, tints, and shades as may be seen to-day
+in the wonderful reproductions of world-renowned paintings on the walls
+of St. Peter's at Rome; but many ancient mosaics have been preserved
+which attest beauty of design of the highest character,--like the Battle
+of Issus, lately discovered at Pompeii; and this brilliant art had its
+origin and a splendid development at the hands of the old Romans.
+
+Thus in all those arts of which modern civilization is proudest, and in
+which the genius of man has soared to the loftiest heights, the ancients
+were not merely our equals,--they were our superiors. It is greater to
+originate than to copy. In architecture, in sculpture, and perhaps in
+painting, the Greeks attained absolute perfection. Any architect of our
+time, who should build an edifice in different proportions from those
+that were recognized in the great cities of antiquity, would make a
+mistake. Who can improve upon the Doric columns of the Parthenon, or
+upon the Corinthian capitals of the Temple of Jupiter? Indeed, it is in
+proportion as we accurately copy the faultless models of the age of
+Pericles that excellence with us is attained and recognized; when we
+differ from them we furnish grounds of just criticism. So in
+sculpture,--the finest modern works are inspired by antique models. It
+is only when the artist seeks to bring out the purest and loftiest
+sentiments of the soul, such as only Christianity can inspire, that he
+may hope to surpass the sculpture of antiquity in one department of that
+art alone,--in expression, rather than in beauty of form, on which no
+improvement can be made. And if we possessed the painted Venus of
+Apelles, as we can boast of having the sculptured Venus of Cleomenes, we
+should probably discover greater richness of coloring as well as grace
+of figure than appear in that famous picture of Titian which is one of
+the proudest ornaments of the galleries of Florence, and one of the
+greatest marvels of Italian art.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Winckelmann's History of Ancient Art; Mueller's Ancient Art and its
+Remains; A.J. Guattani, Antiquites de la Grande Grece; Mazois,
+Antiquites de Pompeii; Sir W. Gill, Pompeiana; Donaldson's Antiquities
+of Athens; Vitruvius, Stuart, Chandler, Clarke, Dodwell, Cleghorn, De
+Quincey, Fergusson, Schliemann,--these are some of the innumerable
+authorities on Architecture among the ancients.
+
+In Sculpture, Pliny and Cicero are the most noted critics. There is a
+fine article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica on this subject. In Smith's
+Dictionary are the Lives and works of the most noted masters. Mueller's
+Ancient Art alludes to the leading masterpieces. Montfaucon's Antiquite
+Expliquee en Figures; Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, by the Society of
+Dilettanti, London, 1809; Ancient Marbles of the British Museum, by
+Taylor Combe; Millin, Introduction a l'Etude des Monuments Antiques;
+Monuments Inedits d'Antiquite figuree, recuellis et publies par
+Raoul-Rochette; Gerhard's Archaeologische Zeitung; David's Essai sur le
+Classement Chronologique des Sculpteurs Grecs les plus celebres.
+
+In Painting, see Mueller's Ancient Art; Fuseli's Lectures; Sir Joshua
+Reynolds's Lectures; Lanzi's History of Painting in Italy (translated by
+Roscoe); and the Article on "Painting," Encyclopaedia Britannica, and
+Article "Pictura," Smith's Dictionary, both of which last mentioned
+refer to numerous German, French, and other authorities, should the
+reader care to pursue the subject. Vitruvius (on Architecture,
+translated by Gwilt) writes at some length on ancient wall-paintings.
+The finest specimens of ancient paintings are found in catacombs, the
+baths, and the ruins of Pompeii. On this subject Winckelmann is the
+great authority.
+
+
+
+
+ANCIENT SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.
+
+
+ASTRONOMY, GEOGRAPHY, ETC.
+
+2000-100 B.C.
+
+
+It would be absurd to claim for the ancients any great attainments in
+science, such as they made in the field of letters or the realm of art.
+It is in science, especially when applied to practical life, that the
+moderns show their great superiority to the most enlightened nations of
+antiquity. In this great department of human inquiry modern genius
+shines with the lustre of the sun. It is this which most strikingly
+attests the advance of civilization. It is this which has distinguished
+and elevated the races of Europe, and carried them in the line of
+progress beyond the attainments of the Greeks and Romans. With the
+magnificent discoveries and inventions of the last three hundred years
+in almost every department of science, especially in the explorations of
+distant seas and continents, in the analysis of chemical compounds, in
+the wonders of steam and electricity, in mechanical appliances to
+abridge human labor, in astronomical researches, in the explanation of
+the phenomena of the heavens, in the miracles which inventive genius has
+wrought,--seen in our ships, our manufactories, our printing-presses,
+our observatories, our fortifications, our laboratories, our mills, our
+machines to cultivate the earth, to make our clothes, to build our
+houses, to multiply our means of offence and defence, to make weak
+children do the work of Titans, to measure our time with the accuracy of
+the planetary orbits, to use the sun itself in perpetuating our
+likenesses to distant generations, to cause a needle to guide the
+mariner with assurance on the darkest night, to propel a heavy ship
+against wind and tide without oars or sails, to make carriages ascend
+mountains without horses at the rate of thirty miles an hour, to convey
+intelligence with the speed of lightning from continent to continent and
+under oceans that ancient navigators never dared to cross,--these and
+other wonders attest an ingenuity and audacity of intellect which would
+have overwhelmed with amazement the most adventurous of Greeks and the
+most potent of Romans.
+
+But the great discoveries and inventions to which we owe this marked
+superiority are either accidental or the result of generations of
+experiment, assisted by an immense array of ascertained facts from which
+safe inductions can be made. It is not, probably, the superiority of
+the European races over the Greeks and Romans to which we may ascribe
+the wonderful advance of modern society, but the particular direction
+which genius was made to take. Had the Greeks given the energy of their
+minds to mechanical forces as they did to artistic creations, they might
+have made wonderful inventions. But it was not so ordered by Providence.
+At that time the world was not in the stage of development when this
+particular direction of intellect could have been favored. The
+development of the physical sciences, with their infinite multiplicity
+and complexity, required more centuries of observation, collection and
+collation of facts, deductions from known phenomena, than the ancients
+had had to work with; while the more ethereal realms of philosophy,
+ethics, aesthetics, and religion, though needing keen study of Nature
+and of man, depended more upon inner spiritual forces, and less upon
+accumulated detail of external knowledge. Yet as there were some
+subjects which the Greeks and Romans seemed to exhaust, some fields of
+labor and thought in which they never have been and perhaps never will
+be surpassed, so some future age may direct its energies into channels
+that are as unknown to us as clocks and steam-engines were to the
+Greeks. This is the age of mechanism and of science; and mechanism and
+science sweep everything before them, and will probably be carried to
+their utmost capacity and development. After that the human mind may
+seek some new department, some new scope for its energies, and an age of
+new wonders may arise,--perhaps after the present dominant races shall
+have become intoxicated with the greatness of their triumphs and have
+shared the fate of the old monarchies of the East. But I would not
+speculate on the destinies of the European nations, whether they are to
+make indefinite advances until they occupy and rule the whole world, or
+are destined to be succeeded by nations as yet undeveloped,--savages, as
+their fathers were when Rome was in the fulness of material wealth
+and grandeur.
+
+I have shown that in the field of artistic excellence, in literary
+composition, in the arts of government and legislation, and even in the
+realm of philosophical speculation, the ancients were our
+school-masters, and that among them were some men of most marvellous
+genius, who have had no superiors among us. But we do not see among them
+the exhibition of genius in what we call science, at least in its
+application to practical life. It would be difficult to show any
+department of science which the ancients carried to any considerable
+degree of perfection. Nevertheless, there were departments in which they
+made noble attempts, and in which they showed large capacity, even if
+they were unsuccessful in great practical results.
+
+Astronomy was one of these. In this science such men as Eratosthenes,
+Aristarchus, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy were great lights of whom humanity
+may be proud; and had they been assisted by our modern inventions, they
+might have earned a fame scarcely eclipsed by that of Kepler and Newton.
+The old astronomers did little to place this science on a true
+foundation, but they showed great ingenuity, and discovered some truths
+which no succeeding age has repudiated. They determined the
+circumference of the earth by a method identical with that which would
+be employed by modern astronomers; they ascertained the position of the
+stars by right ascension and declination; they knew the obliquity of the
+ecliptic, and determined the place of the sun's apogee as well as its
+mean motion. Their calculations on the eccentricity of the moon prove
+that they had a rectilinear trigonometry and tables of chords. They had
+an approximate knowledge of parallax; they could calculate eclipses of
+the moon, and use them for the correction of their lunar tables. They
+understood spherical trigonometry, and determined the motions of the sun
+and moon, involving an accurate definition of the year and a method of
+predicting eclipses; they ascertained that the earth was a sphere, and
+reduced the phenomena of the heavenly bodies to uniform movements of
+circular orbits. We have settled by physical geography the exact form
+of the earth, but the ancients arrived at their knowledge by
+astronomical reasoning. Says Whewell:--
+
+"The reduction of the motions of the sun, moon, and five planets to
+circular orbits, as was done by Hipparchus, implies deep concentrated
+thought and scientific abstraction. The theories of eccentrics and
+epicycles accomplished the end of explaining all the known phenomena.
+The resolution of the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies into an
+assemblage of circular motions was a great triumph of genius, and was
+equivalent to the most recent and improved processes by which modern
+astronomers deal with such motions."
+
+Astronomy was probably born in Chaldaea as early as the time of Abraham.
+The glories of the firmament were impressed upon the minds of the rude
+primitive races with an intensity which we do not feel, with all the
+triumphs of modern science. The Chaldaean shepherds, as they watched
+their flocks by night, noted the movements of the planets, and gave
+names to the more brilliant constellations. Before religious rituals
+were established, before great superstitions arose, before poetry was
+sung, before musical instruments were invented, before artists
+sculptured marble or melted bronze, before coins were stamped, before
+temples arose, before diseases were healed by the arts of medicine,
+before commerce was known, those Oriental shepherds counted the anxious
+hours by the position of certain constellations. Astronomy is therefore
+the oldest of the ancient sciences, although it remained imperfect for
+more than four thousand years. The old Assyrians, Egyptians, and Greeks
+made but few discoveries which are valued by modern astronomers, but
+they laid the foundation of the science, and ever regarded it as one of
+the noblest subjects that could stimulate the faculties of man. It was
+invested with all that was religious and poetical.
+
+The spacious level and unclouded horizon of Chaldaea afforded peculiar
+facilities of observation; and its pastoral and contemplative
+inhabitants, uncontaminated by the vices and superstitions of subsequent
+ages, active-minded and fresh, discovered after a long observation of
+eclipses--some say extending over nineteen centuries--the cycle of two
+hundred and twenty-three lunations, which brings back the eclipses in
+the same order. Having once established their cycle, they laid the
+foundation for the most sublime of all the sciences. Callisthenes
+transmitted from Babylon to Aristotle a collection of observations of
+all the eclipses that preceded the conquests of Alexander, together with
+the definite knowledge which the Chaldaeans had collected about the
+motions of the heavenly bodies. Such knowledge was rude and simple, and
+amounted to little beyond the fact that there were spherical
+revolutions about an inclined axis, and that the poles pointed always to
+particular stars. The Egyptians also recorded their observations, from
+which it would appear that they observed eclipses at least sixteen
+hundred years before the beginning of our era,--which is not improbable,
+if the speculations of modern philosophers respecting the age of the
+world are entitled to credit. The Egyptians discovered by the rising of
+Sirius that the year consists of three hundred and sixty-five and
+one-quarter days; and this was their sacred year, in distinction from
+the civil, which consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days. They
+also had observed the courses of the planets, and could explain the
+phenomena of the stations and retrogradations; and it is asserted too
+that they regarded Mercury and Venus as satellites of the sun. Some have
+maintained that the obelisks which the Egyptians erected served the
+purpose of gnomons for determining the obliquity of the ecliptic, the
+altitude of the pole, and the length of the tropical year. It is thought
+even that the Pyramids, by the position of their sides toward the
+cardinal points, attest Egyptian acquaintance with a meridional line.
+The Chinese boast of having noticed and recorded a series of eclipses
+extending over a period of thirty-eight hundred and fifty-eight years;
+and it is probable that they anticipated the Greeks two thousand years
+in the discovery of the Metonic cycle,--or the cycle of nineteen years,
+at the end of which time the new moons fall on the same days of the
+year. The Chinese also determined the obliquity of the ecliptic eleven
+hundred years before our era. The Hindus at a remote antiquity
+represented celestial phenomena with considerable exactness, and
+constructed tables by which the longitude of the sun and moon were
+determined, and dials to measure time. Bailly thinks that thirty-one
+hundred and two years before Christ astronomy was cultivated in Siam
+which hardly yields in accuracy to that which modern science has built
+on the theory of universal gravitation.
+
+But the Greeks after all were the only people of antiquity who elevated
+astronomy to the dignity of a science. They however confessed that they
+derived their earliest knowledge from the Babylonian and Egyptian
+priests, while the priests of Thebes claimed to be the originators of
+exact astronomical observations. Diodorus asserts that the Chaldaeans
+used the Temple of Belus, in the centre of Babylon, for their survey of
+the heavens. But whether the Babylonians or the Egyptians were the
+earliest astronomers is of little consequence, although the pedants make
+it a grave matter of investigation. All we know is that astronomy was
+cultivated by both Babylonians and Egyptians, and that they made but
+very limited attainments. They approximated to the truth in reference
+to the solar year, by observing the equinoxes and solstices and the
+heliacal rising of particular stars.
+
+The early Greek philosophers who visited Egypt and the East in search of
+knowledge, found very little to reward their curiosity or industry,--not
+much beyond preposterous claims to a high antiquity, and to an esoteric
+wisdom which has not yet been revealed. Plato and Eudoxus spent thirteen
+years in Heliopolis for the purpose of extracting the scientific
+knowledge of the Egyptian priests, yet they learned but little beyond
+the fact that the solar year was a trifle beyond three hundred and
+sixty-five days. No great names have come down to us from the priests of
+Babylon or Egypt; no one gained an individual reputation. The Chaldaean
+and Egyptian priests may have furnished the raw material of observation
+to the Greeks, but the latter alone possessed the scientific genius by
+which undigested facts were converted into a symmetrical system. The
+East never gave valuable knowledge to the West; it gave the tendency to
+religious mysticism, which in its turn tended to superstition. Instead
+of astronomy, it gave astrology; instead of science, it gave magic,
+incantations, and dreams. The Eastern astronomers connected their
+astronomy with divination from the stars, and made their antiquity reach
+back to two hundred and seventy thousand years. There were soothsayers
+in the time of Daniel, and magicians, exorcists, and interpreters of
+signs. They were not men of scientific research, seeking truth; it was
+power they sought, by perverting the intellect of the people. The
+astrology of the East was founded on the principle that a star or
+constellation presided over the birth of an individual, and that it
+either portended his fate, or shed a good or bad influence upon his
+future life. The star which looked upon a child at the hour of his birth
+was called the "horoscopus," and the peculiar influence of each planet
+was determined by the astrologers. The superstitions of Egypt and
+Chaldaea unfortunately spread among both the Greeks and Romans, and
+these were about all that the Western nations learned from the boastful
+priests of occult Oriental science. Whatever was known of real value
+among the ancients is due to the earnest inquiries of the Greeks.
+
+And yet their researches were very unsatisfactory until the time of
+Hipparchus. The primitive knowledge was almost nothing. The Homeric
+poems regarded the earth as a circular plain bounded by the heaven,
+which was a solid vault or hemisphere, with its concavity turned
+downward. This absurdity was believed until the time of Herodotus, five
+centuries after; nor was it exploded fully in the time of Aristotle. The
+sun, moon, and stars were supposed to move upon or with the inner
+surface of the heavenly hemisphere, and the ocean was thought to gird
+the earth around as a great belt, into which the heavenly bodies sank at
+night. Homer believed that the sun arose out of the ocean, ascended the
+heaven, and again plunged into the ocean, passing under the earth, and
+producing darkness. The Greeks even personified the sun as a divine
+charioteer driving his fiery steeds over the steep of heaven, until he
+bathed them at evening in the western waves. Apollo became the god of
+the sun, as Diana was the goddess of the moon. But the early Greek
+inquirers did not attempt to explain how the sun found his way from the
+west back again to the east; they merely took note of the diurnal
+course, the alternation of day and night, the number of the seasons, and
+their regular successions. They found the points of the compass by
+determining the recurrence of the equinoxes and solstices; but they had
+no conception of the ecliptic,--of that great circle in the heaven
+formed by the sun's annual course,--and of its obliquity when compared
+with our equator. Like the Egyptians and Babylonians, the Greeks
+ascertained the length of the year to be three hundred and sixty-five
+days; but perfect accuracy was lacking, for want of scientific
+instruments and of recorded observations of the heavenly bodies. The
+Greeks had not even a common chronological era for the designation of
+years. Herodotus informs us that the Trojan War preceded his time by
+eight hundred years: he merely states the interval between the event in
+question and his own time; he had certain data for distant periods. The
+Greeks reckoned dates from the Trojan War, and the Romans from the
+building of their city. The Greeks also divided the year into twelve
+months, and introduced the intercalary circle of eight years, although
+the Romans disused it afterward, until the calendar was reformed by
+Julius Caesar. Thus there was no scientific astronomical knowledge worth
+mentioning among the primitive Greeks.
+
+Immense research and learning have been expended by modern critics to
+show the state of scientific astronomy among the Greeks. I am amazed
+equally at the amount of research and its comparative worthlessness; for
+what addition to science can be made by an enumeration of the
+puerilities and errors of the Greeks, and how wasted and pedantic the
+learning which ransacks all antiquity to prove that the Greeks adopted
+this or that absurdity![1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The style of modern historical criticism is well
+exemplified in the discussions of the Germans whether the Arx on the
+Capitoline Hill occupied the northeastern or southwestern corner, which
+take up nearly one half of the learned article on the Capitoline in
+Smith's Dictionary.]
+
+The earliest historic name associated with astronomy in Greece was
+Thales, the founder of the Ionic school of philosophers. He is reported
+to have made a visit to Egypt, to have fixed the year at three hundred
+and sixty-five days, to have determined the course of the sun from
+solstice to solstice, and to have calculated eclipses. He attributed an
+eclipse of the moon to the interposition of the earth between the sun
+and moon, and an eclipse of the sun to the interposition of the moon
+between the sun and earth,--and thus taught the rotundity of the earth,
+sun, and moon. He also determined the ratio of the sun's diameter to its
+apparent orbit. As he first solved the problem of inscribing a
+right-angled triangle in a circle, he is the founder of geometrical
+science in Greece. He left, however, nothing to writing; hence all
+accounts of him are confused,--some doubting even if he made the
+discoveries attributed to him. His philosophical speculations, which
+science rejects,--such as that water is the principle of all
+things,--are irrelevant to a description of the progress of astronomy.
+That he was a great light no one questions, considering the ignorance
+with which he was surrounded.
+
+Anaximander, who followed Thales in philosophy, held to puerile
+doctrines concerning the motions and nature of the stars, which it is
+useless to repeat. His addition to science, if he made any, was in
+treating the magnitudes and distances of the planets. He constructed
+geographical charts, and attempted to delineate the celestial sphere,
+and to measure time with a gnomon, or time-pillar, by the motion of its
+shadow upon a dial.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: Dr. E.H. Knight, in his "American Mechanical Dictionary"
+(i. 692), cites the Scriptural account of the beautiful altar seen by
+King Ahaz of Jerusalem, in Damascus, when he went thither to greet
+Tiglath-Pileser, the Assyrian who had helped him against his Samarian
+enemy. Ahaz erected a similar altar at Jerusalem, and also a _sun-dial,_
+the same one mentioned in the account of the miraculous cure of his son
+Hezekiah. "This," says Dr. Knight, "was probably the first dial on
+record, and is one hundred and forty years before Thales, and nearly
+four hundred before Plato and Aristotle, and just a little previous to
+the lunar eclipses observed at Babylon, as recorded by Ptolemy.... The
+Hebrew word [for this dial] is said by Colonel White of the Bengal army
+to signify a _staircase_, which much strengthens the inference that it
+was like the equinoctial dial of the Indian nations and of Mesopotamia,
+from whence its pattern is assumed to have been derived."]
+
+Anaximenes of Miletus taught, like his predecessors, crude notions of
+the sun and stars, and speculated on the nature of the moon, but did
+nothing to advance his science on true grounds, except by the
+construction of sun-dials. The same may be said of Heraclitus,
+Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Anaxagoras: they were great men, but they
+gave to the world mere speculations, some of which are very puerile.
+They all held to the idea that the heavenly bodies revolved around the
+earth, and that the earth was a plain; but they explained eclipses, and
+supposed that the moon derived its light from the sun. Some of them
+knew the difference between the planets and the fixed stars. Anaxagoras
+scouted the notion that the sun was a god, and supposed it to be a mass
+of ignited stone,--for which he was called an atheist.
+
+Socrates, who belonged to another school, avoided all barren
+speculations concerning the universe, and confined himself to human
+actions and interests. He looked even upon geometry in a very practical
+way, valuing it only so far as it could be made serviceable to
+land-measuring. As for the stars and planets, he supposed it was
+impossible to arrive at a true knowledge of them, and regarded
+speculations upon them as useless.
+
+It must be admitted that the Greek astronomers, however barren were
+their general theories, laid the foundation of science. Pythagoras
+taught the obliquity of the ecliptic, probably learned in Egypt, and the
+identity of the morning and evening stars. It is supposed that he
+maintained that the sun was the centre of the universe, and that the
+earth revolved around it; but this he did not demonstrate, and his whole
+system was unscientific, assuming certain arbitrary principles, from
+which he reasoned deductively. "He assumed that fire is more worthy than
+earth; that the more worthy place must be given to the more worthy; that
+the extremity is more worthy than the intermediate parts,--and hence,
+as the centre is an extremity, the place of fire is at the centre of the
+universe, and that therefore the earth and other heavenly bodies move
+round the fiery centre." But this was no heliocentric system, since the
+sun moved, like the earth, in a circle around the central fire. This was
+merely the work of the imagination, utterly unscientific, though bold
+and original. Nor did this hypothesis gain credit, since it was the
+fixed opinion of philosophers that the earth was the centre of the
+universe, around which the sun, moon, and planets revolved. But the
+Pythagoreans were the first to teach that the motions of the sun, moon,
+and planets are circular and equable. Their idea that the celestial
+bodies emitted a sound, and were combined into a harmonious symphony,
+was exceedingly crude, however beautiful "The music of the spheres"
+belongs to poetry, as well as to the speculations of Plato.
+
+Eudoxus, in the fifth century before Christ, contributed to science by
+making a descriptive map of the heavens, which was used as a manual of
+sidereal astronomy to the sixth century of our era.
+
+The error of only one hundred and ninety days in the periodic time of
+Saturn shows that there had been for a long time close observations.
+Aristotle--whose comprehensive intellect, like that of Bacon, took in
+all forms of knowledge--condensed all that was known in his day into a
+treatise concerning the heavens. He regarded astronomy as more
+intimately connected with mathematics than any other branch of science.
+But even he did not soar far beyond the philosophers of his day, since
+he held to the immobility of the earth,--the grand error of the
+ancients. Some few speculators in science (like Heraclitus of Pontus,
+and Hicetas) conceived a motion of the earth itself upon its axis, so as
+to account for the apparent motion of the sun; but they also thought it
+was in the centre of the universe.
+
+The introduction of the gnomon (time-pillar) and dial into Greece
+advanced astronomical knowledge, since they were used to determine the
+equinoxes and solstices, as well as parts of the day. Meton set up a
+sun-dial at Athens in the year 433 B.C., but the length of the hour
+varied with the time of the year, since the Greeks divided the day into
+twelve equal parts. Dials were common at Rome in the time of Plautus,
+224 B.C.; but there was a difficulty in using them, since they failed at
+night and in cloudy weather, and could not be relied on. Hence the
+introduction of water-clocks instead.
+
+Aristarchus is said to have combated (280 B.C.) the geocentric theory so
+generally received by philosophers, and to have promulgated the
+hypothesis "that the fixed stars and the sun are immovable; that the
+earth is carried round the sun in the circumference of a circle of
+which the sun is the centre; and that the sphere of the fixed stars,
+having the same centre as the sun, is of such magnitude that the orbit
+of the earth is to the distance of the fixed stars as the centre of the
+sphere of the fixed stars is to its surface." Aristarchus also,
+according to Plutarch, explained the apparent annual motion of the sun
+in the ecliptic by supposing the orbit of the earth to be inclined to
+its axis. There is no evidence that this great astronomer supported his
+heliocentric theory with any geometrical proof, although Plutarch
+maintains that he demonstrated it. This theory gave great offence,
+especially to the Stoics; and Cleanthes, the head of the school at that
+time, maintained that the author of such an impious doctrine should be
+punished. Aristarchus left a treatise "On the Magnitudes and Distances
+of the Sun and Moon;" and his methods to measure the apparent diameters
+of the sun and moon are considered theoretically sound by modern
+astronomers, but practically inexact owing to defective instruments. He
+estimated the diameter of the sun at the seven hundred and twentieth
+part of the circumference of the circle which it describes in its
+diurnal revolution, which is not far from the truth; but in this
+treatise he does not allude to his heliocentric theory.
+
+Archimedes of Syracuse, born 287 B.C., is stated to have measured the
+distance of the sun, moon, and planets, and he constructed an orrery in
+which he exhibited their motions. But it was not in the Grecian colony
+of Syracuse, but of Alexandria, that the greatest light was shed on
+astronomical science. Here Aristarchus resided, and also Eratosthenes,
+who lived between the years 276 and 196 B.C. The latter was a native of
+Athens, but was invited by Ptolemy Euergetes to Alexandria, and placed
+at the head of the library. His great achievement was the determination
+of the circumference of the earth. This was done by measuring on the
+ground the distance between Syene, a city exactly under the tropic, and
+Alexandria, situated on the same meridian. The distance was found to be
+five thousand stadia. The meridional distance of the sun from the zenith
+of Alexandria he estimated to be 7 deg. 12', or a fiftieth part of the
+circumference of the meridian. Hence the circumference of the earth was
+fixed at two hundred and fifty thousand stadia,--which is not very
+different from our modern computation. The circumference being known,
+the diameter of the earth was easily determined. The moderns have added
+nothing to this method. He also calculated the diameter of the sun to be
+twenty-seven times greater than that of the earth, and the distance of
+the sun from the earth to be eight hundred and four million stadia, and
+that of the moon seven hundred and eighty thousand stadia,--a close
+approximation to the truth.
+
+Astronomical science received a great impulse from the school of
+Alexandria, the greatest light of which was Hipparchus, who flourished
+early in the second century before Christ. He laid the foundation of
+astronomy upon a scientific basis. "He determined," says Delambre, "the
+position of the stars by right ascensions and declinations, and was
+acquainted with the obliquity of the ecliptic. He determined the
+inequality of the sun and the place of its apogee, as well as its mean
+motion; the mean motion of the moon, of its nodes and apogee; the
+equation of the moon's centre, and the inclination of its orbit. He
+calculated eclipses of the moon, and used them for the correction of his
+lunar tables, and he had an approximate knowledge of parallax." His
+determination of the motions of the sun and moon, and his method of
+predicting eclipses evince great mathematical genius. But he combined
+with this determination a theory of epicycles and eccentrics which
+modern astronomy discards. It was however a great thing to conceive of
+the earth as a solid sphere, and to reduce the phenomena of the heavenly
+bodies to uniform motions in circular orbits. "That Hipparchus should
+have succeeded in the first great steps of the resolution of the
+heavenly bodies into circular motions is a circumstance," says Whewell,
+"which gives him one of the most distinguished places in the roll of
+great astronomers." But he did even more than this: he discovered that
+apparent motion of the fixed stars round the axis of the ecliptic, which
+is called the Precession of the Equinoxes,--one of the greatest
+discoveries in astronomy. He maintained that the precession was not
+greater than fifty-nine seconds, and not less than thirty-six seconds.
+Hipparchus also framed a catalogue of the stars, and determined their
+places with reference to the ecliptic by their latitudes and longitudes.
+Altogether he seems to have been one of the greatest geniuses of
+antiquity, and his works imply a prodigious amount of calculation.
+
+Astronomy made no progress for three hundred years, although it was
+expounded by improved methods. Posidonius constructed an orrery, which
+exhibited the diurnal motions of the sun, moon, and five planets.
+Posidonius calculated the circumference of the earth to be two hundred
+and forty thousand stadia, by a different method from Eratosthenes. The
+barrenness of discovery from Hipparchus to Ptolemy,--the Alexandrian
+mathematician, astronomer, and geographer in the second century of the
+Christian era,--in spite of the patronage of the royal Ptolemies of
+Egypt, was owing to the want of instruments for the accurate measure of
+time (like our clocks), to the imperfection of astronomical tables, and
+to the want of telescopes. Hence the great Greek astronomers were unable
+to realize their theories. Their theories however were magnificent, and
+evinced great power of mathematical combination; but what could they do
+without that wondrous instrument by which the human eye indefinitely
+multiplies its power? Moreover, the ancients had no accurate almanacs,
+since the care of the calendar belonged not so much to the astronomers
+as to the priests, who tampered with the computation of time for
+sacerdotal objects. The calendars of different communities differed.
+Hence Julius Caesar rendered a great service to science by the reform of
+the Roman calendar, which was exclusively under the control of the
+college of pontiffs, or general religious overseers. The Roman year
+consisted of three hundred and fifty-five days; and in the time of
+Caesar the calendar was in great confusion, being ninety days in
+advance, so that January was an autumn month. He inserted the regular
+intercalary month of twenty-three days, and two additional ones of
+sixty-seven days. These, together with ninety days, were added to three
+hundred and sixty-five days, making a year of transition of four hundred
+and forty-five days, by which January was brought back to the first
+month in the year after the winter solstice; and to prevent the
+repetition of the error, he directed that in future the year should
+consist of three hundred and sixty-five and one-quarter days, which he
+effected by adding one day to the months of April, June, September, and
+November, and two days to the months of January, Sextilis, and
+December, making an addition of ten days to the old year of three
+hundred and fifty-five. And he provided for a uniform intercalation of
+one day in every fourth year, which accounted for the remaining
+quarter of a day.
+
+Caesar was a student of astronomy, and always found time for its
+contemplation. He is said even to have written a treatise on the motion
+of the stars. He was assisted in his reform of the calendar by
+Sosigines, an Alexandrian astronomer. He took it out of the hands of the
+priests, and made it a matter of pure civil regulation. The year was
+defined by the sun, and not as before by the moon.
+
+Thus the Romans were the first to bring the scientific knowledge of the
+Greeks into practical use; but while they measured the year with a great
+approximation to accuracy, they still used sun-dials and water-clocks to
+measure diurnal time. Yet even these were not constructed as they should
+have been. The hour-marks on the sun-dial were all made equal, instead
+of varying with the periods of the day,--so that the length of the hour
+varied with the length of the day. The illuminated interval was divided
+into twelve equal parts; so that if the sun rose at five A.M., and set
+at eight P.M., each hour was equal to eighty minutes. And this rude
+method of measurement of diurnal time remained in use till the sixth
+century. Clocks, with wheels and weights, were not invented till the
+twelfth century.
+
+The last great light among the ancients in astronomical science was
+Ptolemy, who lived from 100 to 170 A.D., in Alexandria. He was
+acquainted with the writings of all the previous astronomers, but
+accepted Hipparchus as his guide. He held that the heaven is spherical
+and revolves upon its axis; that the earth is a sphere, and is situated
+within the celestial sphere, and nearly at its centre; that it is a mere
+point in reference to the distance and magnitude of the fixed stars, and
+that it has no motion. He adopted the views of the ancient astronomers,
+who placed Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars next under the sphere of the fixed
+stars, then the sun above Venus and Mercury, and lastly the moon next to
+the earth. But he differed from Aristotle, who conceived that the earth
+revolves in an orbit around the centre of the planetary system, and
+turns upon its axis,--two ideas in common with the doctrines which
+Copernicus afterward unfolded. But even Ptolemy did not conceive the
+heliocentric theory,--the sun the centre of our system. Archimedes and
+Hipparchus both rejected this theory.
+
+In regard to the practical value of the speculations of the ancient
+astronomers, it may be said that had they possessed clocks and
+telescopes, their scientific methods would have sufficed for all
+practical purposes. The greatness of modern discoveries lies in the
+great stretch of the perceptive powers, and the magnificent field they
+afford for sublime contemplation. "But," as Sir G. Cornewall Lewis
+remarks, "modern astronomy is a science of pure curiosity, and is
+directed exclusively to the extension of knowledge in a field which
+human interests can never enter. The periodic time of Uranus, the nature
+of Saturn's ring, and the occultation of Jupiter's satellites are as far
+removed from the concerns of mankind as the heliacal rising of Sirius,
+or the northern position of the Great Bear." This may seem to be a
+utilitarian view, with which those philosophers who have cultivated
+science for its own sake, finding in the same a sufficient reward, can
+have no sympathy.
+
+The upshot of the scientific attainments of the ancients, in the
+magnificent realm of the heavenly bodies, would seem to be that they
+laid the foundation of all the definite knowledge which is useful to
+mankind; while in the field of abstract calculation they evinced
+reasoning and mathematical powers that have never been surpassed.
+Eratosthenes, Archimedes, and Hipparchus were geniuses worthy to be
+placed by the side of Kepler, Newton, and La Place, and all ages will
+reverence their efforts and their memory. It is truly surprising that
+with their imperfect instruments, and the absence of definite data,
+they reached a height so sublime and grand. They explained the doctrine
+of the sphere and the apparent motions of the planets, but they had no
+instruments capable of measuring angular distances. The ingenious
+epicycles of Ptolemy prepared the way for the elliptic orbits and laws
+of Kepler, which in turn conducted Newton to the discovery of the law of
+gravitation,--the grandest scientific discovery in the annals of
+our race.
+
+Closely connected with astronomical science was geometry, which was
+first taught in Egypt,--the nurse and cradle of ancient wisdom. It arose
+from the necessity of adjusting the landmarks disturbed by the
+inundations of the Nile. There is hardly any trace of geometry among the
+Hebrews. Among the Hindus there are some works on this science, of great
+antiquity. Their mathematicians knew the rule for finding the area of a
+triangle from its sides, and also the celebrated proposition concerning
+the squares on the sides of the right-angled triangle. The Chinese, it
+is said, also knew this proposition before it was known to the Greeks,
+among whom it was first propounded by Thales. He applied a circle to the
+measurement of angles. Anaximander made geographical charts, which
+required considerable geometrical knowledge. Anaxagoras employed
+himself in prison in attempting to square the circle. Thales, as has
+been said, discovered the important theorem that in a right-angled
+triangle the squares on the sides containing the right angle are
+together equal to the square on the opposite side of it. Pythagoras
+discovered that of all figures having the same boundary, the circle
+among plane figures and the sphere among solids are the most capacious.
+Hippocrates treated of the duplication of the cube, and wrote elements
+of geometry, and knew that the area of a circle was equal to a triangle
+whose base is equal to its circumference and altitude equal to its
+radius. The disciples of Plato invented conic sections, and discovered
+the geometrical foci.
+
+It was however reserved for Euclid to make his name almost synonymous
+with geometry. He was born 323 B.C., and belonged to the Platonic sect,
+which ever attached great importance to mathematics. His "Elements" are
+still in use, as nearly perfect as any human production can be. They
+consist of thirteen books. The first four are on plane geometry; the
+fifth is on the theory of proportion, and applies to magnitude in
+general; the seventh, eighth, and ninth are on arithmetic; the tenth on
+the arithmetical characteristics of the division of a straight line; the
+eleventh and twelfth on the elements of solid geometry; the thirteenth
+on the regular solids. These "Elements" soon became the universal study
+of geometers throughout the civilized world; they were translated into
+the Arabic, and through the Arabians were made known to mediaeval
+Europe. There can be no doubt that this work is one of the highest
+triumphs of human genius, and it has been valued more than any single
+monument of antiquity; it is still a text-book, in various English
+translations, in all our schools. Euclid also wrote various other works,
+showing great mathematical talent.
+
+Perhaps a greater even than Euclid was Archimedes, born 287 B.C. He
+wrote on the sphere and cylinder, terminating in the discovery that the
+solidity and surface of a sphere are two thirds respectively of the
+solidity and surface of the circumscribing cylinder. He also wrote on
+conoids and spheroids. "The properties of the spiral and the quadrature
+of the parabola were added to ancient geometry by Archimedes, the last
+being a great step in the progress of the science, since it was the
+first curvilineal space legitimately squared." Modern mathematicians may
+not have the patience to go through his investigations, since the
+conclusions he arrived at may now be reached by shorter methods; but the
+great conclusions of the old geometers were reached by only prodigious
+mathematical power. Archimedes is popularly better known as the inventor
+of engines of war and of various ingenious machines than as a
+mathematician, great as were his attainments in this direction. His
+theory of the lever was the foundation of statics till the discovery of
+the composition of forces in the time of Newton, and no essential
+addition was made to the principles of the equilibrium of fluids and
+floating bodies till the time of Stevin, in 1608. Archimedes detected
+the mixture of silver in a crown of gold which his patron, Hiero of
+Syracuse, ordered to be made; and he invented a water-screw for pumping
+water out of the hold of a great ship which he had built. He contrived
+also the combination of pulleys, and he constructed an orrery to
+represent the movement of the heavenly bodies. He had an extraordinary
+inventive genius for discovering new provinces of inquiry and new points
+of view for old and familiar objects. Like Newton, he had a habit of
+abstraction from outward things, and would forget to take his meals. He
+was killed by Roman soldiers when Syracuse was taken; and the Sicilians
+so soon forgot his greatness that in the time of Cicero they did not
+know where his tomb was.
+
+Eratosthenes was another of the famous geometers of antiquity, and did
+much to improve geometrical analysis. He was also a philosopher and
+geographer. He gave a solution of the problem of the duplication of the
+cube, and applied his geometrical knowledge to the measurement of the
+magnitude of the earth,--being one of the first who brought
+mathematical methods to the aid of astronomy, which in our day is almost
+exclusively the province of the mathematician.
+
+Apollonius of Perga, probably about forty years younger than Archimedes,
+and his equal in mathematical genius, was the most fertile and profound
+writer among the ancients who treated of geometry. He was called the
+Great Geometer. His most important work is a treatise on conic sections,
+which was regarded with unbounded admiration by contemporaries, and in
+some respects is unsurpassed by any thing produced by modern
+mathematicians. He however made use of the labors of his predecessors,
+so that it is difficult to tell how far he is original. But all men of
+science must necessarily be indebted to those who have preceded them.
+Even Homer, in the field of poetry, made use of the bards who had sung
+for a thousand years before him; and in the realms of philosophy the
+great men of all ages have built up new systems on the foundations which
+others have established. If Plato or Aristotle had been contemporaries
+with Thales, would they have matured so wonderful a system of
+dialectics? Yet if Thales had been contemporaneous with Plato, he might
+have added to the great Athenian's sublime science even more than did
+Aristotle. So of the great mathematicians of antiquity; they were all
+wonderful men, and worthy to be classed with the Newtons and Keplers of
+our times. Considering their means and the state of science, they made
+as _great_ though not as _fortunate_ discoveries,--discoveries which
+show patience, genius, and power of calculation. Apollonius was one of
+these,--one of the master intellects of antiquity, like Euclid and
+Archimedes; one of the master intellects of all ages, like Newton
+himself. I might mention the subjects of his various works, but they
+would not be understood except by those familiar with mathematics.
+
+Other famous geometers could also be named, but such men as Euclid,
+Archimedes, and Apollonius are enough to show that geometry was
+cultivated to a great extent by the philosophers of antiquity. It
+progressively advanced, like philosophy itself, from the time of Thales
+until it had reached the perfection of which it was capable, when it
+became merged into astronomical science. It was cultivated more
+particularly by the disciples of Plato, who placed over his school this
+inscription: "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here." He believed
+that the laws by which the universe is governed are in accordance with
+the doctrines of mathematics. The same opinion was shared by Pythagoras,
+the great founder of the science, whose main formula was that _number_
+is the essence or first principle of all things. No thinkers ever
+surpassed the Greeks in originality and profundity; and mathematics,
+being highly prized by them, were carried to the greatest perfection
+their method would allow. They did not understand algebra, by the
+application of which to geometry modern mathematicians have climbed to
+greater heights than the ancients; but then it is all the more
+remarkable that without the aid of algebraic analysis they were able to
+solve such difficult problems as occupied the minds of Archimedes and
+Apollonius. No positive science can boast of such rapid development as
+geometry for two or three hundred years before Christ, and never was the
+intellect of man more severely tasked than by the ancient
+mathematicians.
+
+No empirical science can be carried to perfection by any one nation or
+in any particular epoch; it can only expand with the progressive
+developments of the human race itself. Nevertheless, in that science
+which for three thousand years has been held in the greatest honor, and
+which is one of the three great liberal professions of our modern times,
+the ancients, especially the Greeks, made considerable advance. The
+science of medicine, having in view the amelioration of human misery and
+the prolongation of life itself, was very early cultivated. It was,
+indeed, in old times another word for _physics_,--the science of
+Nature,--and the _physician_ was the observer and expounder of physics.
+The physician was supposed to be acquainted with the secrets of
+Nature,--that is, the knowledge of drugs, of poisons, of antidotes to
+them, and the way to administer them. He was also supposed to know the
+process of preserving the body after death. Thus Joseph, seventeen
+hundred years before the birth of Christ, commanded his physician to
+embalm the body of his father; and the process of embalming was probably
+known to the Egyptians before the period when history begins. Helen, of
+Trojan fame, put into wine a drug that "frees man from grief and anger,
+and causes oblivion of all ills." Solomon was a great botanist,--a realm
+with which the science of medicine is indissolubly connected. The origin
+of Hindu medicine is lost in remote antiquity. The Ayur Veda, written
+nine hundred years before Hippocrates was born, sums up the knowledge of
+previous periods relating to obstetric surgery, to general pathology, to
+the treatment of insanity, to infantile diseases, to toxicology, to
+personal hygiene, and to diseases of the generative functions.
+
+Thus Hippocrates, the father of European medicine, must have derived his
+knowledge not merely from his own observations, but from the writings of
+men unknown to us and from systems practised for an indefinite period.
+The real founders of Greek medicine are fabled characters, like Hercules
+and Aesculapius,--that is, benefactors whose fictitious names alone
+have descended to us. They are mythical personages, like Hermes and
+Chiron. Twelve hundred years before Christ temples were erected to
+Aesculapius in Greece, the priests of which were really physicians, and
+the temples themselves hospitals. In them were practised rites
+apparently mysterious, but which modern science calls by the names of
+mesmerism, hydropathy, the use of mineral springs, and other essential
+elements of empirical science. And these temples were also medical
+schools. That of Cos gave birth to Hippocrates, and it was there that
+his writings were begun. Pythagoras--for those old Grecian philosophers
+were the fathers of all wisdom and knowledge, in mathematics and
+empirical sciences as well as philosophy itself--studied medicine in the
+schools of Egypt, Phoenicia, Chaldaea, and India, and came in conflict
+with sacerdotal power, which has ever been antagonistic to new ideas in
+science. He travelled from town to town as a teacher or lecturer,
+establishing communities in which _medicine_ as well as _numbers_
+was taught.
+
+The greatest name in medical science in ancient or in modern times, the
+man who did the most to advance it, the greatest medical genius of whom
+we have any early record, was Hippocrates, born on the island of Cos,
+460 B.C., of the great Aesculapian family. He received his instruction
+from his father. We know scarcely more of his life than we do of Homer
+himself, although he lived in the period of the highest splendor of
+Athens. Even his writings, like those of Homer, are thought by some to
+be the work of different men. They were translated into Arabic, and were
+no slight means of giving an impulse to the Saracenic schools of the
+Middle Ages in that science in which the Saracens especially excelled.
+The Hippocratic collection consists of more than sixty works, which were
+held in the highest estimation by the ancient physicians. Hippocrates
+introduced a new era in medicine, which before his time had been
+monopolized by the priests. He carried out a system of severe induction
+from the observation of facts, and is as truly the creator of the
+inductive method as Bacon himself. He abhorred theories which could not
+be established by facts; he was always open to conviction, and candidly
+confessed his mistakes; he was conscientious in the practice of his
+profession, and valued the success of his art more than silver and gold.
+The Athenians revered Hippocrates for his benevolence as well as genius.
+The great principle of his practice was _trust in Nature_; hence he was
+accused of allowing his patients to die. But this principle has many
+advocates among scientific men in our day; and some suppose that the
+whole successful practice of Homoeopathy rests on the primal principle
+which Hippocrates advanced, although the philosophy of it claims a
+distinctly scientific basis in the principle _similia similibus
+curantur_. Hippocrates had great skill in diagnosis, by which medical
+genius is most severely tested; his practice was cautious and timid in
+contrast with that of his contemporaries. He is the author of the
+celebrated maxim, "Life is short and art is long." He divides the causes
+of disease into two principal classes,--the one comprehending the
+influence of seasons, climates, and other external forces; the other
+including the effects of food and exercise. To the influence of climate
+he attributes the conformation of the body and the disposition of the
+mind; to a vicious system of diet he attributes innumerable forms of
+disease. For more than twenty centuries his pathology was the foundation
+of all the medical sects. He was well acquainted with the medicinal
+properties of drugs, and was the first to assign three periods to the
+course of a malady. He knew but little of surgery, although he was in
+the habit of bleeding, and often employed the knife; he was also
+acquainted with cupping, and used violent purgatives. He was not aware
+of the importance of the pulse, and confounded the veins with the
+arteries. Hippocrates wrote in the Ionic dialect, and some of his works
+have gone through three hundred editions, so highly have they been
+valued. His authority passed away, like that of Aristotle, on the
+revival of science in Europe. Yet who have been greater ornaments and
+lights than these two distinguished Greeks?
+
+The school of Alexandria produced eminent physicians, as well as
+mathematicians, after the glory of Greece had departed. So highly was it
+esteemed that Galen in the second century,--born in Greece, but famous
+in the service of Rome,--went there to study, five hundred years after
+its foundation. It was distinguished for inquiries into scientific
+anatomy and physiology, for which Aristotle had prepared the way. Galen
+was the Humboldt of his day, and gave great attention to physics. In
+eight books he developed the general principles of natural science known
+to the Greeks. On the basis of the Aristotelian researches, the
+Alexandrian physicians carried out extensive inquiries in physiology.
+Herophilus discovered the fundamental principles of neurology, and
+advanced the anatomy of the brain and spinal cord.
+
+Although the Romans had but little sympathy with science or philosophy,
+being essentially political and warlike in their turn of mind, yet when
+they had conquered the world, and had turned their attention to arts,
+medicine received a good share of their attention. The first physicians
+in Rome were Greek slaves. Of these was Asclepiades, who enjoyed the
+friendship of Cicero. It is from him that the popular medical theories
+as to the "pores" have descended. He was the inventor of the
+shower-bath. Celsus wrote a work on medicine which takes almost equal
+rank with the Hippocratic writings.
+
+Medical science at Rome culminated in Galen, as it did at Athens in
+Hippocrates. Galen was patronized by Marcus Aurelius, and availed
+himself of all the knowledge of preceding naturalists and physicians. He
+was born at Pergamos about the year 130 A.D., where he learned, under
+able masters, anatomy, pathology, and therapeutics. He finished his
+studies at Alexandria, and came to Rome at the invitation of the
+Emperor. Like his imperial patron, Galen was one of the brightest
+ornaments of the heathen world, and one of the most learned and
+accomplished men of any age. He left five hundred treatises, most of
+them relating to some branch of medical science, which give him the name
+of being one of the most voluminous of authors. His celebrity is founded
+chiefly on his anatomical and physiological works. He was familiar with
+practical anatomy, deriving his knowledge from dissection. His
+observations about health are practical and useful; he lays great stress
+on gymnastic exercises, and recommends the pleasures of the chase, the
+cold bath in hot weather, hot baths for old people, the use of wine, and
+three meals a day. The great principles of his practice were that
+disease is to be overcome by that which is contrary to the disease
+itself,--hence the name Allopathy, invented by the founder of
+Homoeopathy to designate the fundamental principle of the general
+practice,--and that nature is to be preserved by that which has relation
+with nature. His "Commentaries on Hippocrates" served as a treasure of
+medical criticism, from which succeeding annotators borrowed. No one
+ever set before the medical profession a higher standard than Galen
+advanced, and few have more nearly approached it. He did not attach
+himself to any particular school, but studied the doctrines of each. The
+works of Galen constituted the last production of ancient Roman
+medicine, and from his day the decline in medical science was rapid,
+until it was revived among the Arabs.
+
+The physical sciences, it must be confessed, were not carried by the
+ancients to any such length as geometry and astronomy. In physical
+geography they were particularly deficient. Yet even this branch of
+knowledge can boast of some eminent names. When men sailed timidly along
+the coasts, and dared not explore distant seas, the true position and
+characteristics of countries could not be ascertained with the
+definiteness that it is at present. But geography was not utterly
+neglected in those early times, nor was natural history.
+
+Herodotus gives us most valuable information respecting the manners and
+customs of Oriental and barbarous nations; and Pliny wrote a Natural
+History in thirty-seven books, which is compiled from upwards of two
+thousand volumes, and refers to twenty thousand matters of importance.
+He was born 23 A.D., and was fifty-six when the eruption of Vesuvius
+took place, which caused his death. Pliny cannot be called a scientific
+genius in the sense understood by modern savants; nor was he an original
+observer,--his materials being drawn up second-hand, like a modern
+encyclopaedia. Nor did he evince great judgment in his selection: he had
+a great love of the marvellous, and his work was often unintelligible;
+but it remains a wonderful monument of human industry. His Natural
+History treats of everything in the natural world,--of the heavenly
+bodies, of the elements, of thunder and lightning, of the winds and
+seasons, of the changes and phenomena of the earth, of countries and
+nations, of seas and rivers, of men, animals, birds, fishes, and plants,
+of minerals and medicines and precious stones, of commerce and the fine
+arts. He is full of errors, but his work is among the most valuable
+productions of antiquity. Buffon pronounced his Natural History to
+contain an infinity of knowledge in every department of human
+occupation, conveyed in a dress ornate and brilliant. It is a literary
+rather than a scientific monument, and as such it is wonderful. In
+strict scientific value, it is inferior to the works of modern research;
+but there are few minds, even in these times, who have directed
+inquiries to such a variety of subjects as are treated in Pliny's
+masterpiece.
+
+If we would compare the geographical knowledge of the ancients with that
+of the moderns, we confess to the immeasurable inferiority of
+the ancients.
+
+Eratosthenes, though more properly an astronomer, and the most
+distinguished among the ancients, was also a considerable writer on
+geography, indeed, the first who treated the subject systematically,
+although none of his writings have reached us. The improvements he
+pointed out were applied by Ptolemy himself. His work was a presentation
+of the geographical knowledge known in his day, so far as geography is
+the science of determining the position of places on the earth's
+surface. When Eratosthenes began his labors, in the third century before
+Christ, it was known that the surface of the earth was spherical; he
+established parallels of latitude and longitude, and attempted the
+difficult undertaking of measuring the circumference of the globe by the
+actual measurement of a segment of one of its great circles.
+
+Hipparchus (beginning of second century before Christ) introduced into
+geography a great improvement; namely, the relative situation of
+places, by the same process that he determined the positions of the
+heavenly bodies. He also pointed out how longitude might be determined
+by observing the eclipses of the sun and moon. This led to the
+construction of maps; but none have reached us except those that were
+used to illustrate the geography of Ptolemy. Hipparchus was the first
+who raised geography to the rank of a science. He starved himself to
+death, being tired of life.
+
+Posidonius, who was nearly a century later, determined the arc of a
+meridian between Rhodes and Alexandria to be a forty-eighth part of the
+whole circumference,--an enormous calculation, yet a remarkable one in
+the infancy of astronomical science. His writings on history and
+geography are preserved only in quotations by Cicero, Strabo,
+and others.
+
+Geographical knowledge however was most notably advanced by Strabo, who
+lived in the Augustan era; although his researches were chiefly confined
+to the Roman empire. Strabo was, like Herodotus, a great traveller, and
+much of his geographical information is the result of his own
+observations. It is probable he was much indebted to Eratosthenes, who
+preceded him by three centuries. The authorities of Strabo were chiefly
+Greek, but his work is defective from the imperfect notions which the
+ancients had of astronomy; so that the determination of the earth's
+figure by the measure of latitude and longitude, the essential
+foundation of geographical description, was unknown. The enormous
+strides which all forms of physical science have made since the
+discovery of America throw all ancient descriptions and investigations
+into the shade, and Strabo appears at as great disadvantage as Pliny or
+Ptolemy; yet the work of Strabo, considering his means, and the
+imperfect knowledge of the earth's surface and astronomical science in
+his day, was really a great achievement. He treats of the form and
+magnitude of the earth, and devotes eight books to Europe, six to Asia,
+and one to Africa. The description of places belongs to Strabo, whose
+work was accepted as the text-book of the science till the fifteenth
+century, for in his day the Roman empire had been well surveyed. He
+maintained that the earth is spherical, and established the terms
+_longitude_ and _latitude_, which Eratosthenes had introduced, and
+computed the earth to be one hundred and eighty thousand stadia in
+circumference, and a degree to be five hundred stadia in length, or
+sixty-two and a-half Roman miles. His estimates of the length of a
+degree of latitude were nearly correct; but he made great errors in the
+degrees of longitude, making the length of the world from east to west
+too great, which led to the belief in the practicability of a western
+passage to India. He also assigned too great length to the
+Mediterranean, arising from the difficulty of finding the longitude with
+accuracy. But it was impossible, with the scientific knowledge of his
+day, to avoid errors, and we are surprised that he made so few.
+
+Whatever may be said of the accuracy of the great geographer of
+antiquity, it cannot be denied that he was a man of immense research and
+learning. His work in seventeen books is one of the most valuable that
+have come down from antiquity, both from the discussions which run
+through it, and the curious facts which can be found nowhere else. It is
+scarcely fair to estimate the genius of Strabo by the correctness and
+extent of his geographical knowledge. All men are comparatively ignorant
+in science, because science is confessedly a progressive study. The
+great scientific lights of our day may be insignificant, compared with
+those who are to arise, if profundity and accuracy of knowledge be made
+the test. It is the genius of the ancients, their grasp and power of
+mind, their original labors, which we are to consider.
+
+Thus it would seem that among the ancients, in those departments of
+science which are inductive, there were not sufficient facts, well
+established, from which to make sound inductions; but in those
+departments which are deductive, like pure mathematics, and which
+require great reasoning powers, there were lofty attainments,--which
+indeed gave the foundation for the achievements of modern science.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+An exceedingly learned work (London, 1862) on the Astronomy of the
+Ancients, by Sir George Cornewall Lewis, though rather ostentatious in
+the parade of authorities, and minute on points which are not of much
+consequence, is worth consulting. Delambre's History of Ancient
+Astronomy has long been a classic, but is richer in materials for a
+history than a history itself. There is a valuable essay in the
+Encyclopaedia Britannica, which refers to a list of special authors.
+Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences may also be consulted with
+profit. Dunglison's History of Medicine is a standard, giving much
+detailed information, and Leclerc among the French and Speugel among the
+Germans are esteemed authorities. Strabo's Geography is the most
+valuable of antiquity; see also Polybius: both of these have been
+translated and edited for English readers.
+
+
+
+
+MATERIAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS.
+
+
+MECHANICAL AND USEFUL ARTS.
+
+4000-50 B.C.
+
+
+While the fine arts made great progress among the cultivated nations of
+antiquity, and with the Greeks reached a refinement that has never since
+been surpassed, the ancients were far behind modern nations in
+everything that has utility for its object. In implements of war, in
+agricultural instruments, in the variety of manufactures, in machinery,
+in chemical compounds, in domestic utensils, in grand engineering works,
+in the comfort of houses, in modes of land-travel and transportation, in
+navigation, in the multiplication of books, in triumphs over the forces
+of Nature, in those discoveries and inventions which abridge the labors
+of mankind and bring races into closer intercourse,--especially by such
+wonders as are wrought by steam, gas, electricity, gunpowder, the
+mariner's compass, and the art of printing,--the modern world feels its
+immense superiority to all the ages that have gone before. And yet,
+considering the infancy of science and the youth of nations, more was
+accomplished by the ancients for the comfort and convenience and luxury
+of man than we naturally might suppose.
+
+Egypt was the primeval seat of what may be called material civilization,
+and many arts and inventions were known there when the rest of the world
+was still in ignorance and barbarism. More than four thousand years ago
+the Egyptians had chariots of war and most of the military weapons known
+afterward to the Greeks,--especially the spear and bow, which were the
+most effective offensive weapons known to antiquity or the Middle Ages.
+Some of their warriors were clothed in coats of brass equal to the steel
+or iron cuirass worn by the Mediaeval knights of chivalry. They had the
+battle-axe, the shield, the sword, the javelin, the metal-headed arrow.
+One of the early Egyptian kings marched against his enemies with six
+hundred thousand infantry, twenty thousand cavalry, and twenty-three
+thousand chariots of war, each drawn by two horses. The saddles and
+bridles of their horses were nearly as perfect as ours are at the
+present time; the leather they used was dyed in various colors, and
+adorned with metal edges. The wheels of their chariots were bound with
+hoops of metal, and had six spokes. Umbrellas to protect from the rays
+of the sun were held over the heads of their women of rank when they
+rode in their highly-decorated chariots. Walls of solid masonry, thick
+and high, surrounded their principal cities, while an attacking or
+besieging army used movable towers. Their disciplined troops advanced to
+battle in true military precision, at the sound of the trumpet.
+
+The public works of Egyptian kings were on a grand scale. They united
+rivers with seas by canals which employed hundreds of thousands of
+workmen. They transported heavy blocks of stone, of immense weight and
+magnitude, for their temples, palaces, and tombs. They erected obelisks
+in single shafts nearly one hundred feet in height, and they engraved
+the sides of these obelisks from top to bottom with representations of
+warriors, priests, and captives. They ornamented their vast temples with
+sculptures which required the hardest metals. Rameses the Great, the
+Sesostris of the Greeks, had a fleet of four hundred vessels in the
+Arabian Gulf, and the rowers wore quilted helmets. His vessels had
+sails, which implies the weaving of flax and the twisting of heavy
+ropes; some of his war-galleys were propelled by forty-four oars, and
+were one hundred and twenty feet in length.
+
+Among their domestic utensils the Egyptians used the same kind of
+buckets for wells that we find to-day among the farmhouses of New
+England. Skilful gardeners were employed in ornamenting grounds and in
+raising fruits and vegetables. The leather cutters and dressers were
+famous for their skill, as well as workers in linen. Most products of
+the land, as well as domestic animals, were sold by weight in carefully
+adjusted scales. Instead of coins, money was in rings of gold, silver,
+and copper. The skill used by the Egyptians in rearing fowls, geese, and
+domestic animals greatly surpassed that known to modern farmers.
+According to Wilkinson, they caught fish in nets equal to the seines
+employed by modern fishermen. Their houses as well as their monuments
+were built of brick, and were sometimes four or five stories in height,
+and secured by bolts on the doors. Locks and keys were also in use, made
+of iron; and the doorways were ornamented. Some of the roofs of their
+public buildings were arched with stone. In their mills for grinding
+wheat circular stones were used, resembling in form those now employed,
+generally turned by women, but sometimes so large that asses and mules
+were employed in the work. The walls and ceilings of their buildings
+were richly painted, the devices being as elaborate as those of the
+Greeks. Besides town-houses, the rich had villas and gardens, where they
+amused themselves with angling and spearing fish in the ponds. The
+gardens were laid in walks shaded with trees, and were well watered from
+large tanks. Vines were trained on trellis-work supported by pillars,
+and sometimes in the form of bowers. For gathering fruit, baskets were
+used somewhat similar to those now employed. Their wine-presses showed
+considerable ingenuity, and after the necessary fermentation the wine
+was poured into large earthen jars, corresponding to the amphorae of the
+Romans, and covered with lids made air-tight by resin and bitumen. The
+Egyptians had several kinds of wine, highly praised by the ancients; and
+wine among them was cheap and abundant. Egypt was also renowned for
+drugs unknown to other nations, and for beer made of barley, as well as
+wine. As for fruits, they had the same variety as we have at the present
+day, their favorite fruit being dates. "So fond were the Egyptians of
+trees and flowers that they exacted a contribution from the nations
+tributary to them of their rarest plants, so that their gardens bloomed
+with flowers of every variety in all seasons of the year." Wreaths and
+chaplets were in common use from the earliest antiquity. It was in their
+gardens, abounding with vegetables as well as with fruits and flowers,
+that the Egyptians entertained their friends.
+
+In Egyptian houses were handsome chairs and fauteuils, stools and
+couches, the legs of which were carved in imitation of the feet of
+animals; and these were made of rare woods, inlaid with ivory, and
+covered with rich stuffs. Some of the Egyptian chairs were furnished
+with cushions and covered with the skins of leopards and lions; the
+seats were made of leather, painted with flowers. Footstools were
+sometimes made of elegant patterns, inlaid with ivory and precious
+woods. Mats were used in the sitting-rooms. The couches were of every
+variety of form, and utilized in some instances as beds. The tables were
+round, square, and oblong, and were sometimes made of stone and highly
+ornamented with carvings. Bronze bedsteads were used by the
+wealthy classes.
+
+In their entertainments nothing was omitted by the Egyptians which would
+produce festivity,--music, songs, dancing, and games of chance. The
+guests arrived in chariots or palanquins, borne by servants on foot, who
+also carried parasols over the heads of their masters. Previous to
+entering the festive chamber water was brought for the feet and hands,
+the ewers employed being made often of gold and silver, of beautiful
+form and workmanship. Servants in attendance anointed the head with
+sweet-scented ointment from alabaster vases, and put around the heads of
+the guests garlands and wreaths in which the lotus was conspicuous; they
+also perfumed the apartments with myrrh and frankincense, obtained
+chiefly from Syria. Then wine was brought, and emptied into
+drinking-cups of silver or bronze, and even of porcelain, beautifully
+engraved, one of which was exclusively reserved for the master of the
+house. While at dinner the party were enlivened with musical
+instruments, the chief of which were the harp, the lyre, the guitar, the
+tambourine, the pipe, the flute, and the cymbal. Music was looked upon
+by the Egyptians as an important science, and was diligently studied and
+highly prized; the song and the dance were united with the sounds of
+musical instruments. Many of the ornamented vases and other vessels used
+by the Egyptians in their banquets were not inferior in elegance of form
+and artistic finish to those made by the Greeks at a later day. The
+Pharaoh of the Jewish Exodus had drinking-vessels of gold and silver,
+exquisitely engraved and ornamented with precious stones.
+
+Some of the bronze vases found at Thebes and other parts of Egypt show
+great skill in the art of compounding metals, and were highly polished.
+Their bronze knives and daggers had an elastic spring, as if made of
+steel. Wilkinson expresses his surprise at the porcelain vessels
+recently discovered, as well as admiration of them, especially of their
+rich colors and beautiful shapes. There is a porcelain bowl of exquisite
+workmanship in the British Museum inscribed with the name of Rameses
+II., proving that the arts of pottery were carried to great perfection
+two thousand years before Christ. Boxes of elaborate workmanship, made
+of precious woods finely carved and inlaid with ivory, are also
+preserved in the different museums of Europe, all dating from a remote
+antiquity. These boxes are of every form, with admirably fitting lids,
+representing fishes, birds, and animals. The rings, bracelets, and other
+articles of jewelry that have been preserved show great facility on the
+part of the Egyptians in cutting the hardest stones. The skill displayed
+in the sculptures on the hard obelisks and granite monuments of Egypt
+was remarkable, since they were executed with hardened bronze.
+
+Glass-blowing was another art in which the Egyptians excelled. Fifteen
+hundred years before Christ they made ornaments of glass, and glass
+vessels of large size were used for holding wine. Such was their skill
+in the manufacture of glass that they counterfeited precious stones with
+a success unknown to the moderns. We read of a counterfeited emerald six
+feet in length. Counterfeited necklaces were sold at Thebes which
+deceived strangers. The uses to which glass was applied were in the
+manufacture of bottles, beads, mosaic work, and drinking-cups, and their
+different colors show considerable knowledge of chemistry. The art of
+cutting and engraving stones was doubtless learned by the Israelites in
+their sojourn in Egypt. So perfect were the Egyptians in the arts of
+cutting precious stones that they were sought by foreign merchants, and
+they furnished an important material in commerce.
+
+From the earliest times the Egyptians were celebrated for their
+manufacture of linen, which was one of the principal articles of
+commerce; and cotton and woollen cloths as well as linen were woven.
+Cotton was used not only for articles of dress, but for the covering of
+chairs and other kinds of furniture. The great mass of the mummy cloths
+is of coarse texture; but the "fine linen" spoken of in the Scripture
+was as fine as muslin, in some instances containing more than five
+hundred threads to an inch, while the finest productions of the looms of
+India have only one hundred threads to the inch. Not only were the
+threads of linen cloth of extraordinary fineness, but the dyes were
+equally remarkable, and were unaffected by strong alkalies. Spinning was
+principally the occupation of women, who also practised the art of
+embroidery, in which gold thread was used, supposed to be beaten out by
+the hammer; but in the arts of dyeing and embroidery the Egyptians were
+surpassed by the Babylonians, who were renowned for their cloths of
+various colors.
+
+The manufacture of paper was another art for which the Egyptians were
+famous, made from the papyrus, a plant growing in the marsh-land of the
+Nile. The papyrus was also applied to the manufacture of sails, baskets,
+canoes, and parts of sandals. Some of the papyri, on which is
+hieroglyphic writing dating from two thousand years before our era, are
+in good preservation. Sheep-skin parchment also was used for writing.
+
+The Egyptians were especially skilled in the preparation of leather for
+sandals, shields, and chairs. The curriers used the same semicircular
+knife which is now in use. The great consumption of leather created a
+demand far greater than could be satisfied by the produce of the
+country, and therefore skins from foreign countries were imported as
+part of the tribute laid on conquered nations or tribes.
+
+More numerous than the tanners in Egypt were the potters, among whom the
+pottery-wheel was known from a remote antiquity, previous to the arrival
+of Joseph from Canaan, and long before the foundation of the Greek
+Athens. Earthenware was used for holding wine, oils, and other liquids;
+but the finest production of the potter were the vases, covered with a
+vitreous glaze and modelled in every variety of forms, some of which
+were as elegant as those made later by the Greeks, who excelled in this
+department of art.
+
+Carpenters and cabinet-makers formed a large class of Egyptian workmen
+for making coffins, boxes, tables, chairs, doors, sofas, and other
+articles of furniture, frequently inlaid with ivory and rare woods.
+Veneering was known to these workmen, probably arising from the scarcity
+of wood. The tools used by the carpenters, as appear from the
+representations on the monuments, were the axe, the adze, the hand-saw,
+the chisel, the drill, and the plane. These tools were made of bronze,
+with handles of acacia, tamarisk, and other hard woods. The hatchet, by
+which trees were felled, was used by boat-builders. The boxes and other
+articles of furniture were highly ornamented with inlaid work.
+
+Boat-building in Egypt also employed many workmen. Boats were made of
+the papyrus plant, deal, cedar, and other woods, and were propelled both
+by sails and oars. One ship-of-war built for Ptolemy Philopater is said
+by ancient writers to have been 478 feet long, to have had forty banks
+of oars, and to have carried 400 sailors, 4,000 rowers, and 3,000
+soldiers. This is doubtless an exaggeration, but indicates great
+progress in naval architecture. The construction of boats varied
+according to the purpose for which they were intended. They were built
+with ribs as at the present day, with small keels, square sails, with
+spacious cabins in the centre, and ornamented sterns; there was usually
+but one mast, and the prows terminated in the heads of animals. The
+boats of burden were somewhat similar to our barges; the sails were
+generally painted with rich colors. The origin of boat-building was
+probably the raft, and improvement followed improvement until the
+ship-of-war rivalled in size our largest vessels, while Egyptian
+merchant vessels penetrated to distant seas, and probably doubled the
+Cape of Good Hope.
+
+In regard to agriculture the Egyptians were the most advanced of the
+nations of antiquity, since the fertility of their soil made the
+occupation one of primary importance. Irrigation was universally
+practised, the Nile furnishing water for innumerable canals. The soil
+was often turned up with the hoe rather than the plough. The grain was
+sown broadcast, and was trodden in by goats. Their plough was very
+simple, and was drawn by oxen; the yoke being attached to the horns.
+Although the soil was rich, manures were frequently used. The chief
+crops were those of wheat, barley, beans, peas, lentils, vetches,
+lupines, clover, rice, indigo, cotton, lettuce, flax, hemp, cumin,
+coriander, poppy, melons, cucumbers, onions, and leeks. We do not read
+of carrots, cabbages, beets, or potatoes, which enter so largely into
+modern husbandry. Oil was obtained from the olive, the castor-berry,
+simsin, and coleseed. Among the principal trees which were cultivated
+were the vine, olive, locust, acacia, date, sycamore, pomegranate, and
+tamarisk. Grain, after harvest, was trodden out by oxen, and the straw
+was used as provender. To protect the fields from inundation dykes
+were built.
+
+All classes in Egypt delighted in the sports of the field, especially in
+the hunting of wild animals, in which the arrow was most frequently
+used. Sometimes the animals were caught in nets, in enclosed places near
+water-brooks. The Egyptians also had numerous fish-ponds, since they
+were as fond of angling as they were of hunting. Hunting in Egypt was an
+amusement, not an occupation as among nomadic people. Not only was
+hunting for pleasure a great amusement among Egyptians, but also among
+Babylonians and Persians, who coursed the plains with dogs. They used
+the noose or lasso also to catch antelopes and wild cattle, which were
+hunted with lions; the bow used in the chase was similar to that
+employed in war. All the subjects of the chase were sculptured on the
+monuments with great spirit and fidelity, especially the stag, the ibex,
+the porcupine, the wolf, the hare, the lion, the fox, and the giraffe.
+The camel is not found among the Egyptian sculptures, nor the bear. Of
+the birds found in their sculptures were vultures, eagles, kites, hawks,
+owls, ravens, larks, swallows, turtle-doves, quails, ostriches, storks,
+plovers, snipes, geese, and ducks, many of which were taken in nets. The
+Nile and Lake Birket el Keroun furnished fish in great abundance. The
+profits of the fisheries were enormous, and were farmed out by the
+government.
+
+The Egyptians were very fond of ornaments in dress, especially the
+women. They paid great attention to their sandals; they wore their hair
+long and plaited, bound round with an ornamented fillet fastened by a
+lotus bud; they wore ear-rings and a profusion of rings on the fingers
+and bracelets for the arms, made of gold and set with precious stones.
+The scarabaeus, or sacred beetle, was the adornment of rings and
+necklaces; even the men wore necklaces and rings and chains. Both men
+and women stained the eyelids and brows. Pins and needles were among the
+articles of the toilet, usually made of bronze; also metallic mirrors
+finely polished. The men carried canes or walking-sticks,--the wands of
+Moses and Aaron.
+
+As the Egyptians paid great attention to health, physicians were held in
+great repute; and none were permitted to practise but in some particular
+branch, such as diseases of the eye, the ear, the head, the teeth, and
+the internal maladies. They were paid by government, and were skilled in
+the knowledge of drugs. The art of curing diseases originated, according
+to Pliny, in Egypt. Connected with the healing art was the practice of
+embalming dead bodies, which was carried to great perfection.
+
+In elegance of life the Greeks and Romans, however, far surpassed any
+of the nations of antiquity, if not in luxury itself, which was confined
+to the palaces of kings. In social refinements the Greeks were not
+behind any modern nation, as one infers from reading Becker's Charicles.
+Among the Greeks was the network of trades and professions, as in Paris
+and London, and a complicated social life in which all the amenities
+known to the modern world were seen, especially in Athens and Corinth
+and the Ionian capitals. What could be more polite and courteous than
+the intercourse carried on in Greece among cultivated and famous people?
+When were symposia more attractive than when the _elite_ of Athens, in
+the time of Pericles, feasted and communed together? When was art ever
+brought in support of luxury to greater perfection? We read of libraries
+and books and booksellers, of social games, of attractive gardens and
+villas, as well as of baths and spectacles, of markets and fora in
+Athens. The common life of a Pericles or a Cicero differed but little
+from that of modern men of rank and fortune.
+
+In describing the various arts which marked the nations of antiquity, we
+cannot but feel that in a material point of view the ancient
+civilization in its important features was as splendid as our own. In
+the decoration of houses, in social entertainments, in cookery, the
+Romans were our equals. The mosaics, the signet rings, cameos,
+bracelets, bronzes, vases, couches, banqueting-tables, lamps, colored
+glass, potteries, all attest great elegance and beauty. The tables of
+thuga root and Delian bronze were as expensive as modern sideboards;
+wood and ivory were carved in Rome as exquisitely as in Japan and China;
+mirrors were made of polished silver. Glass-cutters could imitate the
+colors of precious stones so well that the Portland vase, from the tomb
+of Alexander Severus, was long considered as a genuine sardonyx. The
+palace of Nero glittered with gold and jewels; perfumes and flowers were
+showered from ivory ceilings. The halls of Heliogabalus were hung with
+cloth of gold, enriched with jewels; his beds were silver, and his
+tables of gold. A banquet dish of Drusillus weighed five hundred pounds
+of silver. Tunics were embroidered with the figures of various animals;
+sandals were garnished with precious stones. Paulina wore jewels, when
+she paid visits, valued at $800,000. Drinking-cups were engraved with
+scenes from the poets; libraries were adorned with busts, and presses of
+rare woods; sofas were inlaid with tortoise-shell, and covered with
+gorgeous purple. The Roman grandees rode in gilded chariots, bathed in
+marble baths, dined from golden plate, drank from crystal cups, slept on
+beds of down, reclined on luxurious couches, wore embroidered robes,
+and were adorned with precious stones. They ransacked the earth and the
+seas for rare dishes for their banquets, and ornamented their houses
+with carpets from Babylon, onyx cups from Bithynia, marbles from
+Numidia, bronzes from Corinth, statues from Athens,--whatever, in short,
+was precious or rare or curious in the most distant countries.
+
+What a concentration of material wonders was to be seen in all the
+countries that bordered on the Mediterranean,--not merely in Italy and
+Greece, but in Sicily and Asia Minor, and even in Gaul and Spain! Every
+country was dotted with cities, villas, and farms. Every country was
+famous for oil, or fruit, or wine, or vegetables, or timber, or flocks,
+or pastures, or horses. More than two hundred and fifty cities or towns
+in Italy alone are historical, and some were famous.
+
+The excavations of Pompeii attest great luxury and elegance of life.
+Cortona, Clusium, Veii, Ancona, Ostia, Praeneste, Antium, Misenum,
+Baiae, Puteoli, Neapolis, Brundusium, Sybaris, were all celebrated.
+
+And still more remarkable were the old capitals of Greece, Asia Minor,
+and Africa. Syracuse was older than Rome, and had a fortress of a mile
+and a half in length. Carthage, under the emperors, nearly equalled its
+ancient magnificence. Athens was never more splendid than in the time of
+the Roman Antonines. In spite of successive conquests, there still
+towered upon the Acropolis the most wonderful temple of antiquity, built
+of Pentelic marble, and adorned with the sculptures of Phidias. Corinth
+was richer and more luxurious than Athens, and possessed the most
+valuable pictures of Greece, as well as the finest statues; a single
+street for three miles was adorned with costly edifices. And even the
+islands which were colonized by Greeks were seats of sculpture and
+painting, as well as of schools of learning. Still grander were the
+cities of Asia Minor. Antioch had a street four miles in length, with
+double colonnades; and its baths, theatres, museums, and temples excited
+universal admiration. At Ephesus was the grand temple of Diana, four
+times as large as the Parthenon at Athens, covering as much ground as
+Cologne Cathedral, with one hundred and twenty-eight columns sixty feet
+high. The Ephesian theatre was capable of seating sixty thousand
+spectators. Tarsus, the birthplace of Paul, was no mean city; and
+Damascus, the old capital of Syria, was both beautiful and rich.
+
+Laodicea was famous for tapestries, Hierapolis for its iron wares,
+Cybara for its dyes, Sardis for its wines, Smyrna for its beautiful
+monuments, Delos for its slave-trade, Cyrene for its horses, Paphos for
+its temple of Venus, in which were a hundred altars. Seleucia, on the
+Tigris, had a population of four hundred thousand. Caesarea in
+Palestine, founded by Herod the Great, and the principal seat of
+government to the Roman prefects, had a harbor equal in size to the
+renowned Piraeus, and was secured against the southwest winds by a mole
+of such massive construction that the blocks of stone, sunk under the
+water, were fifty feet in length, eighteen in width, and nine in
+thickness. The city itself was constructed of polished stone, with an
+agora, a theatre, a circus, a praetorium, and a temple to Caesar. Tyre,
+which had resisted for seven months the armies of Alexander, remained to
+the fall of the empire a great emporium of trade; it monopolized the
+manufacture of imperial purple. Sidon was equally celebrated for its
+glass and embroidered robes. The Sidonians cast glass mirrors, and
+imitated precious stones. But the glory of both Tyre and Sidon was in
+ships, which visited all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and even
+penetrated to Britain and India.
+
+But greater than Tyre or Antioch, or any eastern city, was Alexandria,
+the capital of Egypt. Egypt even in its decline was still a great
+monarchy; and when the sceptre of three hundred kings passed from
+Cleopatra the last of the Ptolemies, to Augustus Caesar the conqueror at
+Actium, the military force of Egypt is said to have amounted to seven
+hundred thousand men. The annual revenues of this State under the
+Ptolemies amounted to about seventeen million dollars in gold and
+silver, besides the produce of the earth. A single feast cost
+Philadelphus more than half a million of pounds sterling, and he had
+accumulated treasures to the amount of seven hundred and forty thousand
+talents, or about eight hundred and sixty million dollars. What European
+monarch ever possessed such a sum? The kings of Egypt, even when
+tributary to Rome, were richer in gold and silver than was Louis XIV. in
+the proudest hour of his life.
+
+The ground-plan of Alexandria was traced by Alexander himself, but it
+was not completed until the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Its
+circumference was about fifteen miles; the streets were regular, and
+crossed one another at right angles, being wide enough for free passage
+of both carriages and foot passengers. Its harbor could hold the largest
+fleet ever congregated; its walls and gates were constructed with all
+the skill and strength known to antiquity; its population numbered six
+hundred thousand, and all nations were represented in its crowded
+streets. The wealth of the city may be inferred from the fact that in
+one year sixty-two hundred and fifty talents, or more than six million
+dollars, were paid to the public treasury for port dues. The library was
+the largest in the world, numbering over seven hundred thousand
+volumes; and this was connected with a museum, a menagerie, a botanical
+garden, and various halls for lectures, altogether forming the most
+famous university in the Roman empire. The inhabitants were chiefly
+Greek, and had all the cultivated tastes and mercantile thrift of that
+quick-witted people. In a commercial point of view Alexandria was the
+most important city in the world, and its ships whitened every sea.
+Unlike most commercial cities, it was intellectual, and its schools of
+poetry, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, and theology were more
+renowned than even those of Athens during the third and fourth
+centuries. Alexandria, could it have been transported in its former
+splendor to our modern world, would be a great capital in these times.
+
+And all these cities were connected with one another and with Rome by
+magnificent roads, perfectly straight, and paved with large blocks of
+stone. They were originally constructed for military purposes, but were
+used by travellers, and on them posts were regularly established; they
+crossed valleys upon arches, and penetrated mountains; in Italy,
+especially, they were great works of art, and connected all the
+provinces. There was an uninterrupted communication from the wall of
+Antoninus through York, London, Sandwich, Boulogne, Rheims, Lyons,
+Milan, Rome, Brundusium, Dyrrachium, Byzantium, Ancyra, Tarsus,
+Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem,--a distance of thirty-seven hundred and forty
+miles; and these roads were divided by milestones, and houses for
+travellers erected upon them at points of every five or six miles.
+
+Commerce under the Roman emperors was not what it now is, but still was
+very considerable, and thus united the various provinces together. The
+most remote countries were ransacked to furnish luxuries for Rome; every
+year a fleet of one hundred and twenty vessels sailed from the Red Sea
+for the islands of the Indian Ocean. But the Mediterranean, with the
+rivers which flowed into it, was the great highway of the ancient
+navigator. Navigation by the ancients was even more rapid than in modern
+times before the invention of steam, since oars were employed as well as
+sails. In summer one hundred and sixty-two Roman miles were sailed over
+in twenty-four hours; this was the average speed, or about seven knots.
+From the mouth of the Tiber vessels could usually reach Africa in two
+days, Massilia in three, and the Pillars of Hercules in seven; from
+Puteoli the passage to Alexandria had been effected, with moderate
+winds, in nine days. These facts, however, apply only to the summer, and
+to favorable winds. The Romans did not navigate in the inclement
+seasons; but in summer the great inland sea was white with sails. Great
+fleets brought corn from Gaul, Spain, Sardinia, Africa, Sicily, and
+Egypt. This was the most important trade; but a considerable commerce
+was carried on also in ivory, tortoise-shell, cotton and silk fabrics,
+pearls and precious stones, gums, spices, wines, wool, and oil. Greek
+and Asiatic wines, especially the Chian and Lesbian, were in great
+demand at Rome. The transport of earthenware, made generally in the
+Grecian cities, of wild animals for the amphitheatre, of marble, of the
+spoils of eastern cities, of military engines and stores, and of horses,
+required very large fleets and thousands of mariners, which probably
+belonged chiefly to great maritime cities. These cities with their
+dependencies required even more vessels for communication with one
+another than for Rome herself,--the great central object of enterprise
+and cupidity.
+
+In this survey of ancient cities I have not yet spoken of the great
+central city,--the City of the Seven Hills, to which all the world was
+tributary. Whatever was costly or rare or beautiful, in Greece or Asia
+or Egypt, was appropriated by her citizen kings, since citizens were
+provincial governors. All the great highways, from the Atlantic to the
+Tigris, converged to the capital,--all roads led to Rome; all the ships
+of Alexandria and Carthage and Tarentum, and other commercial capitals,
+were employed in furnishing her with luxuries or necessities. Never was
+there so proud a city as this "Epitome of the Universe." London, Paris,
+Vienna, Constantinople, St. Petersburg, Berlin, are great centres of
+fashion and power; but they are rivals, and excel only in some great
+department of human enterprise and genius, as in letters, or fashions,
+or commerce, or manufactures,--centres of influence and power in the
+countries of which they are capitals, yet they do not monopolize the
+wealth and energies of the world. London may contain more people than
+did ancient Rome, and may possess more commercial wealth; but London
+represents only the British monarchy, not a universal empire. Rome,
+however, monopolized every thing, and controlled all nations and
+peoples; she could shut up the schools of Athens, or disperse the ships
+of Alexandria, or regulate the shops of Antioch. What Lyons and Bordeaux
+are to Paris, Corinth and Babylon were to Rome,--mere dependent cities.
+Paul, condemned at Jerusalem, stretched out his arms to Rome, and Rome
+protected him. The philosophers of Greece were the tutors of Roman
+nobility. The kings of the East resorted to the palaces of Mount
+Palatine for favors or safety; the governors of Syria and Egypt,
+reigning in the palaces of ancient kings, returned to Rome to squander
+the riches they had accumulated. Senators and nobles took their turn as
+sovereign rulers of all the known countries of the world. The halls in
+which Darius and Alexander and Pericles and Croesus and Solomon and
+Cleopatra had feasted, became the witness of the banquets of Roman
+proconsuls. Babylon, Thebes, and Athens were only what Delhi and
+Calcutta are to the English of our day,--cities to be ruled by the
+delegates of the imperial Senate. Rome was the only "home" of the proud
+governors who reigned on the banks of the Thames, of the Seine, of the
+Rhine, of the Nile, of the Tigris. After they had enriched themselves
+with the spoils of the ancient monarchies they returned to their estates
+in Italy, or to their palaces on the Aventine. What a concentration of
+works of art on the hills, and around the Forum, and in the Campus
+Martius, and other celebrated quarters! There were temples rivalling
+those of Athens and Ephesus; baths covering more ground than the
+Pyramids, surrounded with Corinthian columns, and filled with the
+choicest treasures ransacked from the cities of Greece and Asia; palaces
+in comparison with which the Tuileries and Versailles are small;
+theatres which seated a larger audience than any present public
+buildings in Europe; amphitheatres more extensive and costly than
+Cologne, Milan, and York Minster cathedrals combined, and seating eight
+times as many spectators as could be crowded into St. Peter's Church;
+circuses where, it is said, three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+persons could witness the games and chariot-races at a time; bridges,
+still standing, which have furnished models for the most beautiful at
+Paris and London; aqueducts carried over arches one hundred feet in
+height, through which flowed the surplus water of distant lakes; drains
+of solid masonry in which large boats could float; pillars more than one
+hundred feet in height, coated with precious marbles or plates of brass,
+and covered with bas-reliefs; obelisks brought from Egypt; fora and
+basilicas connected together, and extending more than three thousand
+feet in length, every part of which was filled with "animated busts" of
+conquerors, kings, statesmen, poets, publicists, and philosophers;
+mausoleums greater and more splendid than that Artemisia erected to the
+memory of her husband; triumphal arches under which marched in stately
+procession the victorious armies of the Eternal City, preceded by the
+spoils and trophies of conquered empires.
+
+Such was the proud capital,--a city of palaces, a residence of nobles
+who were virtually kings, enriched with the accumulated treasures of
+ancient civilization. Great were the capitals of Greece and Asia, but
+how pre-eminent was Rome, since all were subordinate to her! How
+bewildering and bewitching to a traveller must have been the varied
+wonders of the city! Go where he would, his eye rested on something
+which was both a study and a marvel. Let him drive or walk about the
+suburbs,--there were villas, tombs, aqueducts looking like our railroads
+on arches, sculptured monuments, and gardens of surpassing beauty and
+luxury. Let him approach the walls,--they were great fortifications
+extending twenty-one miles in circuit, according to the measurement of
+Ammon as adopted by Gibbon, and forty-five miles according to other
+authorities. Let him enter any of the various gates that opened into the
+city from the roads which radiated to all parts of Italy and the
+world,--they were of monumental brass covered with bas-reliefs, on which
+the victories of generals for a thousand years were commemorated. Let
+him pass through any of the crowded thoroughfares,--he saw houses
+towering scarcely ever less than seventy feet, as tall as those of
+Edinburgh in its oldest sections. Most of the houses in which this vast
+population lived, according to Strabo, possessed pipes which gave a
+never-failing supply of water from the rivers that flowed into the city
+through the aqueducts and out again through the sewers into the Tiber.
+Let the traveller walk up the Via Sacra,--that short street, scarcely
+half a mile in length,--and he passed the Flavian Amphitheatre, the
+Temple of Venus and Rome, the Arch of Titus, the Temples of Peace, of
+Vesta, and of Castor, the Forum Romanum, the Basilica Julia, the Arch
+of Severus, the Temple of Saturn, and stood before the majestic ascent
+to the Capitoline Jupiter, with its magnificent portico and ornamented
+pediment, surpassing the facade of any modern church. On his left, as he
+emerged from beneath the sculptured Arch of Titus, was the Palatine
+Mount, nearly covered by the palace of the Caesars, the magnificent
+residences of the higher nobility, and various temples, of which that of
+Apollo was the most magnificent, built by Augustus, of solid white
+marble from Luna. Here were the palaces of Vaccus, of Flaccus, of
+Cicero, of Catiline, of Scaurus, of Antoninus, of Clodius, of Agrippa,
+and of Hortensius. Still on his left, in the valley between the Palatine
+and the Capitoline, though he could not see it, concealed from view by
+the great Temples of Vesta and of Castor, and the still greater edifice
+known as the Basilica Julia, was the quarter called the Velabrum,
+extending to the river, where the Pons Aemilius crossed it,--a low
+quarter of narrow streets and tall houses where the rabble lived and
+died. On his right, concealed from view by the Aedes Divi Julii and the
+Forum Romanum, was that magnificent series of edifices extending from
+the Temple of Peace to the Temple of Trajan, including the Basilica
+Pauli, the Forum Julii, the Forum Augusti, the Forum Trajani, the
+Basilica Ulpia,--a space more than three thousand feet in length, and
+six hundred in breadth, almost entirely surrounded by porticos and
+colonnades, and filled with statues and pictures,--displaying on the
+whole probably the grandest series of public buildings clustered
+together ever erected, especially if we include the Forum Romanum and
+the various temples and basilicas which connected the whole,--a forest
+of marble pillars and statues. Ascending the steps which led from the
+Temple of Concord to the Temple of Juno Moneta upon the Arx, or Tarpeian
+Rock, on the southwestern summit of the hill, itself one of the most
+beautiful temples in Rome, erected by Camillus on the spot where the
+house of M. Manlius Capitolinus had stood, and one came upon the Roman
+mint. Near this was the temple erected by Augustus to Jupiter Tonans,
+and that built by Domitian to Jupiter Custos. But all the sacred
+edifices which crowned the Capitoline were subordinate to the Templum
+Jovis Capitolini, standing on a platform of eight thousand square feet,
+and built of the richest materials. The portico which faced the Via
+Sacra consisted of three rows of Doric columns, the pediment profusely
+ornamented with the choicest sculptures, the apex of the roof surmounted
+by the bronze horses of Lysippus, and the roof itself covered with
+gilded tiles. The temple had three separate cells, though covered with
+one roof; in front of each stood colossal statues of the three deities
+to whom it was consecrated. Here were preserved what was most sacred in
+the eyes of Romans, and it was itself the richest of all the temples
+of the city.
+
+What a beautiful panorama was presented to the view from the summit of
+this consecrated hill, only mounted by a steep ascent of one hundred
+steps! To the south was the Via Sacra extending to the Colosseum, and
+beyond it the Appia Via, lined with monuments as far as the eye could
+reach. A little beyond the fora to the east was the Carinae, a
+fashionable quarter of beautiful shops and houses, and still farther off
+were the Baths of Titus, extending from the Carinae to the Esquiline
+Mount. To the northeast were the Viminal and Quirinal hills, after the
+Palatine the most ancient part of the city, the seat of the Sabine
+population, abounding in fanes and temples, the most splendid of which
+was the Temple of Quirinus, erected originally to Romulus by Numa, but
+rebuilt by Augustus, with a double row of columns on each of its sides,
+seventy-six in number. Near by was the house of Atticus, and the gardens
+of Sallust in the valley between the Quirinal and Pincian, afterward the
+property of the Emperor. Far back on the Quirinal, near the wall of
+Servius, were the Baths of Diocletian, and still farther to the east the
+Pretorian Camp established by Tiberius, and included within the wall of
+Aurelian. To the northeast the eye lighted on the Pincian Hill covered
+with the gardens of Lucullus, to possess which Messalina caused the
+death of Valerius Asiaticus, into whose possession they had fallen. In
+the valley which lay between the fora and the Quirinal was the
+celebrated Subura, the quarter of shops, markets, and artificers,--a
+busy, noisy, vulgar section, not beautiful, but full of life and
+enterprise and wickedness. The eye then turned to the north, and the
+whole length of the Via Flamina was exposed to view, extending from the
+Capitoline to the Flaminian gate, perfectly straight, the finest street
+in Rome, and parallel to the modern Corso; it was the great highway to
+the north of Italy. Monuments and temples and palaces lined this
+celebrated street; it was spanned by the triumphal arches of Claudius
+and Marcus Aurelius. To the west of it was the Campus Martius, with its
+innumerable objects of interest,--the Baths of Agrippa, the Pantheon,
+the Thermae Alexandrinae, the Column of Marcus Aurelius, and the
+Mausoleum of Augustus. Beneath the Capitoline on the west, toward the
+river, was the Circus Flaminius, the Portico of Octavius, the Theatre of
+Balbus, and the Theatre of Pompey, where forty thousand spectators were
+accommodated. Stretching beyond the Thermae Alexandrinae, near the
+Pantheon, was the magnificent bridge which crossed the Tiber, built by
+Hadrian when he founded his Mausoleum, to which it led, still standing
+under the name of the Ponte S. Angelo. The eye took in eight or nine
+bridges over the Tiber, some of wood, but generally of stone, of
+beautiful masonry, and crowned with statues. In the valley between the
+Palatine and the Aventine, was the great Circus Maximus, founded by the
+early Tarquin; it was the largest open space, inclosed by walls and
+porticos, in the city; it seated three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+spectators. How vast a city, which could spare nearly four hundred
+thousand of its population to see the chariot-races! Beyond was the
+Aventine itself. This also was rich in legendary monuments and in the
+palaces of the great, though originally a plebeian quarter. Here dwelt
+Trajan before he was emperor, and Ennius the poet, and Paula the friend
+of Saint Jerome. Beneath the Aventine, and a little south of the Circus
+Maximus, were the great Baths of Caracalla, the ruins of which, next to
+those of the Colosseum, made on my mind the strongest impression of all
+I saw that pertains to antiquity, though these were not so large as
+those of Diocletian. The view south took in the Caelian Hill, the
+ancient residence of Tullus Hostilius. This hill was the residence of
+many distinguished Romans, among whose palaces was that of Claudius
+Centumalus, which towered ten or twelve stories into the air. But
+grander than any of these palaces was that of Plautius Lateranus, on
+whose site now stands the basilica of St. John Lateran,--the gift of
+Constantine to the bishop of Rome,--one of the most ancient of the
+Christian churches, in which, for fifteen hundred years, daily services
+have been performed.
+
+Such were the objects of interest and grandeur that met the eye as it
+was turned toward the various quarters of the city, which contained
+between three and four millions of people. Lipsius estimates four
+millions as the population, including slaves, women, children, and
+strangers. Though this estimate is regarded as too large by Merivale and
+others, yet how enormous must have been the number of the people when
+there were nine thousand and twenty-five baths, and when those of
+Diocletian could accommodate thirty-two hundred bathers at a time! The
+wooden theatre of Scaurus contained eighty thousand seats; that of
+Marcellus twenty thousand; the Colosseum would seat eighty-seven
+thousand persons, and give standing space for twenty-two thousand more.
+The Circus Maximus would hold three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+spectators. If only one person out of four of the free population
+witnessed the games and spectacles at a time, we thus must have four
+millions of people altogether in the city. The Aurelian walls are now
+only thirteen miles in circumference, but Lipsius estimates the
+original circumference at forty-five miles, and Vopiscus at nearly
+fifty. The diameter of the city must have been eleven miles, since
+Strabo tells us that the actual limit of Rome was at a place between the
+fifth and sixth milestone from the column of Trajan in the Forum,--the
+central and most conspicuous object in the city except the capitol.
+
+Modern writers, taking London and Paris for their measure of material
+civilization, seem unwilling to admit that Rome could have reached such
+a pitch of glory and wealth and power. To him who stands within the
+narrow limits of the Forum, as it now appears, it seems incredible that
+it could have been the centre of a much larger city than Europe can now
+boast of. Grave historians are loath to compromise their dignity and
+character for truth by admitting statements which seem, to men of
+limited views, to be fabulous, and which transcend modern experience.
+But we should remember that most of the monuments of ancient Rome have
+entirely disappeared. Nothing remains of the Palace of the Caesars,
+which nearly covered the Palatine Hill; little of the fora which,
+connected together, covered a space twice as large as that inclosed by
+the palaces of the Louvre and Tuileries, with all their galleries and
+courts; almost nothing of the glories of the Capitoline Hill; and little
+comparatively of those Thermae which were a mile in circuit. But what
+does remain attests an unparalleled grandeur,--the broken pillars of the
+Forum; the lofty columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius; the Pantheon,
+lifting its spacious dome two hundred feet into the air; the mere
+vestibule of the Baths of Agrippa; the triumphal arches of Titus and
+Trajan and Constantine; the bridges which span the Tiber; the aqueducts
+which cross the Campagna; the Cloaca Maxima, which drained the marshes
+and lakes of the infant city; and, above all, the Colosseum. What glory
+and shame are associated with that single edifice! That alone, if
+nothing else remained of Pagan antiquity, would indicate a grandeur and
+a folly such as cannot now be seen on earth. It reveals a wonderful
+skill in masonry and great architectural strength; it shows the wealth
+and resources of rulers who must have had the treasures of the world at
+their command; it shows the restless passions of the people for
+excitement, and the necessity on the part of government of yielding to
+this taste. What leisure and indolence marked a city which could afford
+to give up so much time to the demoralizing sports! What facilities for
+transportation were afforded, when so many wild beasts could be brought
+to the capitol from the central parts of Africa without calling out
+unusual comment! How imperious a populace that compels the government to
+provide such expensive pleasures! The games of Titus, on the dedication
+of the Colosseum, lasted one hundred days, and five thousand wild beasts
+were slaughtered in the arena. The number of the gladiators who fought
+surpasses belief. At the triumph of Trajan over the Dacians, ten
+thousand gladiators were exhibited, and the Emperor himself presided
+under a gilded canopy, surrounded by thousands of his lords. Underneath
+the arena, strewed with yellow sand and sawdust, was a solid pavement,
+so closely cemented that it could be turned into an artificial lake, on
+which naval battles were fought. But it was the conflict of gladiators
+which most deeply stimulated the passions of the people. The benches
+were crowded with eager spectators, and the voices of one hundred
+thousand were raised in triumph or rage as the miserable victims sank
+exhausted in the bloody sport.
+
+Yet it was not the gladiatorial sports of the amphitheatre which most
+strikingly attested the greatness and splendor of the city; nor the
+palaces, in which as many as four hundred slaves were sometimes
+maintained as domestic servants for a single establishment,--twelve
+hundred in number according to the lowest estimate, but probably five
+times as numerous, since every senator, every knight, and every rich man
+was proud to possess a residence which would attract attention; nor the
+temples, which numbered four hundred and twenty-four, most of which
+were of marble, filled with statues, the contributions of ages, and
+surrounded with groves; nor the fora and basilicas, with their porticos,
+statues, and pictures, covering more space than any cluster of public
+buildings in Europe, a mile and a half in circuit; nor the baths, nearly
+as large, still more completely filled with works of art; nor the Circus
+Maximus, where more people witnessed the chariot races at a time than
+are nightly assembled in all the places of public amusement in Paris,
+London, and New York combined,--more than could be seated in all the
+cathedrals of England and France. It is not these which most
+impressively make us feel the amazing grandeur of the old capital of the
+world. The triumphal processions of the conquering generals were still
+more exciting to behold, for these appealed more directly to the
+imagination, and excited those passions which urged the Romans to a
+career of conquest from generation to generation. No military review of
+modern times equalled those gorgeous triumphs, even as no scenic
+performance compares with the gladiatorial shows; the sun has never
+shone upon any human assemblage so magnificent and so grand, so imposing
+and yet so guilty. Not only were displayed the spoils of conquered
+kingdoms, and the triumphal cars of generals, but the whole military
+strength of the capital; an army of one hundred thousand men, flushed
+with victory, followed the gorgeous procession of nobles and princes.
+The triumph of Aurelian, on his return from the East, gives us some idea
+of the grandeur of that ovation to conquerors. "The pomp was opened by
+twenty elephants, four royal tigers, and two hundred of the most curious
+animals from every climate, north, south, east, and west. These were
+followed by sixteen hundred gladiators, devoted to the cruel amusement
+of the amphitheatre. Then were displayed the arms and ensigns of
+conquered nations, the plate and wardrobe of the Syrian queen. Then
+ambassadors from all parts of the earth, all remarkable in their rich
+dresses, with their crowns and offerings. Then the captives taken in the
+various wars,--Goths, Vandals, Samaritans, Alemanni, Franks, Gauls,
+Syrians, and Egyptians, each marked by their national costume. Then the
+Queen of the East, the beautiful Zenobia, confined by fetters of gold,
+and fainting under the weight of jewels, preceding the beautiful chariot
+in which she had hoped to enter the gates of Rome. Then the chariot of
+the Persian king. Then the triumphal car of Aurelian himself, drawn by
+elephants. Finally the most illustrious of the Senate and the army
+closed the solemn procession, amid the acclamations of the people, and
+the sound of musical instruments. It took from dawn of day until the
+ninth hour for the procession to pass to the capitol; and the festival
+was protracted by theatrical representations, the games of the circus,
+the hunting of wild beasts, combats of gladiators, and naval
+engagements."
+
+Such were the material wonders of the ancient civilizations, culminating
+in their latest and greatest representative, and displayed in its proud
+capital,--nearly all of which became later the spoil of barbarians, who
+ruthlessly marched over the classic world, having no regard for its
+choicest treasures. Those old glories are now indeed succeeded by a
+prouder civilization,--the work of nobler races after sixteen hundred
+years of new experiments. But why such an eclipse of the glory of man?
+The reason is apparent if we survey the internal state of the ancient
+empires, especially of society as it existed under the Roman emperors.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Titus Livius,
+Pausanias, on the geography and resources of the ancient nations. See an
+able chapter on Mediterranean prosperity in Louis Napoleon's History of
+Caesar. Smith's Dictionary of Ancient Geography is exhaustive. Wilkinson
+has revealed the civilization of ancient Egypt. Professor Becker's
+Handbook of Rome, as well as his Gallus and Charicles shed much light on
+manners and customs. Dyer's History of the City of Rome is the fullest
+description of its wonders that I have read. Niebuhr, Bunsen, and
+Platner, among the Germans, have written learnedly, but also have
+created much doubt about things supposed to be established. Mommsen,
+Curtius, and Merivale are also great authorities. Nor are the
+magnificent chapters of Gibbon to be disregarded by the student of Roman
+history, notwithstanding his elaborate and inflated style.
+
+
+
+
+THE MILITARY ART.
+
+
+WEAPONS, ENGINES, DISCIPLINE.
+
+1300-100 A.D.
+
+
+In surveying the nations of antiquity nothing impresses us more forcibly
+than the perpetual wars in which they were engaged, and the fact that
+military art and science seem to have been among the earliest things
+that occupied the thoughts of men. Personal strife and tribal warfare
+are coeval with the earliest movements of humanity.
+
+The first recorded act in the Hebraic history of the world after the
+expulsion of Adam from Paradise is a murder. In patriarchal times we
+read of contentions between the servants of Abraham and of Lot, and
+between the petty kings and chieftains of the countries where they
+journeyed. Long before Abraham was born, violence was the greatest evil
+with which the world was afflicted. Before his day mighty conquerors
+arose and founded kingdoms. Babylon and Egypt were powerful military
+States in pre-historic times. Wars more or less fierce were waged before
+nations were civilized. The earliest known art, therefore, was the art
+of destruction, growing out of the wicked and brutal passions of
+men,--envy and hatred, ambition and revenge; in a word, selfishness.
+Race fought with race, kingdom with kingdom, and city with city, in the
+very infancy of society. In secular history the greatest names are those
+of conquerors and heroes in every land under the sun; and it was by
+conquerors that those grand monuments were erected the ruins of which
+astonish every traveller, especially in Egypt and Assyria.
+
+But wars in the earliest ages were not carried on scientifically, or
+even as an art. There was little to mark them except brute force. Armies
+were scarcely more than great collections of armed men, led by kings,
+either to protect their States from hostile invaders, or to acquire new
+territory, or to exact tribute from weaker nations. We do not read of
+military discipline, or of skill in strategy and tactics. A battle was
+lost or won by individual prowess; it was generally a hand-to-hand
+encounter, in which the strongest and bravest gained the victory.
+
+One of the earliest descriptions of war is to be found in the Iliad of
+Homer, where individual heroes fought with one another, armed with the
+sword, the lance, and the javelin, protected by shields, helmets, and
+coats of mail. They fought on foot, or from chariots, which were in use
+before cavalry. The war-horse was driven before he was ridden in Egypt
+or Palestine; but the Aryan barbarians in their invasion rode their
+horses, and fought on horseback, like the modern Cossacks.
+
+Until the Greeks became familiar with war as an art, armies were usually
+very large, as if a great part of the population of a country followed
+the sovereign who commanded them. Rameses the Great, the Sesostris of
+the Greeks, according to Herodotus led nearly a million of men in his
+expeditions. He was the most noted of ancient warriors until Cyrus the
+Persian arose, and was nearly contemporaneous with Moses. The Trojan war
+is supposed to have taken place during the period when the Israelites
+were subject to the Ammonites; and about the time that the Philistines
+were defeated by David, the Greeks were forced by war to found colonies
+in Asia Minor.
+
+After authentic history begins, war is the main subject with which it
+has to deal; and for three thousand years history is simply the record
+of the feats of warriors and generals, of their conquests and defeats,
+of the rise and fall of kingdoms and cities, of the growth or decline of
+military virtues. No arts of civilization have preserved nations from
+the sword of the conqueror, and war has been both the amusement and the
+business of kings. From the earliest ages, the most valued laurels have
+been bestowed for success in war, and military fame has eclipsed all
+other glories. The cry of the mourner has been unheeded in the blaze of
+conquest; even the aspirations of the poet and the labors of the artist
+have been as nought, except to celebrate the achievements of heroes.
+
+It is interesting then to inquire how far the ancients advanced in the
+arts of war, which include military weapons, movements, the structure of
+camps, the discipline of armies, the construction of ships and of
+military engines, and the concentration and management of forces under a
+single man. What was that mighty machinery by which nations were
+subdued, or rose to greatness on the ruin of States and Empires? The
+conquests of Rameses, of David, of Nebuchadnezzar, of Cyrus, of
+Alexander, of Hannibal, of Caesar, and other heroes are still the
+subjects of contemplation among statesmen and schoolboys. The exploits
+of heroes are the pith of history.
+
+The art of war must have made great progress in the infancy of
+civilization, when bodily energies were most highly valued, when men
+were fierce, hardy, strong, and uncorrupted by luxury; when mere
+physical forces gave law alike to the rich and the poor, to the learned
+and the ignorant; and when the avenue to power led across the field
+of battle.
+
+We must go to Egypt for the earliest development of art and science in
+all departments; and so far as the art of war consists in the
+organization of physical forces for conquest or defence, under the
+direction of a single man, it was in Egypt that this was first
+accomplished, about seventeen hundred years before Christ, as
+chronologists think, by Rameses the Great.
+
+This monarch, according to Wilkinson, the greatest and most ambitious of
+the Egyptian kings, to whom the Greeks gave the name of Sesostris,
+showed great ability in collecting together large bodies of his
+subjects, and controlling them by a rigid military discipline. He
+accustomed them to heat and cold, hunger and thirst, fatigue, and
+exposure to danger. With bodies thus rendered vigorous by labor and
+discipline, they were fitted for distant expeditions. Rameses first
+subdued the Arabians and Libyans, and annexed them to the Egyptian
+monarchy. While he inured his subjects to fatigue and danger, he was
+careful to win their affections by acts of munificence and clemency. He
+then made his preparations for the conquest of the known world, and
+collected an army, according to Diodorus Siculus, of six hundred
+thousand infantry, twenty-four thousand cavalry, and twenty-seven
+thousand war-chariots. It is difficult to understand how a small country
+like Egypt could furnish such an immense force. If the account of the
+historian be not exaggerated, Rameses must have enrolled the conquered
+Libyans and Arabians and other nations among his soldiers. He subjected
+his army to a stern discipline and an uncomplaining obedience to
+orders,--the first principle in the science of war, which no successful
+general in the world's history has ever disregarded, from Alexander to
+Napoleon. With this powerful army his march was irresistible. Ethiopia
+was first subdued, and an exaction made from the conquered of a tribute
+of gold, ivory, and ebony. In those ancient times a conquering army did
+not resettle or colonize the territories it had subdued, but was
+contented with overrunning the country and exacting tribute from the
+people. Such was the nature of the Babylonian and Persian conquests.
+After overrunning Ethiopia and some other countries near the Straits of
+Babelmandeb, the conqueror proceeded to India, which he overran beyond
+the Ganges, and ascended the high table-land of Central Asia; then
+proceeding westward, he entered Europe, nor halted in his devastating
+career until he reached Thrace. From thence he marched to Asia Minor,
+conquering as he went, and invaded Assyria, seating himself on the
+throne of Ninus and Semiramis. Then, laden with booty from the Eastern
+world, he returned to Egypt after an absence of thirty years and
+consolidated his empire, building those vast structures at Thebes, which
+for magnitude have never been surpassed. Thus was Egypt enriched with
+the spoil of nations, and made formidable for a thousand years. Rameses
+was the last of the Pharaohs who pursued the phantom of military renown,
+or sought glory in distant expeditions.
+
+We are in ignorance as to the details of the conquests and the generals
+who served under Rameses. There is doubtless some exaggeration in the
+statements of the Greek historian, but there is no doubt that this
+monarch was among the first of the great conquerors to establish a
+regular army, and to provide a fleet to co-operate with his land forces.
+
+The strength of the Egyptian army consisted mainly in archers. They
+fought either on foot or in chariots; cavalry was not much relied upon,
+although mention is frequently made of horsemen as well as of chariots.
+The Egyptian infantry was divided into regiments, and Wilkinson tells us
+that they were named according to the arms they bore,--as "bowmen,
+spearmen, swordsmen, clubmen, slingers." These regiments were divided
+into battalions and companies, commanded by their captains. The
+infantry, heavily armed with spears and shields, formed a phalanx almost
+impenetrable of twelve men deep, who marched with great regularity. Each
+company had its standard-bearer, who was an officer of approved valor;
+the royal standards were carried by the royal princes or by persons of
+the royal household. The troops were summoned by the sound of trumpet,
+and also by the drum, both used from the earliest period. The offensive
+weapons were the bow, the spear, the javelin, the sword, the club, or
+mace, and the battle-axe. The chief defensive weapon was the shield,
+about three feet in length, covered with bull's hide, having the hair
+outward and studded with nails. The shape of the bow was not essentially
+different from that used in Europe in the Middle Ages, being about five
+feet and a half long, round, and tapering at the ends; the bowstring was
+of hide or catgut. The arrows of the archers averaged about thirty
+inches in length, and were made of wood or reeds, tipped with a metal
+point, or flint, and winged with feathers. Each bowman was furnished
+with a plentiful supply of arrows. When arrows were exhausted, the
+bowman fought with swords and battle-axes; his defensive armor was
+confined chiefly to the helmet and a sort of quilted coat. The spear was
+of wood, with a metal head, was about five or six feet in length, and
+used for thrusting. The javelin was lighter, for throwing. The sling was
+a thong of plaited leather, broad in the middle, with a loop at the end.
+The sword was straight and short, between two and three feet in length,
+with a double edge, tapering to a sharp point, and used for either cut
+or thrust; the handle was frequently inlaid with precious stones. The
+metal used in the manufacture of swords and spear-heads was bronze,
+hardened by a process unknown to us. The battle-axe had a handle about
+two-and a-half feet in length, and was less ornamented than other
+weapons. The cuirass, or coat of armor, was made of horizontal rows of
+metal plate, about an inch in breadth, well secured together by bronze
+pieces. The Egyptian chariot held two persons,--the charioteer, and the
+warrior armed with his bow-and-arrow and wearing a cuirass, or coat of
+mail. The warrior carried also other weapons for close encounter, when
+he should descend from his chariot to fight on foot. The chariot was of
+wood, the body of which was light, strengthened with metal; the pole was
+inserted in the axle; the two wheels usually had six spokes, but
+sometimes only four; the wheel revolved on the axle, and was secured by
+a lynch-pin. The leathern harness and housings were simple, and the
+bridles, or reins, were nearly the same as are now in use.
+
+"The Egyptian chariot corps, like the infantry," says Wilkinson, "were
+divided into light and heavy troops, both armed with bows,--the former
+chiefly employed in harassing the enemy with missiles; the latter called
+upon to break through opposing masses of infantry." The infantry, when
+employed in the assault of fortified towns, were provided with shields,
+under cover of which they made their approaches to the place to be
+attacked. In their attack they advanced under cover of the arrows of the
+bowmen, and instantly applied the scaling-ladder to the ramparts. The
+testudo, a wooden shelter, was also used, large enough to contain
+several men. The battering-ram and movable towers resembled those of the
+Romans a thousand years later.
+
+It would thus appear that the ancient Egyptians, in the discipline of
+armies, in military weapons offensive and defensive, in chariots and
+horses, and in military engines for the reduction of fortified towns,
+were scarcely improved upon by the Greeks and Romans, or by the
+Europeans in the Middle Ages. Yet the Egyptians were an ingenious rather
+than a warlike people, fond of peace, and devoted to agricultural
+pursuits.
+
+More warlike than they were the Assyrians and the Persians, although we
+fail to discover any essential difference in the organization of armies,
+or in military weapons. The great difference between the Persian and the
+Egyptian armies was in the use of cavalry. From their earliest
+settlements the Persians were skilful horsemen, and these formed the
+guard of their kings. Under Cyrus, the Persians became the masters of
+the world, but they rapidly degenerated, not being able to withstand the
+luxurious life of the conquered Babylonians; and when they were
+marshalled against the Greeks, and especially against the disciplined
+forces of Alexander, they were disgracefully routed in spite of their
+enormous armies, which could not be handled, and became mere mobs of
+armed men.
+
+The art of war made a great advance under the Greeks, although we do
+not notice any striking superiority of arms over the Eastern armies led
+by Sesostris or Cyrus. The Greeks were among the most warlike of all the
+races of men; they had a genius for war. The Grecian States were engaged
+in perpetual strifes with one another, and constant contention developed
+military strength; and yet the Greeks, until the time of Philip, had no
+standing armies. They relied for offence and defence on the volunteer
+militia, which was animated by intense patriotic ideas. All armies in
+the nature of things are more or less machines, moved by one commanding
+will; but the Greek armies owed much of their success to the individual
+bravery of their troops, who were citizens of States under
+constitutional forms of government.
+
+The most remarkable improvement in the art of war was made by the
+Spartans, who, in addition to their strict military discipline,
+introduced the _phalanx_,--files of picked soldiers, eight deep, heavily
+armed with spear, sword, and shield, placed in ranks of eight, at
+intervals of about six feet apart. This phalanx of eight files and eight
+ranks,--sixty-four men,--closely locked when the soldiers received or
+advanced to attack, proved nearly impregnable and irresistible. It
+combined solidity and the power of resistance with mobility. The picked
+men were placed in the front and rear; for in skilful evolutions the
+front often became the rear, and the rear became the front. Armed with
+spears projecting beyond the front, and with their shields locked
+together, the phalanx advanced to meet the enemy with regular step, and
+to the cadence of music; if beaten, it retired in perfect order. After
+battle, each soldier was obliged to produce his shield as a proof that
+he had fought or retired as a soldier should. The Athenian phalanx was
+less solid than that of Sparta,--Miltiades having decreased the depth to
+four ranks, in order to lengthen his front,--but was more efficient in a
+charge against the enemy. The Spartan phalanx was stronger in defence,
+the Athenian more agile in attack. The attack was nearly irresistible,
+as the soldiers advanced with accelerated motion, corresponding to the
+double-quick time of modern warfare. This was first introduced by
+Miltiades at Marathon.
+
+Philip of Macedon adopted the Spartan phalanx, but made it sixteen deep,
+which gave it greater solidity, and rendered it still more effective. He
+introduced the large oval buckler and a larger and heavier spear. When
+the phalanx was closed for action, each man occupied but three square
+feet of ground: as the pikes were twenty-four feet in length, and
+projected eighteen feet beyond the front, the formation presented an
+array of points such as had never been seen before. The greatest
+improvement effected by Philip, however, was the adoption of standing
+armies instead of the militia heretofore in use throughout the Grecian
+States. He also attached great importance to his cavalry, which was
+composed of the flower of the nobility, about twelve hundred in number,
+all covered with defensive armor; these he formed into eight squadrons,
+and constituted them his body-guard. The usual formation of the regular
+cavalry was in the form of a wedge, so as to penetrate and break the
+enemy's line,--a manoeuvre probably learned from Epaminondas of Thebes,
+a great master in the art of war, who defeated the Spartan phalanx by
+forming his columns upon a front less than their depth, thus enabling
+him to direct his whole force against a given point. By these tactics he
+gained the great victory at Leuctra, as Napoleon likewise prevailed over
+the Austrians in his Italian campaign. In like manner Philip's son
+Alexander, following the example of Epaminondas, concentrated his forces
+upon the enemy's centre, and easily defeated the Persian hosts by
+creating a panic. There was no resisting a phalanx sixteen files deep,
+with their projecting pikes, aided by the heavily armed cavalry, all
+under the strictest military discipline and animated by patriotic ardor.
+This terrible Macedonian phalanx was a great advance over the early
+armies of the Greeks, who fought without discipline in a hand to hand
+encounter, with swords and spears, after exhausting their arrows. They
+had learned two things of great importance,--a rigid discipline, and a
+concentration of forces which made an army a machine. Under Alexander,
+the grand phalanx consisted of 16,384 men, made up of four divisions and
+smaller phalanxes.
+
+In Roman armies we see a still further advance in the military art, as
+it existed in the time of Augustus, which required centuries to perfect.
+The hardy physique and stern nature of the Romans, exercised and
+controlled by their organizing genius, evolved the Roman legion, which
+learned to resist the impetuous assaults of the elephants of the East,
+the phalanx of the Greeks, and the Teutonic barbarians. The indomitable
+courage of the Romans, trained under severest discipline and directed by
+means of an organization divided and subdivided and officered almost as
+perfectly as our modern corps and divisions and brigades and regiments
+and companies and squads, marched over and subdued the world.
+
+The Roman soldier was trained to march twenty miles a day, under a
+burden of eighty pounds; to swim rivers, to climb mountains, to
+penetrate forests, and to encounter every kind of danger. He was taught
+that his destiny was to die in battle: death was at once his duty and
+his glory. He enlisted in the army with little hope of revisiting his
+home; he crossed seas and deserts and forests with the idea of spending
+his life in the service of his country. His pay was only a denarius
+daily, equal to about sixteen cents of our money. Marriage for him was
+discouraged or forbidden. However insignificant the legionary was as a
+man, he gained importance from the great body with which he was
+identified: he was both the servant and the master of the State. He had
+an intense _esprit de corps_; he was bound up in the glory of his
+legion. Both religion and honor bound him to his standards; the golden
+eagle which glittered in his front was the object of his fondest
+devotion. Nor was it possible to escape the penalty of cowardice or
+treachery or disobedience; he could be chastised with blows by his
+centurion, and his general could doom him to death. Never was the
+severity of military discipline relaxed; military exercises were
+incessant, in winter as in summer. In the midst of peace the Roman
+troops were familiarized with the practice of war.
+
+It was the spirit which animated the Roman legions, and the discipline
+to which they were inured that gave them their irresistible strength.
+When we remember that they had not our firearms, we can but be surprised
+at their efficiency, especially in taking strongly fortified cities.
+Jerusalem was defended by a triple wall, the most elaborate
+fortifications, and twenty-four thousand soldiers, besides the aid
+received from the citizens; and yet it fell in little more than four
+months before an army of eighty thousand under Titus. How great must
+have been the military science that could reduce a place of such
+strength, in so short a time, without the aid of other artillery than
+the ancient catapult and battering-ram! Whether the military science of
+the Romans was superior or inferior to our own, no one can question that
+it was as perfect as it could be, lacking any knowledge of gunpowder; we
+surpass them only in the application of this great invention, especially
+in artillery. There can be no doubt that a Roman army was superior to a
+feudal army in the brightest days of chivalry. The world has produced no
+generals greater than Caesar, Pompey, Sulla, and Marius. No armies ever
+won greater victories over superior numbers than the Roman, and no
+armies of their size ever retained in submission so vast an empire, and
+for so long a time. At no period in the history of the Roman empire were
+the armies so large as those sustained by France in time of peace. Two
+hundred thousand legionaries, and as many more auxiliaries, controlled
+diverse nations and powerful monarchies. The single province of Syria
+once boasted of a military force equal in the number of soldiers to that
+wielded by the Emperor Tiberius. Twenty-five Roman legions made the
+conquest of the world, and retained that conquest for five hundred
+years. The self-sustained energy of Caesar in Gaul puts to the blush
+the efforts of all modern generals, unless we except Frederic II.,
+Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Grant, Sherman, and a few other great
+geniuses whom warlike crises have developed; nor is there a better
+text-book on the art of war than that furnished by Caesar himself in his
+Commentaries. The great victories of the Romans over barbarians, over
+Gauls, over Carthaginians, over Greeks, over Syrians, over Persians,
+were not the result of a short-lived enthusiasm, like those of Attila
+and Tamerlane, but extended over a thousand years.
+
+The Romans were essentially military in all their tastes and habits.
+Luxurious senators and nobles showed the greatest courage and skill in
+the most difficult campaigns. Antony, Caesar, Pompey, and Lucullus at
+home were enervated and self-indulgent, but at the head of their legions
+they were capable of any privation and fatigue.
+
+The Roman legion was a most perfect organization, a great mechanical
+force, and could sustain furious attacks after vigor, patriotism, and
+public spirit had fled. For three hundred years a vast empire was
+sustained by mechanism alone. The legion is coeval with the foundation
+of Rome, but the number of the troops of which it was composed varied at
+different periods. It rarely exceeded six thousand men; Gibbon estimates
+the number at six thousand eight hundred and twenty-six men. For many
+centuries it was composed exclusively of Roman citizens. Up to the year
+B.C. 107, no one was permitted to serve among the regular troops except
+those who were regarded as possessing a strong personal interest in the
+stability of the republic. Marius admitted all orders of citizens; and
+after the close of the Social War, B.C. 87, the whole free population of
+Italy was allowed to serve in the regular army. Claudius incorporated
+with the legion the vanquished Goths, and after him the barbarians
+filled up the ranks on account of the degeneracy of the times. But
+during the period when the Romans were conquering the world every
+citizen was trained to arms, like the Germans of the present day, and
+was liable to be called upon to serve in the armies. In the early age of
+the republic the legion was disbanded as soon as the special service was
+performed, and was in all essential respects a militia. For three
+centuries we have no record of a Roman army wintering in the field; but
+when Southern Italy became the seat of war, and especially when Rome was
+menaced by foreign enemies, and still more when a protracted foreign
+service became inevitable, the same soldiers remained in activity for
+several years. Gradually the distinction between the soldier and the
+civilian was entirely obliterated. The distant wars of the
+republic--such as the prolonged operations of Caesar in Gaul, and the
+civil contests--made a standing army a necessity. During the civil wars
+between Caesar and Pompey the legions were forty in number; under
+Augustus, but twenty-five. Alexander Severus increased them to
+thirty-two. This was the standing force of the empire,--from one hundred
+and fifty thousand to two hundred and forty thousand men, stationed in
+the various provinces.
+
+The main dependence of the legion was on the infantry, which wore heavy
+armor consisting of helmet, breastplate, greaves on the right leg, and
+on the left arm a buckler, four feet in length and two and a half in
+width. The helmet was originally made of leather or untanned skin,
+strengthened and adorned by bronze or gold, and surmounted by a crest
+which was often of horse-hair, and so made as to give an imposing look.
+The crests served not only for ornament, but to distinguish the
+different centurions. The breastplate, or cuirass, was generally made of
+metal, and sometimes was highly ornamented. Chain-mail was also used.
+The greaves were of bronze or brass, with a lining of leather or felt,
+and reached above the knees. The shield worn by the heavy-armed infantry
+was not round, like that of the early Greeks, but oval or oblong,
+adapted to the shape of the body, such as was adopted by Philip and
+Alexander, and was made of wood or wicker-work. The weapons were a light
+spear, a pilum, or javelin, over six feet long, terminated by a steel
+point, and a short cut-and-thrust sword with a double edge. Besides the
+armor and weapons of the legionary, he usually carried on the marches
+provisions for two weeks, three or four stakes used in forming the
+palisade of the camp, besides various tools,--altogether a burden of
+sixty or eighty pounds per man. The legion was drawn up eight deep, and
+three feet intervened between rank and file, which disposition gave
+great activity, and made it superior to the Macedonian phalanx, the
+strength of which depended on sixteen ranks of long pikes wedged
+together. The general period of service for the infantry was twenty
+years, after which the soldier received a discharge, together with a
+bounty in money or land.
+
+The cavalry attached to each legion consisted of three hundred men, who
+originally were selected from the leading men in the State. They were
+mounted at the expense of the State, and formed a distinct order. The
+cavalry was divided into ten squadrons. To each legion was attached also
+a train of ten military engines of the largest size, and fifty-five of
+the smaller,--all of which discharged stones and darts with great
+effect. This train corresponded with our artillery.
+
+The Roman legion--whether it was composed of four thousand men, as in
+the early ages of the republic, or six thousand, as in the time of
+Augustus--was divided into ten cohorts, and each cohort was composed of
+Hastati (raw troops), Principes (trained troops), Triarii (veterans),
+and Velites (light troops, or skirmishers). The soldiers of the first
+line, called Hastati, consisted of youths in the bloom of manhood, who
+were distributed into fifteen companies, or maniples. Each company
+contained sixty privates, two centurions, and a standard-bearer. Two
+thirds were heavily armed, and bore the long shield; the remainder
+carried only a spear and light javelins. The second line, the Principes,
+was composed of men in the full vigor of life, divided also into fifteen
+companies, all heavily armed, and distinguished by the splendor of their
+equipments. The third body, the Triarii, was composed of tried veterans,
+in fifteen companies, the least trustworthy of which were placed in the
+rear; these formed three lines. The Velites were light-armed troops,
+employed on out-post duty, and mingled with the horsemen. The Hastati
+were so called because they were armed with the _hasta_, or spear; the
+Principes for being placed so near to the front; the Triarii, from
+having been arrayed behind the first two lines as a body of reserve. The
+Triarii were armed with the pilum, thicker and stronger than the Grecian
+lance, four and a half feet long, of wood, with a barbed head of
+iron,--so that the whole length of the weapon was six feet nine inches.
+It was used either to throw or thrust with, and when it pierced the
+enemy's shield the iron head was bent, and the spear, owing to the twist
+in the iron, still held to the shield. Each soldier carried two of these
+weapons, and threw the heavy pilum over the heads of their comrades in
+front, in order to break the enemy's line. In the time of the empire,
+when the legion was modified, the infantry wore cuirasses and helmets,
+and carried a sword and dagger. The select infantry were armed with a
+long spear and a shield; the rest, with a pilum. Each man carried a saw,
+a basket, a mattock, a hatchet, a leather strap, a hook, a chain, and
+provisions for three days. The Equites (cavalry) wore helmets and
+cuirasses, like the infantry, having a broadsword at the right side, and
+in the hand a long pole. A buckler swung at the horse's flank. They were
+also furnished with a quiver containing three or four javelins.
+
+The artillery were used both for hurling missiles in battle, and for the
+attack on fortresses. The _tormentum_, which was an elastic instrument,
+discharged stones and darts, and was held in general use until the
+discovery of gunpowder. In besieging a city, the ram was employed for
+destroying the lower part of a wall, and the _balista,_ which discharged
+stones, was used to overthrow the battlements. The balista would project
+a stone weighing from fifty to three hundred pounds. The _aries_, or
+battering-ram, consisted of a large beam made of the trunk of a tree,
+frequently one hundred feet in length, to one end of which was fastened
+a mace of iron or bronze resembling in form the head of a ram; it was
+often suspended by ropes from a beam fixed transversely over it, so that
+the soldiers were relieved from supporting its weight, and were able to
+give it a rapid and forcible swinging motion backward and forward. When
+this machine was further perfected by rigging it upon wheels, and
+constructing over it a roof, so as to form a _testudo_, which protected
+the besieging party from the assaults of the besieged, there was no
+tower so strong, no wall so thick, as to resist a long-continued attack,
+the great length of the beam enabling the soldiers to work across the
+defensive ditch, and as many as one hundred men being often employed
+upon it. The Romans learned from the Greeks the art of building this
+formidable engine, which was used with great effect by Alexander, but
+with still greater by Titus in the siege of Jerusalem; it was first used
+by the Romans in the siege of Syracuse. The _vinea_ was a sort of roof
+under which the soldiers protected themselves when they undermined
+walls. The _helepolis_, also used in the attack on cities, was a square
+tower furnished with all the means of assault. This also was a Greek
+invention; and the one used by Demetrius at the siege of Rhodes, B. C.
+306, was one hundred and thirty-five feet high and sixty-eight wide,
+divided into nine stories. The _turris_, a tower of the same class, was
+used both by Greeks and Romans, and even by Asiatics. Mithridates used
+one at the siege of Cyzicus one hundred and fifty feet in height. These
+most formidable engines were generally made of beams of wood covered on
+three sides with iron and sometimes with rawhides. They were higher than
+the walls and all the other fortifications of a besieged place, and
+divided into stories pierced with windows; in and upon them were
+stationed archers and slingers, and in the lower story was a
+battering-ram. The soldiers in the turris were also provided with
+scaling-ladders, sometimes on wheels; so that when the top of the wall
+was cleared by means of the turris, it might be scaled by means of the
+ladders. It was impossible to resist these powerful engines except by
+burning them, or by undermining the ground upon which they stood, or by
+overturning them with stones or iron-shod beams hung from a mast on the
+wall, or by increasing the height of the wall, or by erecting temporary
+towers on the wall beside them.
+
+Thus there was no ancient fortification capable of withstanding a long
+siege when the besieged city was short of defenders or provisions. With
+forces equal between the combatants an attack was generally a failure,
+for the defenders had always a great advantage; but when the number of
+defenders was reduced, or when famine pressed, the skill and courage of
+the assailants would ultimately triumph. Some ancient cities made a most
+obstinate resistance, like Tarentum; like Carthage, which stood a siege
+of four years; like Numantia in Spain, and like Jerusalem. When cities
+were of immense size, population, and resources, like Rome when besieged
+by Alaric, it was easier to take them by cutting off all ingress and
+egress, so as to produce famine. Tyre was taken by Alexander only by
+cutting off the harbor. Cyrus could not have taken Babylon by assault,
+since the walls were of such enormous height, and the ditch was too wide
+for the use of battering-rams; he resorted to an expedient of which the
+blinded inhabitants of that doomed city never dreamed, which rendered
+their impregnable fortifications useless. Nor probably would the Romans
+have prevailed against Jerusalem had not famine decimated and weakened
+its defenders. Fortified cities, though scarcely ever impregnable, were
+yet more in use in ancient than modern times, and greatly delayed the
+operations of advancing armies; and it was probably the fortified camp
+of the Romans, which protected an army against surprises and other
+misfortunes, that gave such permanent efficacy to the legions.
+
+The chief officers of the legion were the Tribunes; and originally
+there was one in each legion from the three tribes,--the Ramnes,
+Luceres, and Tities. In the time of Polybius the number in each legion
+was six. Their authority extended equally over the whole legion; but to
+prevent confusion, it was the custom for them to divide into three
+sections of two, and each pair undertook the routine duties for two
+months out of six; they nominated the centurions, and assigned each to
+the company to which he belonged. These tribunes at first were chosen
+the commanders-in-chief, by the kings and consuls; but during the palmy
+days of the republic, when the patrician power was pre-eminent, they
+were elected by the people, that is, the citizens. Later they were
+named, half by the Senate and half by the consuls. No one was eligible
+to this great office who had not served ten years in the infantry or
+five in the cavalry. The tribunes were distinguished by their dress from
+the common soldier. Next in rank to the tribunes, who corresponded to
+the rank of brigadiers and colonels in our times, were the Centurions,
+of whom there were sixty in each legion,--men who were more remarkable
+for calmness and sagacity than for courage and daring valor; men who
+would keep their posts at all hazards. It was their duty to drill the
+soldiers, to inspect arms, clothing, and food, to visit the sentinels
+and regulate the conduct of the men. They had the power of inflicting
+corporal punishment. They were chosen for merit solely, until the later
+ages of the empire, when their posts were bought, as is the case to some
+extent to-day in the English army. The centurions were of unequal
+rank,--those of the Triarii before those of the Principes, and those of
+the Principes before those of the Hastati. The first centurion of the
+first maniple of the Triarii stood next in rank to the tribunes, and had
+a seat in the military councils. His office was very lucrative. To his
+charge was intrusted the eagle of the legion. As the centurion might
+rise from the ranks by regular gradation through the different maniples
+of the Hastati, Principes, and Triarii, there was great inducement held
+out to the soldiers. It would, however, appear that the centurion
+received only twice the pay of the ordinary legionary. There was not
+therefore so much difference in rank between a private and a captain as
+there is in our day. There were no aristocratic distinctions in the
+ancient world so marked as those existing in the modern. In the Roman
+legion there was nevertheless a regular gradation of rank, although
+there were but few distinct offices. The gradation was determined not by
+length of service, but for merit alone, of which the tribunes were the
+sole judges; hence the tribune in a Roman legion had more power than
+that of a modern colonel. As the tribunes named the centurions, so the
+centurions appointed their lieutenants, who were called sub-centurions.
+Still below these were two sub-officers, or sergeants, and the
+_decanus_, or corporal, to every ten men.
+
+There was a change in the constitution and disposition of the legion
+after the time of Marius, until the fall of the republic. The legions
+were thrown open to men of all grades; they were all armed and equipped
+alike; the lines were reduced to two, with a space between every two
+cohorts, of which there were five in each line; the young soldiers were
+placed in the rear; the distinction between Hastati, Principes, and
+Triarii ceased; the Velites disappeared, their work being done by the
+foreign mercenaries; the cavalry ceased to be part of the legion, and
+became a distinct body; and the military was completely severed from the
+rest of the State. Formerly no one could aspire to office who had not
+completed ten years of military service, but in the time of Cicero a man
+could pass through all the great dignities of the State with a very
+limited experience of military life. Cicero himself did military service
+in but one campaign.
+
+Under the emperors there were still other changes. The regular army
+consisted of legions and supplementa,--the latter being subdivided into
+the imperial guards and the auxiliary troops.
+
+The Auxiliaries (_Socii_) consisted of troops from the States in
+alliance with Rome, or those compelled to furnish subsidies. The
+infantry of the allies was generally more numerous than that of the
+Romans, while the cavalry was three times as numerous. All the
+auxiliaries were paid by the State; their infantry received the same pay
+as the Roman infantry, but their cavalry received only two thirds of
+what was paid to the Roman cavalry. The common foot-soldier received in
+the time of Polybius three and a half asses a day, equal to about three
+cents; the horseman three times as much. The praetorian cohorts received
+twice as much as the legionaries. Julius Caesar allowed about six asses
+a day as the pay of the legionary, and under Augustus the daily pay was
+raised to ten asses,--little more than eight cents per day. Domitian
+raised the stipend still higher. The soldier, however, was fed and
+clothed by the government.
+
+The Praetorian Cohort was a select body of troops instituted by Augustus
+to protect his person, and consisted of ten cohorts, each of one
+thousand men, chosen from Italy. This number was increased by Vitellius
+to sixteen thousand, and they were assembled by Tiberius in a permanent
+camp, which was strongly fortified. They had peculiar privileges, and
+when they had served sixteen years received twenty thousand sesterces,
+or more than one hundred pounds sterling. Each praetorian had the rank
+of a centurion in the regular army. Like the body-guard of Louis XIV.
+they were all gentlemen, and formed gradually a great power, like the
+Janissaries at Constantinople, and frequently disposed of the
+purple itself.
+
+Our notice of the Roman legion would be incomplete without some
+description of the camp in which the soldier virtually lived. A Roman
+army never halted for a single night without forming a regular
+intrenchment capable of holding all the fighting men, the beasts of
+burden, and the baggage. During the winter months, when the army could
+not retire into some city, it was compelled to live in the camp, which
+was arranged and fortified according to a uniform plan, so that every
+company and individual had a place assigned. We cannot tell when this
+practice of intrenchment began; it was matured gradually, like all other
+things pertaining to all arts. The system was probably brought to
+perfection during the wars with Hannibal. Skill in the choice of ground,
+giving facilities for attack and defence, and for procuring water and
+other necessities, was of great account with the generals. An area of
+about five thousand square feet was allowed for a company of infantry,
+and ten thousand feet for a troop of thirty dragoons. The form of a camp
+was an exact square, the length of each side being two thousand and
+seventeen feet; there was a space of two hundred feet between the
+ramparts and the tents to facilitate the marching in and out of
+soldiers, and to guard the cattle and booty; the principal street was
+one hundred feet wide, and was called Principia. The defences of the
+camp consisted of a ditch, the earth from which was thrown inward, and
+of strong palisades of wooden stakes driven into the top of the
+earthwork so formed; the ditch was sometimes fifteen feet deep, and the
+_vallum_, or rampart, ten feet in height. When the army encamped for the
+first time the tribunes administered an oath to each individual,
+including slaves, to the effect that they would steal nothing out of the
+camp. Every morning at daybreak the centurions and the equites presented
+themselves before the tents of the tribunes, and the tribunes in like
+manner presented themselves before the praetorian, to learn the orders
+of the consuls, which through the centurions were communicated to the
+soldiers. Four companies took charge of the principal street, to see
+that it was properly cleaned and watered; one company took charge of the
+tent of the tribune; a strong guard attended to the horses, and another
+of fifty men stood beside the tent of the general, that he might be
+protected from open danger and secret treachery. The _velites_ mounted
+guard the whole night and day along the whole extent of the vallum, and
+each gate was guarded by ten men; the _equites_ were intrusted with the
+duty of acting as sentinels during the night, and most ingenious
+measures were adopted to secure their watchfulness and fidelity. The
+watchword for the night was given by the commander-in-chief. "On the
+first signal being given by the trumpet, the tents were all struck and
+the baggage packed; at the second signal, the baggage was placed upon
+the beasts of burden; and at the third, the whole army began to move.
+Then the herald, standing at the right hand of the general, demands
+thrice if they are ready for war, to which they all respond with loud
+and repeated cheers that they are ready, and for the most part, being
+filled with martial ardor, anticipate the question, 'and raise their
+right hands on high with a shout.'" [3]
+
+[Footnote 3: Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, article "Castra."]
+
+From what has come down to us of Roman military life, it appears to have
+been full of excitement, toil, danger, and hardship. The pecuniary
+rewards of the soldier were small; he was paid in glory. No profession
+brought so much honor as the military; and it was from the undivided
+attention of a great people to this profession, that it was carried to
+all the perfection which could be attained before the great invention of
+gunpowder changed the art of war. It was not the number of men employed
+in the Roman armies which particularly arrests attention, but the genius
+of organization which controlled and the spirit which animated them.
+The Romans loved war, but so reduced it to a science that it required
+comparatively small armies to conquer the world. Sulla defeated
+Mithridates with only thirty thousand men, while his adversary
+marshalled against him over one hundred thousand. Caesar had only ten
+legions to effect the conquest of Gaul, and none of these were of
+Italian origin. At the great decisive battle of Pharsalia, when most of
+the available forces of the empire were employed on one side or the
+other, Pompey commanded a legionary army of forty-five thousand men, and
+his cavalry amounted to seven thousand more, but among them were
+included the flower of the Roman nobility; the auxiliary force has not
+been computed, although it was probably numerous. In the same battle
+Caesar had under him only twenty-two thousand legionaries and one
+thousand cavalry. But every man in both armies was prepared to conquer
+or die. The forces were posted on the open plain, and the battle was
+really a hand-to-hand encounter, in which the soldiers, after hurling
+their lances, fought with their swords chiefly; and when the cavalry of
+Pompey rushed upon the legionaries of Caesar, no blows were wasted on
+the mailed panoply of the mounted Romans, but were aimed at the face
+alone, as that only was unprotected. The battle was decided by the
+coolness, bravery, and discipline of Caesar's veterans, inspired by the
+genius of the greatest general of antiquity. Less than one hundred
+thousand men, in all probability, were engaged in one of the most
+memorable conflicts which the world has seen.
+
+Thus it was by blended art and heroism that the Roman legions prevailed
+over the armies of the ancient world. But this military power was not
+gained in a say; it took nearly two hundred years, after the expulsion
+of the kings, to regain supremacy over the neighboring people, and
+another century to conquer Italy. The Romans did not contend with
+regular armies until they were brought in conflict with the king of
+Epirus and the phalanx of the Greeks, "which improved their military
+tactics, and introduced between the combatants those mutual regards of
+civilized nations which teach men to honor their adversaries, to spare
+the vanquished, and to lay aside wrath when the struggle is ended."
+
+After the consolidation of Roman power in Italy, it took but one hundred
+and fifty years more to complete the conquest of the world,--of Northern
+Africa, Spain, Gaul, Illyria, Epirus, Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor,
+Pontus, Syria, Egypt, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pergamus, and the islands of
+the Mediterranean. The conquest of Carthage left Rome without a rival in
+the Mediterranean, and promoted intercourse with the Greeks. The
+Illyrian wars opened to the Romans the road to Greece and Asia, and
+destroyed the pirates of the Adriatic. The invasion of Cisalpine Gaul,
+now that part of Italy which is north of the Apennines, protected Italy
+from the invasion of barbarians. The Macedonian War against Philip put
+Greece under the protection of Rome, and that against Antiochus laid
+Syria at her mercy; when these kingdoms were reduced to provinces, the
+way was opened to further conquests in the East, and the Mediterranean
+became a Roman lake.
+
+But these conquests introduced luxury, wealth, pride, and avarice, which
+degrade while they elevate. Successful war created great generals, and
+founded great families; increased slavery, and promoted inequalities.
+Meanwhile the great generals struggled for supremacy; civil wars
+followed in the train of foreign conquests; Marius, Sulla, Pompey,
+Caesar, Antony, Augustus, sacrificed the State to their own ambitions.
+Good men lamented and protested, and hid themselves; Cato, Cicero,
+Brutus, spoke in vain. Degenerate morals kept pace with civil contests.
+Rome revelled in the spoils of all kingdoms and countries, was
+intoxicated with power, became cruel and tyrannical, and after
+sacrificing the lives of citizens to fortunate generals, yielded at last
+her liberties, and imperial despotism began its reign. War had added
+empire, but undermined prosperity; it had created a great military
+monarchy, but destroyed liberty; it had brought wealth, but introduced
+inequalities; it had filled the city with spoils, but sown the vices of
+self-interest. The machinery remained perfect, but life had fled. It
+henceforth became the labor of Emperors to keep together their vast
+possessions with this machinery, which at last wore out, since there was
+neither genius to repair it nor patriotism to work it. It lasted three
+hundred years, but was broken to pieces by the barbarians.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Wilkinson is the best authority pertaining to Egyptian armies. The
+highest authority in relation to the construction of an army is
+Polybius, contemporary with Scipio, when Roman discipline was most
+perfect. The eighth chapter of Livy is also very much prized. Salmasius
+and Lepsius wrote learned treatises. Tacitus, Sallust, Livy, Dion
+Cassius, Pliny, and Caesar reveal incidentally much that we wish to
+know, the last giving us the liveliest idea of the military habits and
+tactics of the Romans. Gibbon gives some important facts. The subject of
+ancient machines is treated by Folard's Commentary attached to his
+translation of Polybius. Josephus describes with great vividness the
+siege of Jerusalem. Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities is full of details
+in everything pertaining to the weapons, the armor, the military
+engines, the rewards and punishments of the soldiers. The articles
+"Exercitus," in Smith's Dictionary, and "Army," in the Encyclopedia
+Britannica, give a practical summary of the best writers.
+
+
+
+
+CICERO.
+
+
+106-43 B.C.
+
+ROMAN LITERATURE.
+
+
+Marcus Tullius Cicero is one of the great lights of history, because his
+genius and influence were directed to the conservation of what was most
+precious in civilization among the cultivated nations of antiquity.
+
+He was not a warrior, like so many of the Roman Senators, but his
+excellence was higher than that of a conqueror. "He was doomed, by his
+literary genius, to an immortality," and was confessedly the most
+prominent figure in the political history of his time, next to Caesar
+and Pompey. His influence was greater than his power, reaching down to
+our time; and if his character had faults, let us remember that he was
+stained by no crimes and vices, in an age of violence and wickedness.
+Until lately he has received almost unmixed praise. The Fathers of the
+Church revered him. To Erasmus, as well as to Jerome and Augustine, he
+was an oracle.
+
+In presenting this immortal benefactor, I have no novelties to show.
+Novelties are for those who seek to upturn the verdicts of past ages by
+offering something new, rather than what is true.
+
+Cicero was born B.C. 106, in the little suburban town of Arpinum, about
+fifty miles from Rome,--the town which produced Marius. The period of
+his birth was one of marked national prosperity. Great military roads
+were built, which were a marvel of engineering skill; canals were dug;
+sails whitened the sea; commerce was prosperous; the arts of Greece were
+introduced, and its literature also; elegant villas lined the shores of
+the Mediterranean; pictures and statues were indefinitely
+multiplied,--everything indicated an increase of wealth and culture.
+With these triumphs of art and science and literature, we are compelled
+to notice likewise a decline in morals. Money had become the god which
+everybody worshipped. Religious life faded away; there was a general
+eclipse of faith. An Epicurean life produced an Epicurean philosophy.
+Pleasure-seeking was universal, and even revolting in the sports of the
+Amphitheatre. Sensualism became the convertible word for utilities. The
+Romans were thus rapidly "advancing" to a materialistic millennium,--an
+outward progress of wealth and industries, but an inward decline in
+"those virtues on which the strength of man is based," accompanied with
+seditions among the people, luxury and pride among the nobles, and
+usurpations on the part of successful generals,--when Cicero began his
+memorable career.
+
+He was well-born, but not of noble ancestors. The great peculiarity of
+his youth was his precocity. He was an intellectual prodigy,--like Pitt,
+Macaulay, and Mill. Like them, he had a wonderful memory. He early
+mastered the Greek language; he wrote poetry, studied under eminent
+professors, frequented the Forum, listened to the speeches of different
+orators, watched the posture and gestures of actors, and plunged into
+the mazes of literature and philosophy. He was conscious of his
+marvellous gifts, and was, of course, ambitious of distinction.
+
+There were only three ways at Rome in which a man could rise to eminence
+and power. One was by making money, like army contractors and merchants,
+such as the Equites, to whose ranks he belonged; the second was by
+military service; and the third by the law,--an honorable profession.
+Like Caesar, a few years younger than he, Cicero selected the law. But
+he was a _new man_,--not a patrician, as Caesar was,--and had few
+powerful friends. Hence his progress was not rapid in the way of
+clients. He was twenty-five years of age before he had a case. He was
+twenty-seven when he defended Roscius, which seems to have brought him
+into notice,--even as the fortune of Erskine was made in the Greenwich
+Hospital case and that of Daniel Webster in the case of Dartmouth
+College. To have defended Roscius against all the influence of Sulla,
+then the most powerful man in Rome, was considered bold and audacious.
+His fame for great logical power rests on his defence of Milo,--the
+admiration of all lawyers.
+
+Cicero was not naturally robust. His figure was tall and spare, his neck
+long and slender, and his mouth anything but sensual. He looked more
+like an elegant scholar than a popular public speaker. Yet he was
+impetuous, ardent, and fiery, like Demosthenes, resorting to violent
+gesticulations. The health of such a young man could not stand the
+strain on his nervous system, and he was obliged to leave Rome for
+recreation; he therefore made the tour of Greece and Asia Minor, which
+every fashionable and cultivated man was supposed to do. Yet he did not
+abandon himself to the pleasures of cities more fascinating than Rome
+itself, but pursued his studies in rhetoric and philosophy under eminent
+masters, or "professors" as we should now call them. He remained abroad
+two years, returning when he was thirty years of age and settling down
+in his profession, taking at first but little part in politics. He
+married Terentia, with whom he lived happily for thirty years.
+
+But the Roman lawyer was essentially a politician, looking ultimately to
+political office, since only through the great public offices could he
+enter the Senate,--the object of ambition to all distinguished Romans,
+as a seat in Parliament is the goal of an Englishman. The Roman lawyer
+did not receive fees, like modern lawyers, but derived his support from
+presents and legacies. When he became a political leader, a man of
+influence with the great, his presents were enormous. Cicero
+acknowledged, late in life, to have received what would now be equal to
+more than a million of dollars from legacies alone. The great political
+leaders and orators were the stipendiaries of Eastern princes and nobles
+who wanted favors from the Senate, and who knew as well how to reward
+such services as do the railway kings in our times.
+
+Before Cicero, then, could be a Senator, he must pass through those
+great public offices which were in the gift of the people. The first
+step on the ladder of advancement was the office of quaestor, which
+entailed the duty of collecting revenues in one of the provinces. This
+office he was sufficiently influential to secure, being sent to Sicily,
+where he distinguished himself for his activity and integrity. At the
+end of a year he renewed his practice in the courts at Rome,--being
+hardly anything more than a mere lawyer for five years, when he was
+elected an Aedile, to whom the care of the public buildings was
+intrusted.
+
+It was while he was aedile-elect that Cicero appeared as the public
+prosecutor of Verres. This was one of the great cases of antiquity, and
+the one from which the orator's public career fairly dates. His
+residence in Sicily had prepared him for this duty; and he secured the
+conviction of this great criminal, whose peculations and corruptions
+would amaze our modern New Yorkers and all the "rings" of our great
+cities combined. But the Praetor of Sicily was a provincial
+governor,--more like Warren Hastings than Tweed. For this public service
+Cicero gained more _eclat_ than Burke did for his prosecution of
+Hastings; since Hastings, though a corrupt man, laid, after Clive, the
+foundation of the English empire in India, and was a man of immense
+talents,--greater than those of any who has since filled his place.
+Hence the nation screened Hastings. But Verres had no virtues and no
+great abilities; he was an outrageous public robber, and hoped, from his
+wealth and powerful connections, to purchase immunity for his crimes. In
+the hands of such an orator as Cicero he could not escape the penalty of
+the law, powerful as he was, even at Rome. This case placed Cicero above
+Hortensius, hitherto the leader of the Roman bar.
+
+It was at this period that the extant correspondence of Cicero began,
+which is the best picture we have of the manners and habits of the Roman
+aristocracy at the time. History could scarcely spare those famous
+letters, especially to Atticus, in which also the private life and
+character of Cicero shine to the most advantage, revealing no vices, no
+treacheries,--only egotism, vanity, and vacillation, and a way that some
+have of speaking about people in private very differently from what they
+say in public, which looks like insincerity. In these letters Cicero
+appears as a very frank man, genial, hospitable, domestic, witty, whose
+society and conversation must have been delightful. In no modern
+correspondence do we see a higher perfection in the polished courtesies
+and urbanities of social life, with the alloy of vanity, irony, and
+discontent. But in these letters he also evinces a friendship which is
+immortal; and what is nobler than the capacity of friendship? In these
+he not only shines as a cultivated scholar, but as a great statesman and
+patriot, living for the good of his country, though not unmindful of the
+luxuries of home and the charms of country retirement, and those
+enjoyments which are ever associated with refined and favored life. We
+read here of pictures, books, medals, statues, curiosities of every
+kind, all of which adorned his various villas, as well as his
+magnificent palace on Mount Palatine, which cost him what would be equal
+in our money to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. To keep up this
+town house, and some fifteen villas in different parts of Italy, and to
+feast the greatest nobles, like Pompey and Caesar, would imply that his
+income was enormous, much greater than that of any modern professional
+man. And yet he seems to have lived, like Bacon and our Webster, beyond
+his income, and was in debt the greater part of his life,--another flaw
+in his character; for I do not wish to paint him without faults, but
+only as a good as well as a great man, for his times. His private
+character was as lofty as that of Chatham or Canning,--if we could
+forget his vanity, which after all is not so offensive as the
+intellectual pride of Burke and Pitt, and of sundry other great lights
+who might be mentioned, conscious of their gifts and attainments. There
+is something very different in the egotism of a silly and self-seeking
+aristocrat from that of a great benefactor who has something to be proud
+of, and with whose private experiences the greatest national deeds are
+connected. I speak of this fault because it has been handled too
+severely by modern critics. What were the faults of Cicero, compared
+with those of Theodosius or Constantine, to say nothing of his
+contemporaries, like Caesar, before whom so much incense has
+been burned?
+
+At the age of forty Cicero became Praetor, or Supreme Judge. This
+office, when it expired, entitled him to a provincial government,--the
+great ultimate ambition of a senator; since the administration of a
+province, even for a single year, usually secured an enormous fortune.
+But this tempting offer he resigned, since he felt he could not be
+spared from Rome in such a crisis of public affairs, when the fortunate
+generals were grasping power and the demagogues were almost preparing
+the way for despotism. Some might say he was a far-sighted and ambitious
+statesman, who could not afford to weaken his chances of being made
+Consul by absence from the capital.
+
+This great office, the consulship, the highest in the gift of the
+people,--which gave supreme executive control,--was rarely conferred,
+although elective, upon any but senators of ancient family and enormous
+wealth. It was as difficult for a "new man" to reach this dignity, under
+an aristocratic Constitution, as for a commoner a hundred years ago to
+become prime minister of England. Transcendent talents and services
+scarcely sufficed. Only generals who had won great military fame, or the
+highest of the nobles, stood much chance. For a lawyer to aim at the
+highest office in the State, without a great family to back him, would
+have been deemed as audacious as for such a man as Burke to aspire to a
+seat in the cabinet during the reign of George III. A lawyer at Rome,
+like a lawyer in London, might become a lord chancellor or praetor, but
+not easily a prime minister: he would be defeated by aristocratic
+influence and jealousies. Although the people had the right of election,
+they voted at the dictation of those who had money and power. Yet Cicero
+obtained the consulship, probably with the aid of senators, which he
+justly regarded as a great triumph. It was a very unusual thing. It was
+more marvellous than for a Jew to reign in Great Britain, or, like
+Mordecai, in the court of a Persian king.
+
+The most distinguished service of Cicero as consul was to ferret out the
+conspiracy of Catiline. Now, this traitor belonged to the very highest
+rank in a Senate of nobles; he was like an ancient duke in the British
+House of Peers. It was no easy thing for a plebeian consul to bring to
+justice so great a culprit. He was more formidable than Essex in the
+reign of Elizabeth, or Bassompierre in the time of Richelieu. He was a
+man of profligate life, but of marked ability and boundless ambition. He
+had a band of numerous and faithful followers, armed and desperate. He
+was also one of those oily and aristocratic demagogues who bewitch the
+people,--not, as in our times, by sophistries, but by flatteries. He was
+as debauched as Mirabeau, but without his patriotism, though like him he
+aimed to overturn the Constitution by allying himself with the
+democracy. The people, whom he despised, he gained by his money and
+promises; and he had powerful confederates of his own rank, so that he
+was on the point of deluging Rome with blood, his aim being nothing less
+than the extermination of the Senate and the magistrates by
+assassination, and a general division of the public treasure, with
+personal assumption of public power.
+
+But all his schemes were foiled by Cicero, who added unwearied activity
+to extraordinary penetration. For this great and signal service Cicero
+received the highest tribute the State could render. He was called the
+savior of his country; and he succeeded in staving off for a time the
+fall of his country's liberties. It was a mournful sight to him to see
+the ascendency which demagogues had already gained, since it betokened
+the approaching destruction of the Constitution, which, good or bad, was
+dear to him, and which as an aristocrat he sought to conserve.
+
+Cicero's evil star was not Catiline, but Clodius,--another aristocratic
+demagogue whose crimes he exposed, although he failed to bring him to
+justice. Clodius was shielded by his powerful connections; and he was,
+besides, a popular favorite, as well as a petted scion of one of the
+greatest families. Clodius showed his hostility to Cicero, and sought
+revenge by artfully causing the people to pass or revive a law that
+whoever had inflicted capital punishment on a citizen without a trial
+should be banished. This seemed to the people to be a protection to
+their liberties. Now Cicero, when consul, had executed some of the
+conspirators associated with Catiline, for which he was called the
+savior of his country. But by the law which was now passed or revived by
+the influence of Clodius, Cicero was himself a culprit, and it would
+seem that all the influence of the Senate and his friends could not
+prevent his exile. He appealed to his friend Pompey, but Pompey turned a
+deaf ear; and also to Caesar, but Caesar was then outside the walls of
+the city in command of an army. In fact, both these generals wished him
+out of the way, although they equally admired and feared him; for each
+of them was bent on being the supreme ruler of Rome.
+
+So it was permitted for the most illustrious patriot which Rome then
+held to go into exile. What a comment on the demoralization of the
+times! Here was the best, the most gifted, and the most accomplished man
+of the Republic,--a man who had rendered invaluable and acknowledged
+services, that man of consular dignity and one of the leaders of the
+Senate,--sent into inglorious banishment, on a mere technicality and for
+an act which saved the State. And the "magnanimous" Caesar and the
+"illustrious" Pompey allowed him to go! Where was salvation to a
+Republic which banished its savior, and for having saved it? The heart
+sickens over such a fact, although it occurred two thousand years ago.
+When the citizens of Rome saw that great man depart mournfully from
+among them, and to all appearance forever, for having rescued them from
+violence and slaughter, and by their own act,--they ought to have known
+that the days of the Republic were numbered. But this only a few
+far-seeing patriots felt. And not only was Cicero banished, but his
+palace was burned and his villas confiscated. He was not only disgraced,
+but ruined; he was an exile and a pauper. What a fall! What an unmerited
+treatment!
+
+Very few people conceive what a dreadful punishment it was in Greece and
+Rome to be banished; or, as the formula went, "to be interdicted from
+fire and water,"--the sacred fire of the hearth, the lustral water which
+served for sacrifices. The exile was deprived of these by being forced
+to extinguish the hearth-fire,--the elemental, fundamental religion of a
+Greek and Roman. "He could not, deprived of this, hold property; having
+no longer a worship, he had no longer a family. He ceased to be a
+husband and father; his sons were no longer in his power, his wife was
+no longer his wife, and when he died he had not the right to be buried
+in the tombs of his ancestors." [4]
+
+[Footnote 4: Coulanges: Ancient City.]
+
+Is it to be wondered at that even so good and great a man as Cicero
+should bitterly feel his disgrace and misfortunes? Is it surprising
+that, philosopher as he was, he should have given way to grief and
+despondency. He would have been more than human not to have lost his
+spirits and his hopes. How natural were grief and despair, in such
+complicated miseries, especially to a religious man! Chrysostom could
+support _his_ exile with dignity; for Christianity had abolished the
+superstitions of Greece and Rome as to household gods. Cicero could not:
+he was not great enough for such a martyrdom. It is true we should have
+esteemed him higher, had he accepted his fate with resignation: no man
+should yield to despair. Had he been as old as Socrates, and had he
+accomplished his mission, possibly he would have shown more equanimity.
+But his work was not yet done. He was cut off in his prime and in the
+midst of usefulness from his home, his religion, his family, his honor,
+and his influence; he was utterly ruined. I think the critics make too
+much of the grief and misery of Cicero in his banishment. We may be
+disappointed that Cicero was not equal to his circumstances; but we need
+not be hard on him. My surprise is, not that he was overwhelmed with
+grief, but that he did not attempt to drown his grief in books and
+literature. His sole relief was in pathetic and unmanly letters.
+
+The great injustice of this punishment naturally produced a reaction.
+Nor could the Romans afford to lose the services of their greatest
+orator. They also craved the excitement of his speeches, more thrilling
+and delightful than the performance of any actor. So he was recalled.
+Cicero ought to have anticipated this; it seems, however, he had that
+unfortunate temperament which favors alternate depression and
+exhilaration of spirits, without measure or reason.
+
+His return was a triumph,--a grand ovation, an unbounded tribute to his
+vanity. His palace was rebuilt at the expense of the State, and his
+property was restored. His popularity was regained. In fact, his
+influence was never lost; and, because it was so great, his enemies
+wished him out of the way. He was one of the few who retain influence
+after they have lost power.
+
+The excess of his joy on his restoration to home and friends and
+property and fame and position, was as great as the excess of his grief
+in his short exile. But this is a defect in temperament, in his mental
+constitution, rather than a flaw in his character. We could have wished
+more placidity and equanimity; but to condemn him because he was not
+great in everything is unjust.
+
+On his return to Rome Cicero resumed his practice in the courts with
+greater devotion than ever. He was now past fifty years of age, in the
+prime of his strength and in the height of his forensic fame. But,
+notwithstanding his success and honors, his life was saddened by the
+growing dissensions between Caesar and Pompey, the decline of public
+spirit, and the approaching fall of the institutions in which he
+gloried. It was clear that one or the other of these fortunate generals
+would soon become the master of the Roman world, and that liberty was
+about to perish. His eloquence now became sad; he sings the death-song
+of departing glories; he wails his Jeremiads over the demoralization
+which was sweeping away not merely liberty, but religion, and
+extinguishing faith in the world. To console himself he retired to one
+of his beautiful villas and wrote that immortal essay, "De Oratore,"
+which has come down to us entire. His literary genius now blazed equally
+with his public speeches in the Forum and in the Senate. Literature was
+his solace and amusement, not a source of profit, or probably of
+contemporary fame. He wrote treatises on the same principles that he
+talked with friends, or that Fra Angelico painted pictures. He renewed
+his attempts in poetry, but failed. His poetry is in the transcendent
+rhythm of his prose compositions, like that of Madame de Stael, and
+Macaulay, and Rousseau.
+
+But he was dragged from his literary and forensic life to accept the
+office of a governor of a province. It was forced upon him,--an honor to
+him without a charm. Had he been venal and unscrupulous, he would have
+seized it with avidity. He was too conscientious to enrich himself by
+public corruption, as other Senators did, and unless he could accumulate
+a fortune the command of a distant province was an honorable exile. He
+was fifty-six years of age when he became Proconsul of Cilicia, an
+Eastern province; and all historians have united in praising his
+proconsulate for its justice, its integrity, and its ability. He
+committed no extortions, and returned home, when his term of office
+expired, as poor as when he went. One of the highest praises which can
+be given to a public man who has chances of enriching himself is, that
+he remains poor. When a member of Congress, known not to be worth ten
+thousand dollars, returns to his home worth one hundred thousand
+dollars, the public have an instinct that he has, somehow or other, been
+untrue to himself and his country. When a great man returns home from
+Washington poorer than when he went, his influence is apt to survive his
+power; and this perpetuated influence is the highest glory of a public
+man,--the glory of Jefferson, of Hamilton, of Washington, like the voice
+of Gladstone during his retirement. Now Cicero had pre-eminently this
+influence as long as he lived; and it was ever exerted for the good of
+his country. Had his country been free, he would have died in honor. But
+his country was enslaved, and his voice was drowned, and he had to pay
+the penalty of speaking the truth about those unscrupulous men who
+usurped authority.
+
+On his return to Rome the state of public affairs was most alarming.
+Caesar and Pompey were in antagonism. He must choose between them, and
+he distrusted both. Caesar was the more able, accomplished, and
+magnanimous, but he was the more unscrupulous and dangerous. He had
+ventured to cross the Rubicon,--the first general who ever dared thus
+openly to assail his country's liberties. Pompey was pompous, overrated,
+and proud, and had been fortunate in the East. But then he sided with
+the Constitutional authorities,--that is, with the Senate,--so far as
+his ambition allowed. So Cicero took his side feebly, reluctantly, as
+the least of the evils he had to choose, but not without vacillation,
+which is one of the popular charges against him. "His distraction almost
+took the form of insanity." "His inconsistency was an incoherence."
+Never did a more wretched man than Cicero resort to Pompey's camp, where
+he remained until his cause was lost. He returned, after the battle of
+Pharsalia, a suppliant at the feet of Caesar, the conqueror. This, to
+me, is one of his weakest acts. It would have been more lofty and heroic
+to have perished in the camp of Pompey's sons.
+
+In the midst of these public misfortunes which saddened his soul, his
+private miseries began. He was now prematurely an old man, under sixty
+years of age, almost broken down with grief. His beloved daughter
+Tullia, with whom his life was bound up, died; and he was divorced from
+his wife Terentia,--a proceeding the cause of which remains a mystery.
+Neither in his most confidential letters, nor in his conversations with
+most intimate friends, does it appear that he ever unbosomed himself,
+although he was the frankest and most social of men. In his impressive
+silence he has set one of the noblest examples of a man afflicted with
+domestic infelicities. He buries his conjugal troubles in eternal
+silence; although he is forced to give vent to sorrows, so plaintive and
+bitter that both friend and foe were constrained to pity. He expects no
+sympathy, even at Rome, for the sundering of conjugal relations, and he
+communicates no secrets. In his grief and sadness he does, however, a
+most foolish thing: he marries a young lady one-third his age. She
+accepted him for his name and rank; he sought her for her beauty, her
+youth, and her fortune. This union of May with December was of course a
+failure. Both parties were soon disenchanted and disappointed. Neither
+party found happiness, only discontent and chagrin. The everlasting
+incongruities of such a relation--he sixty and she nineteen--soon led to
+another divorce. _He_ expected his young wife to mourn with him the loss
+of his daughter Tullia. _She_ expected that her society and charms
+would be a compensation for all that he had lost; yea, more, enough to
+make him the most fortunate and happy of mortals. In truth, he was too
+old a man to have married a young woman whatever were the inducements.
+It was the great folly of his life; an illustration of the fact that, as
+a general thing, the older a man grows the greater fool he becomes, so
+far as women are concerned; a folly that disgraced and humiliated the
+two wisest and greatest men who ever sat on the Jewish throne.
+
+In his accumulated sorrows Cicero now plunged for relief into literary
+labors. It was thus that his private sorrows were the means which
+Providence employed to transmit his precious thoughts and experiences to
+future ages, as the most valued inheritance he could bestow on
+posterity. What a precious legacy to the mind of the world was the book
+of "Ecclesiastes," yet by what bitter experiences was its wisdom earned!
+
+It was in the short period when Caesar rejoiced in the mighty power
+which he transmitted to the Roman Emperors that Cicero wrote, in
+comparative retirement, his history of "Roman Eloquence," his inquiry as
+to the "Greatest Good and Evil," his "Cato," his "Orator," his "Nature
+of the Gods," and his treatises on "Glory," on "Fate," on "Friendship,"
+on "Old Age," and his grandest work of all, the "Offices."--the best
+manual in ethics which has come down to us from heathen antiquity. In
+his studious retirement he reminds us of Bacon after his fall, when on
+his estate, surrounded with friends, and in the enjoyment of elegant
+leisure, he penned the most valued of his immortal compositions. And in
+those degenerate days at Rome, when liberty was crushed under foot
+forever, it is beautiful to see the greatest of Roman statesmen and
+lawyers consoling himself and instructing posterity by his exhaustive
+treatises on the fundamental principles of law, of morality, and of
+philosophy.
+
+The assassination of Caesar by Roman senators, which Cicero seems to
+have foreseen, and in which he rejoiced, at this time shocked and
+disturbed the world. For nearly two thousand years the verdict of the
+civilized world respecting this great conqueror has been unanimous. But
+Mr. Froude has attempted to reverse this verdict, as he has in reference
+to Henry VIII., and as Carlyle--another idolater of force--has attempted
+in the cases of Oliver Cromwell and Frederick II. This remarkable
+word-painter, in his Life of Caesar,--which is, however, interesting
+from first to last, as everything he writes is interesting,--has
+presented him as an object of unbounded admiration, as I have already
+noticed in my lecture on Caesar. Whether in his eagerness to say
+something new, or from an ill-concealed hostility to aristocratic and
+religious institutions, or from an admiration of imperialism, or disdain
+of the people in their efforts at self-government, this able special
+pleader seems to hail the Roman conqueror as a benefactor to the cause
+of civilization. But imperialism crushed all alike,--the people, no
+longer able to send their best men to the Senate through the higher
+offices perchance to represent their interests, and the nobles, shorn of
+the administration of the Empire. Soldiers, not civilians, henceforth
+were to rule the world,--a dreary thought to a great lawyer like Cicero,
+or a landed proprietor like Brutus. Even if such a terrible revolution
+as occurred in Rome under Caesar may have been ordered wisely by a
+Superintending Power for those degenerate times, and as a preservation
+of the peace of the world, that Christianity might take root and spread
+in countries where all religions were dead,--still, the prostration of
+what was dearest to the hearts of all true citizens by the sword was a
+crime; and men are not to be commended for crime, even if those crimes
+may be palliated. "It must need be that offences come, but woe to those
+by whom they come."
+
+Cicero was now sixty-three, prematurely old, discouraged, and
+heart-broken. And yet he braced himself up for one more grand
+effort,--for a life and death struggle with Antony, one of the ablest
+of Caesar's generals; a demagogue, eloquent and popular, but
+outrageously cruel and unscrupulous, and with unbridled passions. Had it
+not been for his infatuated love of Cleopatra, he probably would have
+succeeded to the imperial sceptre, for it was by the sword that he too
+sought to suppress the liberties of the Senate and people. Against him,
+as the enemy of his country, Cicero did not scruple to launch forth the
+most terrible of his invectives. In thirteen immortal philippics--some
+of which, however, were merely written and never delivered, after the
+fashion of Demosthenes, with whom as an orator and a patriot he can
+alone be compared--he denounced the unprincipled demagogue and general
+with every offensive epithet the language afforded,--unveiling his
+designs, exposing his forgeries, and proving his crimes. Nobler
+eloquence was never uttered, and wasted, than that with which Cicero
+pursued, in passionate vengeance, the most powerful and the most
+unscrupulous man in the Roman Empire. And Cicero must have anticipated
+the fate which impended over him if Antony were not decreed a public
+enemy. But the protests of the orator were in vain. He lived to utter
+them, as a witness of truth; and nothing was left to him but to die.
+
+Of course Antony, when he became Triumvir,--when he made a bargain that
+he never meant to keep with Octavius and Lepidus for a division of the
+Empire between them,--would not spare such an enemy as Cicero. The
+broken-hearted patriot fled mechanically, with a vacillating mind, when
+his proscription became known to him,--now more ready to die than live,
+since all hope in his country's liberties was utterly crushed. Perhaps
+he might have escaped to some remote corner of the Empire. But he did
+not wish for life, any more than did Socrates when summoned before his
+judges. Desponding, uncertain, pursued, he met his fate with the heroism
+of an ancient philosopher. He surrendered his wearied and exhausted body
+to the hand of the executioner, and his lofty soul to the keeping of
+that personal and supreme God in whom he believed as firmly as any man,
+perhaps, of Pagan antiquity. And surely of him, more than of any other
+Roman, could it be said,--as Sir Walter Scott said of Pitt, and as
+Gladstone quoted, and applied to Sir Robert Peel,--
+
+     "Now is the stately column broke,
+     The _beacon light_ is quenched in smoke;
+     The trumpet's silver voice is still,
+     The warder silent on the hill."
+
+With the death--so sad--of the most illustrious of the Romans whose fame
+was not earned on the battlefield, I should perhaps close my lecture.
+Yet it would be incomplete without a short notice of those services
+which--as statesman, orator, and essayist--he rendered to his country
+and to future ages and nations.
+
+In regard to his services as a statesman, they were rendered chiefly to
+his day and generation, for he elaborated no system of political wisdom
+like Burke, which bears (except casually and indirectly) on modern
+governments and institutions. It was his aim, as a statesman, to
+continue the Roman Constitution and keep the people from civil war. Nor
+does he seem to have held, like Rousseau, the _vox populi_ as the voice
+of God. He could find no language sufficiently strong to express his
+abhorrence of those who led the people for their own individual
+advancement. He was equally severe on corrupt governors and venal
+judges. He upheld morality and justice as the only guides in public
+affairs. He loved popularity, but he loved his country better. He hated
+anarchy as much as did Burke. Like Bright, he looked upon civil war as
+the greatest of national calamities. He advocated the most enlightened
+views, based on the principles of immutable justice. He wished to
+preserve his country equally from unscrupulous generals and unprincipled
+politicians.
+
+As for his orations, they also were chiefly designed for his own
+contemporaries. They are not particularly valuable to us, except as
+models of rhetorical composition and transcendent beauty and grace of
+style. They are not so luminous with fundamental principles as they are
+vivid with invective, sarcasm, wit, and telling exaggeration,--sometimes
+persuasive and working on the sensibilities, and at other times full of
+withering scorn. They are more like the pleadings of an advocate than an
+appeal to universal reason. He lays down no laws of political
+philosophy, nor does he soar into the region of abstract truth, evolving
+great deductions in morals. But as an orator he was transcendently
+effective, like Demosthenes, though not equal to the Greek in force. His
+sentences are perhaps too involved for our taste; yet he always swayed
+an audience, whether the people from the rostrum, or the judges at the
+bar, or the senators in the Curia. He seldom lost a case; no one could
+contend with him successfully. He called out the admiration of critics,
+and even of actors. He had a wonderful electrical influence; his very
+tones and gestures carried everything before him; his action was superb;
+and his whole frame quivered from real (or affected) emotion, like
+Edward Everett in his happiest efforts. He was vehement in gesture, like
+Brougham and Mirabeau. He was intensely earnest and impressive, like
+Savonarola. He had exceeding tact, and was master of the passions of his
+audience. There was an irresistible music in his tones of voice, like
+that of St. Bernard when he fanned crusades. He was withering in his
+denunciations, like Wendell Phillips, whom in person he somewhat
+resembled. He was a fascination like Pericles, and the people could not
+long spare him from the excitement he produced. It was their desire to
+hear him speak which had no small share in producing his recall from
+banishment. They crowded around him as the people did around Chrysostom
+in Antioch. He amused like an actor, and instructed like a sage. His
+sentences are not short, terse, epigrammatic, and direct, but elaborate
+and artificial. Yet with all his arts of eloquence his soul, fired with
+great sentiments, rose in its inspired fervor above even the melody of
+voice, the rhythm of language, and the vehemence of action. A listener,
+who was not a critic, might fancy it was gesture, voice, and language
+combined; but, after all, it was the _man_ communicating his soul to
+those who hung upon his lips, and securing conviction by his sincerity
+and appeals to conscience. He must have had a natural gift for oratory,
+aside from his learning and accomplishments and rhetorical arts,--a
+talent very rare and approaching to creative genius. But to his natural
+gifts--like Luther, or Henry Clay, born an orator--he added marvellous
+attainments. He had a most retentive memory. He was versed in the whole
+history of the world. He was always ready with apt illustrations, which
+gave interest and finish to his discourses. He was the most industrious
+and studious man of his age. His attainments were prodigious. He was
+master of all the knowledge then known, like Gladstone of our day. He
+was not so learned a man as Varro; but Varro's works have perished, as
+the great monuments of German scholars are perhaps destined to perish,
+for lack of style. Cicero's style embalmed his thoughts and made them
+imperishable. No writer is immortal who is not an artist; Cicero was a
+consummate artist, and studied the arrangement of sentences, like the
+historian Tacitus and the Grecian Thucydides.
+
+But greater than as an artist was he in the loftiness of his mind. He
+appealed to what is noblest in the soul. Transcendent eloquence ever
+"raises mortals to the skies" and never "pulls angels down." Love of
+country, love of home, love of friends, love of nature, love of law,
+love of God, is brought out in all his discourses, exalting the noblest
+sentiments which move the human soul. He was the first to give to the
+Latin language beauty and artistic finish. He added to its richness,
+copiousness, and strength; he gave it music. For style alone he would be
+valued as one of the immortal classics. All men of culture have admired
+it, from Augustine to Bossuet, and acknowledged their obligations to
+him. We accord to the great poets the formation of languages,--Homer,
+Dante, Chaucer, Shakspeare; but I doubt if either Virgil or Horace
+contributed to the formation of the Latin language more than Cicero.
+Certainly they have not been more studied and admired. In every
+succeeding age the Orations of Cicero have been one of the first books
+which have been used as textbooks in colleges. Is it not something to
+have been one of the acknowledged masters of human composition? What a
+great service did Cicero render to the education of the Teutonic races!
+Whatever the Latin language has done for the modern world, Cicero comes
+in for a large share of the glory. More is preserved of his writings
+than of any other writer of antiquity.
+
+But not for style alone--seen equally in his essays and in his
+orations--is he admirable. His most enduring claim on the gratitude of
+the world is the noble tribute he rendered to those truths which save
+the world. His testimony, considering he was a pagan, is remarkable in
+reference to what is sound in philosophy and morals. His learning, too,
+is seen to most advantage in his ethical and philosophical writings. It
+is true he did not originate, like Socrates and Plato; but he condensed
+and sifted the writings of the Greeks, and is the best expounder of
+their philosophy. Who has added substantially to what the Greeks worked
+out of their creative brain? I know that no Roman ever added to the
+domain of speculative thought, yet what Roman ever showed such a
+comprehension and appreciation of Greek philosophy as did Cicero? He was
+profoundly versed in all the learning the Grecians ever taught. Like
+Socrates, he had a contempt for physical science, because science in his
+day was based on imperfect inductions. There were not facts enough known
+of the material world to construct sound theories. Physical science at
+that time was the most uncertain of all knowledge, although there were
+great pretenders then, as now, who maintained it was the only certainty.
+But the speculations of scientists disgusted him, for he saw nothing in
+them upon which to base incontrovertible truth. They were mere dreams
+and baseless theories on the origin of the universe. They were even
+puerile; and they were then, as now, atheistic in their tendency. They
+mocked the consciousness of mankind. They annihilated faith and
+Providence. At best, they made all things subject to necessity, to an
+immutable fate, not to an intelligent and ever-present Creator. But
+Cicero, like Socrates, believed in God and in providential
+interference,--in striking contrast with Caesar, who believed nothing.
+He taught moral obligation, on the basis of accountability to God. He
+repudiated expediency as the guide in life, and fell back on the
+principles of eternal right. As an ethical writer he was profounder and
+more enlightened than Paley. He did not seek to overturn the popular
+religion, like Grecian Sophists, only (like Socrates) to overturn
+ignorance, before a sound foundation could be laid for any system of
+truth. Nor did he ridicule religion, as Lucian did in after-times, but
+soared to comprehend it, like the esoteric priests of Egypt in the time
+of Moses or Pythagoras. He cherished as lofty views of God and his moral
+government as any moralist of antiquity. And all these lofty views he
+taught in matchless language,--principles of government, principles of
+law, of ethics, of theology, giving consolation not only to the men of
+his day, but to Christian sages in after-times. And there is nothing
+puerile or dreamy or demoralizing in his teachings; they all are
+luminous for learning as well as genius. He rivalled Bacon in the
+variety and profundity of his attainments. He gloried in the certitudes
+which consciousness reveals, as well as in the facts which experience
+and history demonstrate. With these he consoled himself in trouble; on
+these he reposed in the hour of danger. Like Pascal he meditated on the
+highest truths which task the intellect of man, but, unlike him, did not
+disdain those weapons which _reason_ forged, and which no one used more
+triumphantly than Pascal himself. And these great meditations he
+transmitted for all ages to ponder, as among the most precious of the
+legacies of antiquity.
+
+Thus did he live, a shining light in a corrupt and godless age, in spite
+of all the faults which modern critics have enlarged upon in their
+ambitious desire for novelties, or in their thoughtless or malignant
+desire? to show up human frailties. He was a patriot, taking the side of
+his country's highest interests; a statesman, seeking to conserve the
+wisdom of his ancestors; an orator, exposing vices and defending the
+innocent; a philosopher, unfolding the wisdom of the Greeks; a moralist,
+laying down the principles of immutable justice; a sage, pondering the
+mysteries of life; ever active, studious, dignified; the charm and
+fascination of cultivated circles; as courteous and polished as the
+ornaments of modern society; revered by friends, feared by enemies,
+adored by all good people; a kind father, an indulgent husband, a
+generous friend; hospitable, witty, magnificent,--a most accomplished
+gentleman, one of the best men of all antiquity. What if he was vain and
+egotistical and vacillating, and occasionally weak? Can you expect
+perfection in him who "is born of a woman"? We palliate the backslidings
+of Christians; we excuse the crimes of a Constantine, a Theodosius, a
+Cromwell: shall we have no toleration for the frailties of a Pagan, in
+one of the worst periods of history? I have no patience with those
+critics who would hurl him from the pedestal on which he has stood for
+two thousand years. Contrast him with other illustrious men. How few
+Romans or Greeks were better than he! How few have rendered such exalted
+services! And even if he has not perpetuated a faultless character, he
+has yet bequeathed a noble example; and, more, has transmitted a legacy
+in the richness of which we forget the faults of the testator,--a legacy
+of imperishable thought, clothed in the language of imperishable art,--a
+legacy so valuable that it is the treasured inheritance of all civilized
+nations, and one which no nation can afford to lose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Plutarch's Life of Cicero, Appian, Dion Cassius, Villeius Paterculus,
+are the original authorities,--next to the writings of Cicero himself,
+especially his Letters and Orations. Middleton's Life is full, but
+one-sided. Forsyth takes the opposite side in his Life. The last work in
+English is that of Anthony Trollope. In Smith's Biographical Dictionary
+is an able article. Dr. Vaughan has written an interesting lecture.
+Merivale has elaborately treated this great man in his valuable History
+of the Romans. Colley Cibber's Character and Conduct of Cicero,
+Drumann's Roman History, Rollin's Ancient History, Biographic
+Universelle. Mr. Froude alludes to Cicero in his Life of Caesar, taking
+nearly the same view as Forsyth.
+
+
+
+
+CLEOPATRA.
+
+
+69-30 B.C.
+
+THE WOMAN OF PAGANISM.
+
+
+It is my object in this lecture to present the condition of woman under
+the influences of Paganism, before Christianity enfranchised and
+elevated her. As a type of the Pagan woman I select Cleopatra, partly
+because she was famous, and partly because she possessed traits and
+accomplishments which made her interesting in spite of the vices which
+degraded her. She was a queen, the heir of a long line of kings, and
+ruled over an ancient and highly civilized country. She was
+intellectual, accomplished, beautiful, and fascinating. She lived in one
+of the most interesting capitals of the ancient world, and by birth she
+was more Greek than she was African or Oriental. She lived, too, in a
+great age, when Rome had nearly conquered the world; when Roman senators
+and generals had more power than kings; when Grecian arts and literature
+were copied by the imperial Romans; when the rich and fortunate were
+luxurious and ostentatious beyond all precedent; when life had reached
+the highest point of material splendor, and yet when luxury had not
+destroyed military virtues or undermined the strength of the empire. The
+"eternal city" then numbered millions of people, and was the grandest
+capital ever seen on this earth, since everything was there
+concentrated,--the spoils of the world, riches immeasurable, literature
+and art, palaces and temples, power unlimited,--the proudest centre of
+civilization which then existed, and a civilization which in its
+material aspects has not since been surpassed. The civilized world was
+then most emphatically Pagan, in both spirit and forms. Religion as a
+controlling influence was dead. Only a very few among speculative
+philosophers believed in any god, except in a degrading sense,--as a
+blind inexorable fate, or an impersonation of the powers of Nature. The
+future state was a most perplexing uncertainty. Epicurean
+self-indulgence and material prosperity were regarded as the greatest
+good; and as doubt of the darkest kind hung over the future, the body
+was necessarily regarded as of more value than the soul. In fact, it was
+only the body which Paganism recognized as a reality; the soul, God, and
+immortality were virtually everywhere ignored.
+
+It was in this godless, yet brilliant, age that Cleopatra appears upon
+the stage, having been born sixty-nine years before Christ,--about a
+century before the new revolutionary religion was proclaimed in Judea.
+Her father was a Ptolemy, and she succeeded him on the throne of Egypt
+when quite young,--the last of a famous dynasty that had reigned nearly
+three hundred years. The Ptolemies, descended from one of Alexander's
+generals, reigned in great magnificence at Alexandria, which was the
+commercial centre of the world, whose ships whitened the
+Mediterranean,--that great inland lake, as it were, in the centre of the
+Roman Empire, around whose shores were countless cities and villas and
+works of art. Alexandria was a city of schools, of libraries and
+museums, of temples and of palaces, as well as a mart of commerce. Its
+famous library was the largest in the world, and was the pride of the
+age and of the empire. Learned men from all countries came to this
+capital to study science, philosophy, and art. It was virtually a
+Grecian city, and the language of the leading people was Greek. It was
+rivalled in provincial magnificence only by Antioch, the seat of the old
+Syrian civilization, also a Greek capital, so far as the governing
+classes could make it one. Greece, politically ruined, still sent forth
+those influences which made her civilization potent in every land.
+
+Cleopatra, the last of the line of Grecian sovereigns in Egypt, was
+essentially Greek in her features, her language, and her manners. There
+was nothing African about her, as we understand the term African, except
+that her complexion may have been darkened by the intermarriage of the
+Ptolemies; and I have often wondered why so learned and classical a man
+as Story should have given to this queen, in his famous statue, such
+thick lips and African features, which no more marked her than Indian
+features mark the family of the Braganzas on the throne of Brazil. She
+was not even Coptic, like Athanasius and Saint Augustine. On the ancient
+coins and medals her features are severely classical.
+
+Nor is it probable that any of the peculiarities of the ancient Egyptian
+kings marked the dynasty of the Ptolemies. No purely Egyptian customs
+lingered in the palaces of Alexandria. The old deities of Isis and
+Osiris gave place to the worship of Jupiter, Minerva, and Venus. The
+wonders of pristine Egypt were confined to Memphis and Thebes and the
+dilapidated cities of the Nile. The mysteries of the antique Egyptian
+temples were no more known to the learned and mercantile citizen of
+Alexandria than they are to us. The pyramids were as much a wonder then
+as now. The priests and jugglers alike mingled in the crowd of Jews,
+Syrians, Romans, Greeks, Parthians, Arabs, who congregated in this
+learned and mercantile city.
+
+So we have a right to presume that Cleopatra, when she first appeared
+upon the stage of history as a girl of fourteen, was simply a very
+beautiful and accomplished Greek princess, who could speak several
+languages with fluency, as precocious as Elizabeth of England, skilled
+in music, conversant with history, and surrounded with eminent masters.
+She was only twenty-one when she was an object of attraction to Caesar,
+then in the midst of his triumphs. How remarkable must have been her
+fascinations if at that age she could have diverted, even for a time,
+the great captain from his conquests, and chained him to her side! That
+refined, intellectual old veteran of fifty, with the whole world at his
+feet, loaded down with the cares of government, as temperate as he was
+ambitious, and bent on new conquests, would not have been chained and
+enthralled by a girl of twenty-one, however beautiful, had she not been
+as remarkable for intellect and culture as she was for beauty. Nor is it
+likely that Cleopatra would have devoted herself to this weather-beaten
+old general, had she not hoped to gain something from him besides
+caresses,--namely, the confirmation of her authority as queen. She also
+may have had some patriotic motives touching the political independence
+of her country. Left by her father's will at the age of eighteen joint
+heir of the Egyptian throne with her brother Ptolemy, she soon found
+herself expelled from the capital by him and the leading generals of the
+army, because they did not relish her precocious activity in
+government. Her gathered adherents had made but little advance towards
+regaining her rights when, in August, 48, Caesar landed in pursuit of
+Pompey, whom he had defeated at Pharsalia. Pompey's assassination left
+Caesar free, and he proceeded to Alexandria to establish himself for the
+winter. Here the wily and beautiful young exile sought him, and won his
+interest and his affection. After some months of revelry and luxury,
+Caesar left Egypt in 47 to chastise an Eastern rebel, and was in 46
+followed to Rome by Cleopatra, who remained there in splendid state
+until the assassination of Caesar drove her back to Egypt. Her whole
+subsequent life showed her to be as cunning and politic as she was
+luxurious and pleasure-seeking. Possibly she may have loved so
+interesting and brilliant a man as the great Caesar, aside from the
+admiration of his position; but he never became her slave, although it
+was believed, a hundred years after his death, that she was actually
+living in his house when he was assassinated, and was the mother of his
+son Caesarion. But Froude doubts this; and the probabilities are that he
+is correct, for, like Macaulay, he is not apt to be wrong in facts, but
+only in the way he puts them.
+
+Cleopatra was twenty-eight years of age when she first met Antony,--"a
+period of life," says Plutarch, "when woman's beauty is most splendid,
+and her intellect is in full maturity." We have no account of the style
+of her beauty, except that it was transcendent,--absolutely
+irresistible, with such a variety of expression as to be called
+infinite. As already remarked, from the long residence of her family in
+Egypt and intermarriages with foreigners, her complexion may have been
+darker than that of either Persians or Greeks. It probably resembled
+that of Queen Esther more than that of Aspasia, in that dark richness
+and voluptuousness which to some have such attractions; but in grace and
+vivacity she was purely Grecian,--not like a "blooming Eastern bride,"
+languid and passive and effeminate, but bright, witty, and intellectual.
+Shakspeare paints her as full of lively sallies, with the power of
+adapting herself to circumstances with tact and good nature, like a
+Madame Recamier or a Maintenon, rather than like a Montespan or a
+Pompadour, although her nature was passionate, her manner enticing, and
+her habits luxurious. She did not weary or satiate, like a mere
+sensual beauty.
+
+     "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
+      Her infinite variety."
+
+She certainly had the power of retaining the conquests she had
+won,--which rarely happens except with those who are gifted with
+intellectual radiance and freshness. She held her hold on Antony for
+eleven years, when he was burdened with great public cares and duties,
+and when he was forty-two years of age. Such a superior man as he was
+intellectually, and, after Caesar, the leading man of the empire,--a
+statesman as well as soldier,--would not have been enslaved so long by
+Cleopatra had she not possessed remarkable gifts and attainments, like
+those famous women who reigned in the courts of the Bourbons in the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and who, by their wit and social
+fascinations, gathered around their thrones the most distinguished men
+of France, and made them friends as well as admirers. The Pompadours of
+the world have only a brief reign, and at last become repulsive. But
+Cleopatra, like Maintenon, was always attractive, although she, could
+not lay claim to the virtues of the latter. She was as politic as the
+French beauty, and as full of expedients to please her lord. She may
+have revelled in the banquets she prepared for Antony, as Esther did in
+those she prepared for Xerxes; but with the same intent, to please him
+rather than herself, and win, from his weakness, those political favors
+which in his calmer hours he might have shrunk from granting. Cleopatra
+was a politician as well as a luxurious beauty, and it may have been her
+supreme aim to secure the independence of Egypt. She wished to beguile
+Antony as she had sought to beguile Caesar, since they were the masters
+of the world, and had it in their power to crush her sovereignty and
+reduce her realm to a mere province of the empire. Nor is there
+evidence that in the magnificent banquets she gave to the Roman general
+she ever lost her self-control. She drank, and made him drink, but
+retained her wits, "laughing him out of patience and laughing him into
+patience," ascendant over him by raillery, irony, and wit.
+
+And Antony, again, although fond of banquets and ostentation, like other
+Roman nobles, and utterly unscrupulous and unprincipled, as Roman
+libertines were, was also general, statesman, and orator. He grew up
+amid the dangers and toils and privations of Caesar's camp. He was as
+greedy of honors as was his imperial master. He was a sunburnt and
+experienced commander, obliged to be on his guard, and ready for
+emergencies. No such man feels that he can afford to indulge his
+appetites, except on rare occasions. One of the leading peculiarities of
+all great generals has been their temperance. It marked Caesar,
+Charlemagne, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederic the Great, Cromwell, and
+Napoleon. When Alexander gave himself up to banquets, his conquests
+ended. Even such a self-indulgent, pleasure-seeking man as Louis XIV.
+always maintained the decencies of society amid his dissipated
+courtiers. We feel that a man who could discourse so eloquently as
+Antony did over the dead body of Caesar was something more than a
+sensualist or a demagogue. He was also the finest-looking man in Rome,
+reminding the people, it is said, of the busts of Hercules. He was
+lavish, like Caesar, but, like him, sought popularity, and cared but
+little what it cost. It is probable that Cicero painted him, in his
+famous philippics, in darker colors than he deserved, because he aimed
+to be Caesar's successor, as he probably would have been but for his
+infatuation for Cleopatra. Caesar sent him to Rome as master of the
+horse,--a position next in power to that of dictator. When Caesar was
+assassinated, Antony was the most powerful man of the empire. He was
+greater than any existing king; he was almost supreme. And after
+Caesar's death, when he divided his sovereignty of the world with
+Octavius and Lepidus, he had the fairest chance of becoming imperator.
+He had great military experience, the broad Orient as his domain, and
+half the legions of Rome under his control.
+
+It was when this great man was Triumvir, sharing with only two others
+the empire of the world, and likely to overpower them, when he was in
+Asia consolidating and arranging the affairs of his vast department,
+that he met the woman who was the cause of all his calamities. He was
+then in Cilicia, and, with all the arrogance of a Roman general, had
+sent for the Queen of Egypt to appear before him and answer to an
+accusation of having rendered assistance to Cassius before the fatal
+battle of Philippi. He had already known and admired Cleopatra in Rome,
+and it is not improbable that she divined the secret of his judicial
+summons. His envoy, struck with her beauty and intelligence, advised her
+to appear in her best attire. Such a woman scarcely needed such a hint.
+So, making every preparation for her journey,--money, ornaments,
+gifts,--a kind of Queen of Sheba, a Zenobia in her pride and glory, a
+Queen Esther when she had invited the king and his minister to a
+banquet,--she came to the Cydnus, and ascended the river in a
+magnificent barge, such as had never been seen before, and prepared to
+meet her judge, not as a criminal, but as a conqueror, armed with those
+weapons that few mortals can resist.
+
+     "The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
+     Burn'd on the water; the poop was beaten gold;
+     Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
+     The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver,
+     Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
+     The water, which they beat, to follow faster,
+     As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
+     It beggar'd all description: she did lie
+     In her pavilion (cloth-of-gold of tissue)
+     O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see
+     The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
+     Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
+     With diverse-color'd fans....
+     Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
+     So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes.
+     ... At the helm
+     A seeming mermaid steers....
+     ... From the barge
+     A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
+     Of the adjacent wharves. The city cast
+     Her people out upon her; and Antony,
+     Enthroned i' the market-place, did sit alone,
+     Whistling to th' air; which, but for vacancy,
+     Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
+     And made a gap in nature."
+
+On the arrival of this siren queen, Antony had invited her to
+supper,--the dinner of the Romans,--but she, with woman's instinct, had
+declined, till he should come to her; and he, with the urbanity of a
+polished noble,--for such he probably was,--complied, and found a
+banquet which astonished even him, accustomed as he was to senatorial
+magnificence, and which, with all the treasures of the East, he could
+not rival. From that fatal hour he was enslaved. She conquered him, not
+merely by her display and her dazzling beauty, but by her wit. Her very
+tones were music. So accomplished was she in languages, that without
+interpreters she conversed not only with Greeks and Latins, but with
+Ethiopians, Jews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes, and Parthians. So dazzled
+and bewitched was Antony, that, instead of continuing the duties of his
+great position, he returned with Cleopatra to Alexandria, there to keep
+holiday and squander riches, and, still worse, his precious time, to the
+shame and scandal of Rome, inglorious and without excuse,--a Samson at
+the feet of Delilah, or a Hercules throwing away his club to seize the
+distaff of Omphale, confessing to the potency of that mysterious charm
+which the sage at the court of an Eastern prince pronounced the
+strongest power on earth. Never was a strong man more enthralled than
+was Antony by this bewitching woman, who exhausted every art to please
+him. She played at dice with him, drank with him, hunted with him,
+rambled with him, jested with him, angled with him, flattering and
+reproving him by turn, always having some new device of pleasure to
+gratify his senses or stimulate his curiosity. Thus passed the winter of
+41-40, and in the spring he was recalled to Borne by political
+dissensions there.
+
+At this stage, however, it would seem that ambition was paramount with
+him, not love; for his wife Fulvia having died, he did not marry
+Cleopatra, but Octavia, sister of Octavius, his fellow-triumvir and
+general rival. It was evidently from political considerations that he
+married Octavia, who was a stately and noble woman, but tedious in her
+dignity, and unattractive in her person. And what a commentary on Roman
+rank! The sister of a Roman grandee seemed to the ambitious general a
+greater match than the Queen of Egypt. How this must have piqued the
+proud daughter of the Ptolemies,--that she, a queen, with all her
+charms, was not the equal in the eyes of Antony to the sister of
+Caesar's heir! But she knew her power, and stifled her resentment, and
+waited for her time. She, too, had a political end to gain, and was too
+politic to give way to anger and reproaches. She was anything but the
+impulsive woman that some suppose,--but a great actress and artist, as
+some women are when they would conquer, even in their loves, which, if
+they do not feign, at least they know how to make appear greater than
+they are. For about three years Antony cut loose from Cleopatra, and
+pursued his military career in the East, as the rival of Octavius might,
+having in view the sovereignty that Caesar had bequeathed to the
+strongest man.
+
+But his passion for Cleopatra could not long be suppressed, neither from
+reasons of state nor from the respect he must have felt for the
+admirable conduct of Octavia, who was devoted to him, and who was one of
+the most magnanimous and reproachless women of antiquity. And surely he
+must have had some great qualities to call out the love of the noblest
+and proudest woman of the age, in spite of his many vices and his
+abandonment to a mad passion, forgetful alike both of fame and duty. He
+had not been two years in Athens, the headquarters of his Eastern
+Department, before he was called upon to chastise the Parthians, who had
+thrown off the Roman yoke and invaded other Roman provinces. But hardly
+had he left Octavia, and set foot again in Asia, before he sent for his
+Egyptian mistress, and loaded her with presents; not gold, and silver,
+and precious stones, and silks, and curious works of art merely, but
+whole provinces even,--Phoenicia, Syria, Cilicia, and a part of Judea
+and Arabia,--provinces which belonged not to him, but to the Roman
+Empire. How indignant must have been the Roman people when they heard of
+such lavish presents, and presents which he had no right to give! And
+when the artful Cleopatra feigned illness on the approach of Octavia,
+pretending to be dying of love, and wasting her body by fasting and
+weeping by turns, and perhaps tearing her hair in a seeming paroxysm of
+grief,--for an actress can do even this,--Antony was totally disarmed,
+and gave up his Parthian expedition altogether, which was treason to the
+State, and returned to Alexandria more submissive than ever. This
+abandonment of duty and official trust disgusted and incensed the
+Romans, so that his cause was weakened. Octavius became stronger every
+day, and now resolved on reigning alone. This meant another civil war.
+How strong the party of Antony must have been to keep together and
+sustain him amid such scandals, treasons, and disgrace!
+
+Antony, perceiving a desperate contest before him, ending in his
+supremacy or ruin, put forth all his energies, assisted by the
+contributions of Cleopatra, who furnished two hundred ships and twenty
+thousand talents,--about twenty million dollars. He had five hundred
+war-vessels, beside galleys, one hundred thousand foot and twelve
+thousand horse,--one of the largest armies that any Roman general had
+ever commanded,--and he was attended by vassal kings from the East. The
+forces of Octavius were not so large, though better disciplined; nor was
+he a match for Antony in military experience. Antony with his superior
+forces wished to fight upon the land, but against his better judgment
+was overruled by Cleopatra, who, having reinforced him with sixty
+galleys, urged him to contend upon the sea. The rivals met at Actium,
+where was fought one of the great decisive battles of the world. For a
+while the fortunes of the day were doubtful, when Cleopatra, from some
+unexplained motive, or from panic, or possibly from a calculating
+policy, was seen sailing away with her ships for Egypt. And what was
+still more extraordinary, Antony abandoned his fleet and followed her.
+Had he been defeated on the sea, he still had superior forces on the
+land, and was a match for Octavius. His infatuation ended in a weakness
+difficult to comprehend in a successful Roman general. And never was
+infatuation followed by more tragic consequences. Was this madness sent
+upon him by that awful Power who controls the fate of war and the
+destinies of nations? Who sent madness upon Nebuchadnezzar? Who blinded
+Napoleon at the very summit of his greatness? May not that memorable
+defeat have been ordered by Providence to give consolidation and peace
+and prosperity to the Roman Empire, so long groaning under the
+complicated miseries of anarchy and civil war? If an imperial government
+was necessary for the existing political and social condition of the
+Roman world,--and this is maintained by most historians,--how fortunate
+it was that the empire fell into the hands of a man whose subsequent
+policy was peace, the development of resources of nations, and a
+vigorous administration of government!
+
+It is generally conceded that the reign of Octavius--or, as he is more
+generally known, Augustus Caesar--was able, enlightened, and efficient.
+He laid down the policy which succeeding emperors pursued, and which
+resulted in the peace and prosperity of the Roman world until vices
+prepared the way for violence. Augustus was a great organizer, and the
+machinery of government which he and his ministers perfected kept the
+empire together until it was overrun by the New Germanic races. Had
+Antony conquered at Actium, the destinies of the empire might have been
+far different. But for two hundred years the world never saw a more
+efficient central power than that exercised by the Roman emperors or by
+their ministers. Imperialism at last proved fatal to genius and the
+higher interests of mankind; but imperialism was the creation of Julius
+Caesar, as a real or supposed necessity; it was efficiently and
+beneficently continued by his grand-nephew Augustus; and its
+consolidated strength became an established institution which the
+civilized world quietly accepted.
+
+The battle of Actium virtually settled the civil war and the fortunes of
+Antony, although he afterwards fought bravely and energetically; but all
+to no purpose. And then, at last, his eyes were opened, and Shakspeare
+makes him bitterly exclaim,--
+
+         "All is lost!
+     This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me.
+         ... Betray'd I am:
+     O this false soul of Egypt!"
+
+And with his ruin the ruin of his paramour was also settled; yet her
+resources were not utterly exhausted. She retired into a castle or
+mausoleum she had prepared for herself in case of necessity, with her
+most valuable treasures, and sent messengers to Antony, who reported to
+him that she was dead,--that she had killed herself in despair. He
+believed it all. His wrath now vanished in his grief. He could not live,
+or did not wish to live, without her; and he fell upon his own sword.
+The wound was mortal, but death did not immediately follow. He lived to
+learn that Cleopatra had again deceived him,--that she was still alive.
+Even amid the agonies of the shadow of death, and in view of this last
+fatal lie of hers, he did not upbraid her, but ordered his servants to
+bear him to her retreat. Covered with blood, the dying general was
+drawn up by ropes and through a window--the only entrance to the queen's
+retreat that was left unbarred--into her presence, and soon expired.
+Shakspeare has Antony greet Cleopatra with the words, "I am dying,
+Egypt, dying!" This suggestive theme has been enlarged in a modern song
+of pathetic eloquence:--
+
+     I am dying, Egypt, dying,
+       Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast,
+     And the dark Plutonian shadows
+       Gather on the evening blast;
+     Let thine arms, O Queen, enfold me,
+       Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear,
+     Listen to the great heart-secrets
+       _Thou_, and thou _alone_, must hear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Should the base plebeian rabble
+       Dare assail my name at Rome,
+     Where my noble spouse Octavia
+       Weeps within her widow'd home,
+     Seek her; say the gods bear witness--
+       Altars, augurs, circling wings--
+     That her blood, with mine commingled,
+       Yet shall mount the throne of kings.
+
+     As for thee, star-ey'd Egyptian!
+       Glorious sorceress of the Nile!
+     Light the path to Stygian horrors
+       With the splendors of thy smile
+     I can scorn the Senate's triumphs,
+       Triumphing in love like thine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Ah! no more amid the battle
+       Shall my heart exulting swell:
+     Isis and Osiris guard thee!
+       Cleopatra--Rome--farewell!
+
+Thus perished the great Triumvir, dying like a Roman, whose blinded but
+persistent love, whatever were its elements, ever shall make his name
+memorable. All the ages will point to him as a man who gave the world
+away for the caresses of a woman, and a woman who deceived and
+ruined him.
+
+As for her,--this selfish, heartless sorceress, gifted and beautiful as
+she was,--what does she do when she sees her lover dead,--dying for her?
+Does she share his fate? Not she. What selfish woman ever killed
+herself for love?
+
+     "Some natural tears she shed, but wiped them soon."
+
+She may have torn her clothes, and beaten her breast, and disfigured her
+face, and given vent to mourning and lamentations. But she does not seek
+death, nor surrender herself to grief, nor court despair. She renews her
+strength. She reserves her arts for another victim. She hopes to win
+Octavius as she had won Julius and Antony; for she was only thirty-nine,
+and still a queen. And for what? That she might retain her own
+sovereignty, or the independence of Egypt,--still the most fertile of
+countries, rich, splendid, and with grand traditions which went back
+thousands of years; the oldest, and once the most powerful of
+monarchies. _Her_ love was ever subservient to her interests. Antony
+gave up ambition for love,--whatever that love was. It took possession
+of his whole being, not pure and tender, but powerful, strange;
+doubtless a mad infatuation, and perhaps something more, since it never
+passed away,--admiration allied with desire, the worship of dazzling
+gifts, though not of moral virtues. Would such a love have been
+permanent? Probably not, since the object of it did not shine in the
+beauty of the soul, but rather in the graces and adornments of the body,
+intensified indeed by the lustre of bewitching social qualities and the
+brightness of a cultivated intellect. It is hard to analyze a passionate
+love between highly gifted people who have an intense development of
+both the higher and the lower natures, and still more difficult when the
+idol is a Venus Polyhymnia rather than a Venus Urania. But the love of
+Antony, whether unwise, or mysterious, or unfortunate, was not feigned
+or forced: it was real, and it was irresistible; he could not help it.
+He was enslaved, bound hand and foot. His reason may have rallied to his
+support, but his will was fettered. He may have had at times dark and
+gloomy suspicions,--that he was played with, that he was cheated, that
+he would be deserted, that Cleopatra was false and treacherous. And yet
+she reigned over him; he could not live without her. She was all in all
+to him, so long as the infatuation lasted; and it had lasted fourteen
+years, with increasing force, in spite of duty and pressing labors, the
+calls of ambition and the lust of power. In this consuming and abandoned
+passion, for fourteen years,--so strange and inglorious, and for a woman
+so unworthy, even if he were no better than she,--we see one of the
+great mysteries of our complex nature, not uncommon, but insoluble.
+
+I have no respect for Antony, and but little admiration. I speak of such
+mad infatuation as a humiliating exhibition of human weakness. Any one
+under its fearful spell is an object of pity. But I have more sympathy
+for him than for Cleopatra, although she was doubtless a very gifted
+woman. He was her victim; she was not his. If extravagant and reckless
+and sensual, he was frank, generous, eloquent, brave, and true to her.
+She was artful, designing, and selfish, and used him for her own ends,
+although we do not know that she was perfidious and false to him. But
+for her he would have ruled the world. He showed himself capable of an
+enormous sacrifice. She made no sacrifices for him. She could even have
+transferred her affections, since she afterwards sought to play her
+blandishments upon his rival. Conceive of Antony, if you can, as loving
+any one else than her who led him on to ruin. In the very degradation
+of love we see its sacredness. In his fidelity we find some palliation.
+Nor does it seem that Octavia, the slighted wife of Antony, gave way to
+vengeance. Her sense of injury was overshadowed by her pity. This lofty
+and dignified matron even took his six surviving children, three of whom
+were Cleopatra's, and brought them up in her own house as her own. Can
+Paganism show a greater magnanimity?
+
+The fate of Cleopatra was tragic also. She too destroyed herself, not
+probably by the bite of asps, as is the popular opinion, but by some
+potent and subtile poison that she ever carried with her, and which had
+the effect of benumbing the body and making her insensible to pain. Yet
+she does not kill herself because she cannot survive the death of
+Antony, but because she is too proud to be carried to Rome to grace the
+triumph of the new Caesar. She will not be led a captive princess up the
+Capitoline Hill. She has an overbearing pride. "Know, sir," says she to
+Proculeius, "that I
+
+     "Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court,
+     Nor once be chastis'd with the sober eye
+     Of dull Octavia....
+      ... Rather a ditch in Egypt
+     Be gentle grave to me!"
+
+But whether pride or whether shame was the more powerful motive in
+committing suicide, I do not read that she was a victim of remorse. She
+had no moral sense. Nor did she give way to sentimental grief on the
+death of Antony. Her grief was blended with disappointment and rage. Nor
+did she hide her head, but wore a face of brass. She used all her arts
+to win Octavius. Her resources did not fail her; but she expended them
+on one of the coldest, most politic, and most astute men that ever
+lived. And the disappointment that followed her defeat--that she could
+not enslave another conqueror--was greater than the grief for Antony.
+Nor during her whole career do we see any signs of that sorrow and
+humility which, it would seem, should mark a woman who has made so great
+and fatal a mistake,--cut off hopelessly from the respect of the world
+and the peace of her own soul. We see grief, rage, despair, in her
+miserable end, as we see pride and shamefacedness in her gilded life,
+but not remorse or shame. And when she dies by her own hand, it is not
+in madness, but to escape humiliation. Suicide was one of the worst
+features of Pagan antiquity. It was a base and cowardly reluctance to
+meet the evils of life, as much as indifference to the future and a
+blunted moral sense.
+
+So much for the woman herself, her selfish spirit, her vile career; but
+as Cleopatra is one of the best known and most striking examples of a
+Pagan woman, with qualities and in circumstances peculiarly
+characteristic of Paganism, I must make a few remarks on these points.
+
+One of the most noticeable of these is that immorality seems to have
+been no bar to social position. Some of those who were most attractive
+and sought after were notoriously immoral. Aspasia, whom Socrates and
+Pericles equally admired, and whose house was the resort of poets,
+philosophers, statesmen, and artists, and who is said to have been one
+of the most cultivated women of antiquity, bore a sullied name. Sappho,
+who was ever exalted by Grecian poets for the sweetness of her verses,
+attempted to reconcile a life of pleasure with a life of letters, and
+threw herself into the sea because of a disappointed passion. Lais, a
+professional courtesan, was the associate of kings and sages as well as
+the idol of poets and priests. Agrippina, whose very name is infamy, was
+the admiration of courtiers and statesmen. Lucilla, who armed her
+assassins against her own brother, seems to have ruled the court of
+Marcus Aurelius.
+
+And all these women, and more who could be mentioned, were--like
+Cleopatra--cultivated, intellectual, and brilliant. They seem to have
+reigned for their social fascinations as much as by their physical
+beauty. Hence, that class of women who with us are shunned and excluded
+from society were not only flattered and honored, but the class itself
+seems to have been recruited by those who were the most attractive for
+their intellectual gifts as well as for physical beauty. No woman, if
+bright, witty, and beautiful, was avoided because she was immoral. It
+was the immoral women who often aspired to the highest culture. They
+sought to reign by making their homes attractive to distinguished men.
+Their houses seem to have been what the _salons_ of noble and
+fascinating duchesses were in France in the last two centuries. The
+homes of virtuous and domestic women were dull and wearisome. In fact,
+the modest wives and daughters of most men were confined to monotonous
+domestic duties; they were household slaves; they saw but little of what
+we now call society. I do not say that virtue was not held in honor. I
+know of no age, however corrupt, when it was not prized by husbands and
+fathers. I know of no age when virtuous women did not shine at home, and
+exert a healthful influence upon men, and secure the proud regard of
+their husbands. But these were not the women whose society was most
+sought. The drudgeries and slaveries of domestic life among the ancients
+made women unattractive to the world. The women who were most attractive
+were those who gave or attended sumptuous banquets, and indulged in
+pleasures that were demoralizing. Not domestic women, but bright women,
+carried away those prizes which turned the brain. Those who shone were
+those that attached themselves to men through their senses, and
+possibly through their intellects, and who were themselves strong in
+proportion as men were weak. For a woman to appear in public assemblies
+with braided and decorated hair and ostentatious dress, and especially
+if she displayed any gifts of eloquence or culture, was to proclaim
+herself one of the immoral, leisurely, educated, dissolute class. This
+gives point to Saint Paul's strict injunctions to the women of Corinth
+to dress soberly, to keep silence in the assemblies, etc. The modest
+woman was to "be in subjection." Those Pagan converts to the "New Way"
+were to avoid even the appearance of evil.
+
+Thus under Paganism the general influence of women was to pull men down
+rather than to elevate them, especially those who were attractive in
+society. Virtuous and domestic women were not sufficiently educated to
+have much influence except in a narrow circle. Even they, in a social
+point of view, were slaves. They could be given in marriage without
+their consent; they were restricted in their intercourse with men; they
+were confined to their homes; they had but few privileges; they had no
+books; they led a life of terror from the caprices of their lords and
+masters, and hence inspired no veneration. The wives and daughters of
+the rich tyrannized over their servants, decked themselves with costly
+ornaments, and were merely gilded toys, whose society was vapid and
+uninteresting. The wives and daughters of the poor were drudges and
+menials, without attraction or influence; noisy, quarrelsome, garrulous
+women, who said the least when they talked the most.
+
+Hence under Paganism home had none of those attractions which, in
+Christian countries, invest it with such charms. The home of the poor
+was squalid and repulsive; the home of the rich was gaudy and tinselled
+enough, but was dull and uninspiring. What is home when women are
+ignorant, stupid, and slavish? What glitter or artistic splendor can
+make home attractive when women are mere butterflies or slaves with
+gilded fetters? Deprive women of education, and especially of that
+respect which Christian chivalry inspires, and they cannot rise to be
+the equal companions of men. They are simply their victims or their
+slaves. What is a home where women are treated as inferiors? Paganism
+never recognized their equality with men; and if they ever ruled men, it
+was by appealing to their lower qualities, or resorting to arts and
+devices which are subversive of all dignity of character. When their
+personal beauty fled, their power also departed. A faded or homely
+woman, without intelligence or wit, was a forlorn object in a Pagan
+home,--to be avoided, derided, despised,--a melancholy object of pity or
+neglect, so far as companionship goes. She may have been valued as a
+cook or drudge, but she was only a menial. Of all those sins of omission
+of which Paganism is accused, the worst was that it gave to women no
+mental resources to assist them in poverty, or neglect, or isolation,
+when beauty or fortune deserted them. No home can be attractive where
+women have no resources; and women can have no resources outside of
+domestic duties, unless educated to some art or something calculated to
+draw out their energies and higher faculties by which they win the
+respect and admiration, not of men only, but of their own sex.
+
+It was this lack of education which Paganism withheld from women which
+not only destroyed the radiance of home, but which really made women
+inferior to men. All writers, poets, and satirists alike speak of the
+inferiority of women to men,--not physically only, but even
+intellectually; and some authors made them more vicious than men in
+natural inclination. And when the mind was both neglected and
+undervalued, how could respect and admiration be kindled, or continue
+after sensual charms had passed away? Paganism taught the inequality of
+the sexes, and produced it; and when this inequality is taught, or
+believed in, or insisted upon, then farewell to the glory of homes, to
+all unbought charms, to the graces of domestic life, to everything that
+gilds our brief existence with the radiance of imperishable joy.
+
+Nor did Paganism offer any consolations to the down-trodden, injured,
+neglected, uninteresting woman of antiquity. She could not rise above
+the condition in which she was born. No sympathetic priest directed her
+thoughts to another and higher and endless life. Nobody wiped away her
+tears; nobody gave encouragement to those visions of beauty and serenity
+for which the burdened spirit will, under any oppressions, sometimes
+aspire to enjoy. No one told her of immortality and a God of
+forgiveness, who binds up the bleeding heart and promises a future peace
+and bliss. Paganism was merciful only in this,--that it did not open
+wounds it could not heal; that it did not hold out hopes and promises it
+could not fulfil; that it did not remind the afflicted of miseries from
+which they could not rise; that it did not let in a vision of glories
+which could never be enjoyed; that it did not provoke the soul to
+indulge in a bitterness in view of evils for which there was no remedy;
+that it did not educate the mind for enjoyments which could never be
+reached; that it did not kindle a discontent with a condition from which
+there is no escape. If one cannot rise above debasement or misery, there
+is no use in pointing it out. If the Pagan woman was not seemingly aware
+of the degradation which kept her down, and from which it was impossible
+to rise, Paganism did not add stings to her misery by presenting it as
+an accident which it was easy to surmount. There would be no
+contentment or submission among animals if they were endowed with the
+reason of men. Give to a healthy, but ignorant, coarse, uncultivated
+country girl, surrounded only with pigs and chickens, almost without
+neighbors, a glimpse of the glories of cities, the wonders of art, the
+charms of social life, the triumphs of mind, the capacities of the soul,
+and would she be any happier, if obliged to remain for life in her
+rustic obscurity and labor, and with no possible chance of improving her
+condition? Such was woman under Paganism. She could rise only so far as
+men lifted her up; and they lifted her up only further to consummate her
+degradation.
+
+But there was another thing which kept women in degradation. Paganism
+did not recognize the immaterial and immortal soul: it only had regard
+to the wants of the body. Of course there were exceptions. There were
+sages and philosophers among the men who speculated on the grandest
+subjects which can elevate the mind to the regions of immortal
+truth,--like Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius,--even as there
+were women who rose above all the vile temptations which surrounded
+them, and were poets, heroines, and benefactors,--like Telessa, who
+saved Argos by her courage; and Volumnia, who screened Rome from the
+vengeance of her angry son; and Lucretia, who destroyed herself rather
+than survive the dishonor of her house. There are some people who rise
+and triumph over every kind of oppression and injury. Under Paganism
+there was the possibility of the emancipation of the soul, but not the
+probability. Its genius was directed to the welfare of the body,--to
+utilitarian ends of life, to ornaments and riches, to luxury and
+voluptuousness, to the pleasures which are brief, to the charms of
+physical beauty and grace. It could stimulate ambition and inculcate
+patriotism and sing of love, if it coupled the praises of Venus with the
+praises of wine. But everything it praised or honored had reference to
+this life and to the mortal body. It may have recognized the mind, but
+not the soul, which is greater than the mind. It had no aspirations for
+future happiness; it had no fears of future misery. Hence the frequency
+of suicide under disappointment, or ennui, or satiated desire, or fear
+of poverty, or disgrace, or pain.
+
+And thus, as Paganism did not take cognizance of the soul in its future
+existence, it disregarded man's highest aspirations. It did not
+cultivate his graces; it set but a slight value on moral beauty; it
+thought little of affections; it spurned gentleness and passive virtues;
+it saw no lustre in the tender eye; it heard no music in the tones of
+sympathy; it was hard and cold. That which constitutes the richest
+beatitudes of love it could not see, and did not care for. Ethereal
+blessedness it despised. That which raises woman highest, it was
+indifferent to. The cold atmosphere of Paganism froze her soul, and made
+her callous to wrongs and sufferings. It destroyed enthusiasm and poetic
+ardor and the graces which shine in misfortune. Woman was not kindled by
+lofty sentiments, since no one believed in them. The harmonies of home
+had no poetry and no inspiration, and they disappeared. The face of
+woman was not lighted by supernatural smiles. Her caresses had no
+spiritual fervor, and her benedictions were unmeaning platitudes. Take
+away the soul of woman, and what is she? Rob her of her divine
+enthusiasm, and how vapid and commonplace she becomes! Destroy her
+yearnings to be a spiritual solace, and how limited is her sphere! Take
+away the holy dignity of the soul, and how impossible is a lofty
+friendship! Without the amenities of the soul there can be no real
+society. Crush the soul of a woman, and you extinguish her life, and
+shed darkness on all who surround her. She cannot rally from pain, or
+labor, or misfortune, if her higher nature is ignored. Paganism ignored
+what is grandest and truest in a woman, and she withered like a stricken
+tree. She succumbed before the cold blasts that froze her noblest
+impulses, and sunk sullenly into obscurity. Oh, what a fool a man is to
+make woman a slave! He forgets that though he may succeed in keeping her
+down, chained and fettered by drudgeries, she will be revenged; that
+though powerless, she will instinctively learn to hate him; and if she
+cannot defy him she will scorn him,--for not even a brute animal will
+patiently submit to cruelty, still less a human soul become reconciled
+to injustice. And what is the possession of a human body without the
+sympathy of a living soul?
+
+And hence women, under Paganism,--having no hopes of future joy, no
+recognition of their diviner attributes, no true scope for energies, no
+field of usefulness but in a dreary home, no ennobling friendships, no
+high encouragements, no education, no lofty companionship; utterly
+unappreciated in what most distinguishes them, and valued only as
+household slaves or victims of guilty pleasure; adorned and bedecked
+with trinkets, all to show off the graces of the body alone, and with
+nothing to show their proud equality with men in influence, if not in
+power, in mind as well as heart,--took no interest in what truly
+elevates society. What schools did they teach or even visit? What
+hospitals did they enrich? What miseries did they relieve? What
+charities did they contribute to? What churches did they attend? What
+social gatherings did they enliven? What missions of benevolence did
+they embark in? What were these to women who did not know what was the
+most precious thing they had, or when this precious thing was allowed to
+run to waste? What was there for a woman to do with an unrecognized
+soul but gird herself with ornaments, and curiously braid her hair, and
+ransack shops for new cosmetics, and hunt for new perfumes, and recline
+on luxurious couches, and issue orders to attendant slaves, and join in
+seductive dances, and indulge in frivolous gossip, and entice by the
+display of sensual charms? Her highest aspiration was to adorn a
+perishable body, and vanity became the spring of life.
+
+And the men,--without the true sanctities and beatitudes of married
+life, without the tender companionship which cultivated women give,
+without the hallowed friendships which the soul alone can keep alive,
+despising women who were either toys or slaves,--fled from their dull,
+monotonous, and dreary homes to the circus and the theatre and the
+banqueting hall for excitement or self-forgetfulness. They did not seek
+society, for there can be no high society where women do not preside and
+inspire and guide. Society is a Christian institution. It was born among
+our German ancestors, amid the inspiring glories of chivalry. It was
+made for women as well as men of social cravings and aspirations, which
+have their seat in what Paganism ignored. Society, under Paganism, was
+confined to men, at banquets or symposia, where women seldom entered,
+unless for the amusement of men,--never for their improvement, and still
+less for their restraint.
+
+It was not until Christianity permeated the old Pagan civilization and
+destroyed its idols, that the noble Paulas and Marcellas and Fabiolas
+arose to dignify human friendships, and give fascination to reunions of
+cultivated women and gifted men; that the seeds of society were sown. It
+was not until the natural veneration which the Gothic nations seem to
+have had for women, even in their native forests, had ripened into
+devotion and gallantry under the teachings of Christian priests, that
+the true position of women was understood. And after their equality was
+recognized in the feudal castles of the Middle Ages, the _salons_ of the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries established their claims as the
+inspiring geniuses of what we call society. Then, and not till then, did
+physical beauty pale before the brilliancy of the mind and the radiance
+of the soul,--at last recognized as the highest charm of woman. The
+leaders of society became, not the ornamented and painted _heterae_
+which had attracted Grecian generals and statesmen and men of letters,
+but the witty and the genial and the dignified matrons who were capable
+of instructing and inspiring men superior to themselves, with eyes
+beaming with intellectual radiance, and features changing with perpetual
+variety. Modern society, created by Christianity,--since only
+Christianity recognizes what is most truly attractive and ennobling
+among women--is a great advance over the banquets of imperial Romans
+and the symposia of gifted Greeks.
+
+But even this does not satisfy woman in her loftiest aspirations. The
+soul which animates and inspires her is boundless. Its wants cannot be
+fully met even in an assemblage of wits and beauties. The soul of Madame
+de Stael pined amid all her social triumphs. The soul craves
+friendships, intellectual banquetings, and religious aspirations. And
+unless the emancipated soul of woman can have these wants gratified, she
+droops even amid the glories of society. She is killed, not as a hero
+perishes on a battle-field; but she dies, as Madame de Maintenon said
+that she died, amid the imposing splendors of Versailles. It is only the
+teachings and influences of that divine religion which made Bethany the
+centre of true social banquetings to the wandering and isolated Man of
+Sorrows, which can keep the soul alive amid the cares, the burdens, and
+the duties which bend down every son and daughter of Adam, however
+gilded may be the outward life. How grateful, then, should women be to
+that influence which has snatched them from the pollutions and heartless
+slaveries of Paganism, and given dignity to their higher nature! It is
+to them that it has brought the greatest boon, and made them triumphant
+over the evils of life. And how thoughtless, how misguided, how
+ungrateful is that woman who would exchange the priceless blessings
+which Christianity has brought to her for those ornaments, those
+excitements, and those pleasures which ancient Paganism gave as the only
+solace fox the loss and degradation of her immortal soul!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORITIES.
+
+
+Plutarch's Lives; Froude's Caesar; Shakspeare's Antony and Cleopatra;
+Plato's Dialogues; Horace, Martial, and Juvenal, especially among the
+poets; Lord's Old Roman World; Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars; Dion
+Cassius; Rollin's Ancient History; Merivale's History of the Romans;
+Biographic Universelle; Rees's Encyclopedia has a good article.
+
+
+
+
+PAGAN SOCIETY.
+
+
+GLORY AND SHAME.
+
+50 B.C.
+
+
+We have now surveyed what was most glorious in the States of antiquity.
+We have seen a civilization which in many respects rivals all that
+modern nations have to show. In art, in literature, in philosophy, in
+laws, in the mechanism of government, in the cultivated face of Nature,
+in military strength, in aesthetic culture, the Greeks and Romans were
+our equals. And this high civilization was reached by the native and
+unaided strength of man; by the power of will, by courage, by
+perseverance, by genius, by fortunate circumstances. We are filled with
+admiration by all these trophies of genius, and cannot but feel that
+only superior races could have accomplished such mighty triumphs.
+
+Yet all this splendid exterior was deceptive; for the deeper we
+penetrate the social condition of the people, the more we feel disgust
+and pity supplanting all feelings of admiration and wonder. The Roman
+empire especially, which had gathered into its strong embrace the whole
+world, and was the natural inheritor of all the achievements of all the
+nations, in its shame and degradation suggests melancholy feelings in
+reference to the destiny of man, so far as his happiness and welfare
+depend upon his own unaided efforts.
+
+It is a sad picture of oppression, injustice, crime, and wretchedness
+which I have now to present. Glory is succeeded by shame, strength by
+weakness, and virtue by vice. The condition of the mass is deplorable,
+and even the great and fortunate shine in a false and fictitious light.
+We see laws, theoretically good, practically perverted, and selfishness
+and egotism the mainsprings of life; we see energies misdirected, and
+art corrupted. All noble aspirations have fled, and the good and the
+wise retire from active life in despair and misanthropy. Poets flatter
+the tyrants who trample on human rights, while sensuality and luxurious
+pleasure absorb the depraved thoughts of a perverse generation.
+
+The first thing which arrests our attention as we survey the civilized
+countries of the old world, is the imperial despotism of Rome. The
+empire indeed enjoyed quietude, and society was no longer rent by
+factions and parties. Demagogues no longer disturbed the public peace,
+nor were the provinces ransacked and devastated to provide for the
+means of carrying on war. So long as men did not oppose the government
+they were safe from molestation, and were left to pursue their business
+and pleasure in their own way. Imperial cruelty was not often visited on
+the humble classes. It was the policy of the emperors to amuse and
+flatter the people, while depriving them of political rights. Hence
+social life was free. All were at liberty to seek their pleasures and
+gains; all were proud of their metropolis, with its gilded glories and
+its fascinating pleasures. Outrages, extortions, and disturbances were
+punished. Order reigned, and all classes felt secure; they could sleep
+without fear of robbery or assassination. In short, all the arguments
+which can be adduced in favor of despotism in contrast with civil war
+and violence, show that it was beneficial in its immediate effects.
+
+Nevertheless, it was a most lamentable change from that condition of
+things which existed before the civil wars. Roman liberties were
+prostrated forever; noble sentiments and aspirations were rebuked. Under
+the Emperors we read of no more great orators like Cicero, battling for
+human rights and defending the public weal. Eloquence was suppressed.
+Nor was there liberty of speech even in the Senate. It was treason to
+find fault with any public acts. From the Pillars of Hercules to the
+Caspian Sea one stern will ruled all classes and orders. No one could
+fly from the agents and ministers of the Emperor; he controlled the
+army, the Senate, the judiciary, the internal administration of the
+empire, and the religious worship of the people; all offices, honors,
+and emoluments emanated from him. All influences conspired to elevate
+the man whom no one could hope successfully to rival. Revolt was
+madness, and treason absurdity. Nor did the Emperors attempt to check
+the gigantic social evils of the empire. They did not seek to prevent
+irreligion, luxury, slavery, and usury, the encroachments of the rich
+upon the poor, the tyranny of foolish fashions, demoralizing sports and
+pleasures, money-making, and all the follies which lax principles of
+morality allowed; they fed the rabble with corn, oil, and wine, and thus
+encouraged idleness and dissipation. The world never saw a more rapid
+retrogression in human rights, or a greater prostration of liberties.
+Taxes were imposed according to the pleasure or necessities of the
+government. Provincial governors became still more rapacious and cruel;
+judges hesitated to decide against the government. Patriotism, in its
+most enlarged sense, became an impossibility; all lofty spirits were
+crushed. Corruption in all forms of administration fearfully increased,
+for there was no safeguard against it.
+
+Theoretically, absolutism may be the best government, if rulers are
+wise and just; but practically, as men are, despotisms are generally
+cruel and revengeful. Despotism implies slavery, and slavery is the
+worst condition of mankind.
+
+It cannot be questioned that many virtuous princes reigned at Rome, who
+would have ornamented any age or country. Titus, Hadrian, Marcus
+Aurelius, Antoninus Pius, Alexander Severus, Tacitus, Probus, Carus,
+Constantine, Theodosius, were all men of remarkable virtues as well as
+talents. They did what they could to promote public prosperity. Marcus
+Aurelius was one of the purest and noblest characters of antiquity.
+Theodosius for genius and virtue ranks with the most illustrious
+sovereigns that ever wore a crown,--with Charlemagne, with Alfred, with
+William III., with Gustavus Adolphus.
+
+But it matters not whether the Emperors were good or bad, if the regime
+to which they consecrated their energies was exerted to crush the
+liberties of mankind. The imperial despotism, whether brilliant or
+disgraceful, was a mournful retrograde step in civilization; it implied
+the extinction of patriotism and the general degradation of the people,
+and would have been impossible in the days of Cato, Scipio, or Metellus.
+
+If we turn from the Emperors to the class which before the dictatorship
+of Julius Caesar had the ascendency in the State, and for several
+centuries the supreme power, we shall find but little that is
+flattering to a nation or to humanity. Under the Emperors the
+aristocracy had degenerated in morals as well as influence. They still
+retained their enormous fortunes, originally acquired as governors of
+provinces, and continually increased by fortunate marriages and
+speculations. Indeed, nothing was more marked and melancholy at Rome
+than the vast disproportion in fortunes. In the better days of the
+republic, property was more equally divided; the citizens were not
+ambitious for more land than they could conveniently cultivate. But the
+lands, obtained by conquest, gradually fell into the possession of
+powerful families. The classes of society widened as great fortunes were
+accumulated; pride of wealth kept pace with pride of ancestry; and when
+plebeian families had obtained great estates, they were amalgamated with
+the old aristocracy. The equestrian order, founded substantially on
+wealth, grew daily in importance. Knights ultimately rivalled senatorial
+families. Even freedmen in an age of commercial speculation became
+powerful for their riches. The pursuit of money became a passion, and
+the rich assumed all the importance and consideration which had once
+been bestowed upon those who had rendered great public services.
+
+As the wealth of the world flowed naturally to the capital, Rome became
+a city of princes, whose fortunes were almost incredible. It took
+eighty thousand dollars a year to support the ordinary senatorial
+dignity. Some senators owned whole provinces. Trimalchio, a rich
+freedman whom Petronius ridiculed, could afford to lose thirty millions
+of sesterces in a single voyage without sensibly diminishing his
+fortune. Pallas, a freedman of the Emperor Claudius, possessed a fortune
+of three hundred millions of sesterces. Seneca, the philosopher, amassed
+an enormous fortune.
+
+As the Romans were a sensual, ostentatious, and luxurious people, they
+accordingly wasted their fortunes by an extravagance in their living
+which has had no parallel. The pleasures of the table and the cares of
+the kitchen were the most serious avocation of the aristocracy in the
+days of the greatest corruption. They had around them regular courts of
+parasites and flatterers, and they employed even persons of high rank as
+their chamberlains and stewards. Carving was taught in celebrated
+schools, and the masters of this sublime art were held in higher
+estimation than philosophers or poets. Says Juvenal,--
+
+     "To such perfection now is carving brought,
+      That different gestures by our curious men
+      Are used for different dishes, hare or hen."
+
+Their entertainments were accompanied with everything which could
+flatter vanity or excite the passions; musicians, male and female
+dancers, players of farce and pantomime, jesters, buffoons, and
+gladiators exhibited, while the guests reclined at table after the
+fashion of the Orientals. The tables were made of Thuja-root, with claws
+of ivory or Delian bronze. Even Cicero, in an economical age, paid six
+hundred and fifty pounds for his banqueting-table. Gluttony was carried
+to such a point that the sea and earth scarcely sufficed to set off
+their tables; they ate as delicacies water-rats and white worms. Fish
+were the chief object of the Roman epicures, of which the _mullus_, the
+_rhombus_, and the _asellus_ were the most valued; it is recorded that a
+mullus (sea barbel), weighing but eight pounds, sold for eight thousand
+sesterces. Oysters from the Lucrine Lake were in great demand; snails
+were fattened in ponds for cooking, while the villas of the rich had
+their piscinae filled with fresh or salt-water fish. Peacocks and
+pheasants were the most highly esteemed among poultry, although the
+absurdity prevailed of eating singing-birds. Of quadrupeds, the greatest
+favorite was the wild boar,--the chief dish of a grand _coena_,--coming
+whole upon the table; and the practised gourmand pretended to
+distinguish by the taste from what part of Italy it came. Dishes, the
+very names of which excite disgust, were used at fashionable banquets,
+and held in high esteem. Martial devotes two entire books of his
+"Epigrams" to the various dishes and ornaments of a Roman banquet.
+
+The extravagance of that period almost surpasses belief. Cicero and
+Pompey one day surprised Lucullus at one of his ordinary banquets, when
+he expected no guests, and even that cost fifty thousand
+drachmas,--about four thousand dollars; his table-couches were of
+purple, and his vessels glittered with jewels. The halls of Heliogabalus
+were hung with cloth of gold, enriched with jewels; his table and plate
+were of pure gold; his couches were of massive silver, and his
+mattresses, covered with carpets of cloth of gold, were stuffed with
+down found only under the wings of partridges. His suppers never cost
+less than one hundred thousand sesterces. Crassus paid one hundred
+thousand sesterces for a golden cup. Banqueting-rooms were strewed with
+lilies and roses. Apicius, in the time of Trajan, spent one hundred
+millions of sesterces in debauchery and gluttony; having only ten
+millions left, he ended his life with poison, thinking he might die of
+hunger. Things were valued for their cost and rarity rather than their
+real value. Enormous prices were paid for carp, the favorite dish of the
+Romans as of the Chinese. Drusillus, a freedman of Claudius, caused a
+dish to be made of five hundred pounds weight of silver. Vitellius had
+one made of such prodigious size that he was obliged to build a furnace
+on purpose for it; and at a feast which he gave in honor of this dish,
+it was filled with the livers of the scarrus (fish), the brains of
+peacocks, the tongues of parrots, and the roes of lampreys caught in the
+Carpathian Sea.
+
+The nobles squandered money equally on their banquets, their stables,
+and their dress; and it was to their crimes, says Juvenal, that they
+were indebted for their gardens, their palaces, their tables, and their
+fine old plate.
+
+Unbounded pride, insolence, inhumanity, selfishness, and scorn marked
+this noble class. Of course there were exceptions, but the historians
+and satirists give the saddest pictures of their cold-hearted depravity.
+The sole result of friendship with a great man was a meal, at which
+flattery and sycophancy were expected; but the best wine was drunk by
+the host, instead of by the guest. Provinces were ransacked for fish and
+fowl and game for the tables of the great, and sensualism was thought to
+be no reproach. They violated the laws of chastity and decorum; they
+scourged to death their slaves; they degraded their wives and sisters;
+they patronized the most demoralizing sports; they enriched themselves
+by usury and monopolies; they practised no generosity, except at their
+banquets, when ostentation balanced their avarice; they measured
+everything by the money-standard; they had no taste for literature, but
+they rewarded sculptors and painters who prostituted art to their vanity
+or passions; they had no reverence for religion, and ridiculed the gods.
+Their distinguishing vices were meanness and servility, the pursuit of
+money by every artifice, the absence of honor, and unblushing
+sensuality.
+
+Gibbon has eloquently abridged the remarks of Ammianus Marcellinus
+respecting these people:--
+
+"They contend with each other in the empty vanity of titles and
+surnames. They affect to multiply their likenesses in statues of bronze
+or marble; nor are they satisfied unless these statues are covered with
+plates of gold. They boast of the rent-rolls of their estates; they
+measure their rank and consequence by the loftiness of their chariots
+and the weighty magnificence of their dress; their long robes of silk
+and purple float in the wind, and as they are agitated by art or
+accident they discover the under garments, the rich tunics embroidered
+with the figures of various animals. Followed by a train of fifty
+servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move along the streets as if
+they travelled with post-horses; and the example of the senators is
+boldly imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose covered carriages are
+continually driving round the immense space of the city and suburbs.
+Whenever they condescend to enter the public baths, they assume, on
+their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and maintain a
+haughty demeanor, which perhaps might have been excused in the great
+Marcellus after the conquest of Syracuse. Sometimes these heroes
+undertake more arduous achievements: they visit their estates in Italy,
+and procure themselves, by servile hands, the amusements of the chase.
+And if at any time, especially on a hot day, they have the courage to
+sail in their gilded galleys from the Lucrine Lake to their elegant
+villas on the sea-coast of Puteoli and Cargeta, they compare these
+expeditions to the marches of Caesar and Alexander; yet should a fly
+presume to settle on the silken folds of their gilded umbrellas, should
+a sunbeam penetrate through some unguarded chink, they deplore their
+intolerable hardships, and lament, in affected language, that they were
+not born in the regions of eternal darkness. In the exercise of domestic
+jurisdiction they express an exquisite sensibility for any personal
+injury, and a contemptuous indifference for the rest of mankind. When
+they have called for warm water, should a slave be tardy in his
+obedience, he is chastised with a hundred lashes; should he commit a
+wilful murder, his master will mildly observe that he is a worthless
+fellow, and shall be punished if he repeat the offence. If a foreigner
+of no contemptible rank be introduced to these senators, he is welcomed
+with such warm professions that he retires charmed with their
+affability; but when he repeats his visit, he is surprised and mortified
+to find that his name, his person, and his country are forgotten. The
+modest, the sober, and the learned are rarely invited to their sumptuous
+banquets, only the most worthless of mankind,--parasites who applaud
+every look and gesture, who gaze with rapture on marble columns and
+variegated pavements, and strenuously praise the pomp and elegance
+which he is taught to consider as a part of his personal merit. At the
+Roman table the birds, the squirrels, the fish, which appear of uncommon
+size, are contemplated with curious attention, and notaries are summoned
+to attest, by authentic record, their real weight. Another method of
+introduction into the houses of the great is skill in games, which is a
+sure road to wealth and reputation. A master of this sublime art, if
+placed at a supper below a magistrate, displays in his countenance a
+surprise and indignation which Cato might be supposed to feel when
+refused the praetorship. The acquisition of knowledge seldom engages the
+attention of the nobles, who abhor the fatigue and disdain the
+advantages of study; and the only books they peruse are the 'Satires of
+Juvenal,' or the fabulous histories of Marius Maximus. The libraries
+they have inherited from their fathers are secluded, like dreary
+sepulchres, from the light of day; but the costly instruments of the
+theatre--flutes and hydraulic organs--are constructed for their use. In
+their palaces sound is preferred to sense, and the care of the body to
+that of the mind. The suspicion of a malady is of sufficient weight to
+excuse the visits of the most intimate friends. The prospect of gain
+will urge a rich and gouty senator as far as Spoleta; every sentiment of
+arrogance and dignity is suppressed in the hope of an inheritance or
+legacy, and a wealthy, childless citizen is the most powerful of the
+Romans. The distress which follows and chastises extravagant luxury
+often reduces the great to use the most humiliating expedients. When
+they wish to borrow, they employ the base and supplicating style of the
+slaves in the comedy; but when they are called upon to pay, they assume
+the royal and tragic declamations of the grandsons of Hercules. If the
+demand is repeated, they readily procure some trusty sycophant to
+maintain a charge of poison or magic against the insolent creditor, who
+is seldom released from prison until he has signed a discharge of the
+whole debt. And these vices are mixed with a puerile superstition which
+disgraces their understanding. They listen with confidence to the
+productions of haruspices, who pretend to read in the entrails of
+victims the signs of future greatness and prosperity; and this
+superstition is observed among those very sceptics who impiously deny or
+doubt the existence of a celestial power."
+
+Such, in the latter days of the empire, was the leading class at Rome,
+and probably also in the cities which aped the fashions of the capital.
+Frivolity and luxury loosened all the ties of society. They were bound
+up in themselves, and had no care for the people except as they might
+extract more money from them.
+
+As for the miserable class whom the patricians oppressed, their
+condition became worse every day from the accession of the Emperors. The
+plebeians had ever disdained those arts which now occupied the middle
+classes; these were intrusted to slaves. Originally, they employed
+themselves upon the lands which had been obtained by conquest; but these
+lands were gradually absorbed or usurped by the large proprietors. The
+small farmers, oppressed with debt and usury, parted with their lands to
+their wealthy creditors. Even in the time of Cicero, it was computed
+that there were only about two thousand citizens possessed of
+independent property. These two thousand persons owned the world; the
+rest were dependent and powerless, and would have perished but for
+largesses. Monthly distributions of corn were converted into daily
+allowance for bread. The people were amused with games and festivals,
+fed like slaves, and of course lost at last even the semblance of
+manliness and independence. They loitered in the public streets, and
+dissipated in gaming their miserable pittance; they spent the hours of
+the night in the lowest resorts of crime and misery; they expired in
+wretched apartments without attracting the attention of government;
+pestilence, famine, and squalid misery thinned their ranks, and they
+would have been annihilated but for constant accession to their numbers
+from the provinces.
+
+In the busy streets of Rome might be seen adventurers from all parts of
+the world, disgraced by all the various vices of their respective
+countries. They had no education, and but small religious advantages;
+they were held in terror by both priests and nobles,--the priest
+terrifying them with Egyptian sorceries, the nobles crushing them by
+iron weight; like lazzaroni, they lived in the streets, or were crowded
+into filthy tenements; a gladiatorial show delighted them, but the
+circus was their peculiar joy,--here they sought to drown the
+consciousness of their squalid degradation; they were sold into slavery
+for trifling debts; they had no homes. The poor man had no ambition or
+hope; his wife was a slave; his children were precocious demons, whose
+prattle was the cry for bread, whose laughter was the howl of
+pandemonium, whose sports were the tricks of premature iniquity, whose
+beauty was the squalor of disease and filth; he fled from a wife in whom
+he had no trust, from children in whom he had no hope, from brothers for
+whom he felt no sympathy, from parents for whom he felt no reverence;
+the circus was his home, the fights of wild beasts were his consolation;
+the future was a blank, death was the release from suffering. There were
+no hospitals for the sick and the old, except one on an island in the
+Tiber; the old and helpless were left to die, unpitied and unconsoled.
+Suicide was so common that it attracted no attention.
+
+Superstition culminated at Rome, for there were seen the priests and
+devotees of all the countries that it governed,--"the dark-skinned
+daughters of Isis, with drum and timbrel and wanton mien; devotees of
+the Persian Mithras; emasculated Asiatics; priests of Cybele, with their
+wild dances and discordant cries; worshippers of the great goddess
+Diana; barbarian captives with the rites of Teuton priests; Syrians,
+Jews, Chaldaean astrologers, and Thessalian sorcerers.... The crowds
+which flocked to Rome from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean
+brought with them practices extremely demoralizing. The awful rites of
+initiation, the tricks of magicians, the pretended virtues of amulets
+and charms, the riddles of emblematical idolatry with which the
+superstition of the East abounded, amused the languid voluptuaries who
+had neither the energy for a moral belief nor the boldness requisite for
+logical scepticism."
+
+We cannot pass by, in this enumeration of the different classes of Roman
+society, the number and condition of slaves. A large part of the
+population belonged to this servile class. Originally brought in by
+foreign conquest, it was increased by those who could not pay their
+debts. The single campaign of Regulus introduced as many captives as
+made up a fifth part of the whole population. Four hundred were
+maintained in a single palace, at a comparatively early period; a
+freedman in the time of Augustus left behind him forty-one hundred and
+sixteen; Horace regarded two hundred as the suitable establishment for a
+gentleman; some senators owned twenty thousand. Gibbon estimates the
+number of slaves at about sixty millions,--one-half of the whole
+population. One hundred thousand captives were taken in the Jewish war,
+who were sold as slaves, and sold as cheap as horses. William Blair
+supposes that there were three slaves to one freeman, from the conquest
+of Greece to the reign of Alexander Severus. Slaves often cost two
+hundred thousand sesterces, yet everybody was eager to possess a slave.
+At one time the slave's life was at the absolute control of his master;
+he could be treated at all times with brutal severity. Fettered and
+branded, he toiled to cultivate the lands of an imperious master, and at
+night was shut up in a subterranean cell. The laws hardly recognized his
+claim to be considered a moral agent,--he was _secundum hominum genus_;
+he could acquire no rights, social or political,--he was incapable of
+inheriting property, or making a will, or contracting a legal marriage;
+his value was estimated like that of a brute; he was a thing and not a
+person, "a piece of furniture possessed of life;" he was his master's
+property, to be scourged, or tortured, or crucified. If a wealthy
+proprietor died under circumstances which excited suspicion of foul
+play, his whole household was put to torture. It is recorded that on the
+murder of a man of consular dignity by a slave, every slave in his
+possession was condemned to death. Slaves swelled the useless rabbles of
+the cities, and devoured the revenues of the State. All manual labor
+was done by slaves, in towns as well as the country; they were used in
+the navy to propel the galleys. Even the mechanical arts were cultivated
+by the slaves. Nay more, slaves were schoolmasters, secretaries, actors,
+musicians, and physicians, for in intelligence they were often on an
+equality with their masters. Slaves were procured from Greece and Asia
+Minor and Syria, as well as from Gaul and the African deserts; they were
+white as well as black. All captives in war were made slaves, also
+unfortunate debtors; sometimes they could regain their freedom, but
+generally their condition became more and more deplorable. What a state
+of society when a refined and cultivated Greek could be made to obey the
+most offensive orders of a capricious and sensual Roman, without
+remuneration, without thanks, without favor, without redress! What was
+to be expected of a class who had no object to live for? They became the
+most degraded of mortals, ready for pillage, and justly to be feared in
+the hour of danger.
+
+Slavery undoubtedly proved the most destructive canker of the Roman
+State. It was this social evil, more than political misrule, which
+undermined the empire. Slavery proved at Rome a monstrous curse,
+destroying all manliness of character, creating contempt of honest
+labor, making men timorous yet cruel, idle, frivolous, weak, dependent,
+powerless. The empire might have lasted centuries longer but for this
+incubus, the standing disgrace of the Pagan world. Paganism never
+recognized what is most noble and glorious in man; never recognized his
+equality, his common brotherhood, his natural rights. It had no
+compunction, no remorse in depriving human beings of their highest
+privileges; its whole tendency was to degrade the soul, and to cause
+forgetfulness of immortality. Slavery thrives best when the generous
+instincts are suppressed, when egotism, sensuality, and pride are the
+dominant springs of human action.
+
+The same influences which tended to rob man of the rights which God has
+given him, and produce cruelty and heartlessness in the general
+intercourse of life, also tended to degrade the female sex. In the
+earlier age of the republic, when the people were poor, and life was
+simple and primitive, and heroism and patriotism were characteristic,
+woman was comparatively virtuous and respected; she asserted her natural
+equality, and led a life of domestic tranquillity, employed upon the
+training of her children, and inspiring her husband to noble deeds. But
+under the Emperors these virtues had fled. Woman was miserably educated,
+being taught by a slave, or some Greek chambermaid, accustomed to ribald
+conversation, and fed with idle tales and silly superstitions; she was
+regarded as more vicious in natural inclination than man, and was
+chiefly valued for household labors; she was reduced to dependence; she
+saw but little of her brothers or relatives; she was confined to her
+home as if it were a prison; she was guarded by eunuchs and female
+slaves; she was given in marriage without her consent; she could be
+easily divorced; she was valued only as a domestic servant, or as an
+animal to prevent the extinction of families; she was regarded as the
+inferior of her husband, to whom she was a victim, a toy, or a slave.
+Love after marriage was not frequent, since woman did not shine in the
+virtues by which love is kept alive. She became timorous or frivolous,
+without dignity or public esteem; her happiness was in extravagant
+attire, in elaborate hair-dressings, in rings and bracelets, in a
+retinue of servants, in gilded apartments, in luxurious couches, in
+voluptuous dances, in exciting banquets, in demoralizing spectacles, in
+frivolous gossip, in inglorious idleness. If virtuous, it was not so
+much from principle as from fear. Hence she resorted to all sorts of
+arts to deceive her husband; her genius was sharpened by perpetual
+devices, and cunning was her great resource. She cultivated no lofty
+friendships; she engaged in no philanthropic mission; she cherished no
+ennobling sentiments; she kindled no chivalrous admiration. Her
+amusements were frivolous, her taste vitiated, her education neglected,
+her rights violated, her sympathy despised, her aspirations scorned.
+And here I do not allude to great and infamous examples that history has
+handed down in the sober pages of Suetonius and Tacitus, or that
+unblushing depravity which stands out in the bitter satires of those
+times; I speak not of the adultery, the poisoning, the infanticide, the
+debauchery, the cruelty of which history accuses the Messalinas and
+Agrippinas of imperial Rome; I allude not to the orgies of the Palatine
+Hill, or the abominations which are inferred from the paintings of
+Pompeii,--I mean the general frivolity and extravagance and
+demoralization of the women of the Roman empire. Marriage was considered
+inexpedient unless large dowries were brought to the husband. Numerous
+were the efforts of Emperors to promote honorable marriages, but the
+relation was shunned. Courtesans usurped the privileges of wives, and
+with unblushing effrontery. A man was derided who contemplated
+matrimony, for there was but little confidence in female virtue or
+capacity, and woman lost all her fascination when age had destroyed her
+beauty; even her very virtues were distasteful to her self-indulgent
+husband. When, as sometimes happened, the wife gained the ascendency by
+her charms, she was tyrannical; her relatives incited her to despoil her
+husband; she lived amid incessant broils; she had no care for the
+future, and exceeded man in prodigality. "The government of her house is
+no more merciful," says Juvenal, "than the court of a Sicilian tyrant."
+In order to render herself attractive, she exhausted all the arts of
+cosmetics and elaborate hair-dressing; she delighted in magical
+incantations and love-potions. In the bitter satire of Juvenal we get an
+impression most melancholy and loathsome:--
+
+     "'T were long to tell what philters they provide,
+     What drugs to set a son-in-law aside,--
+     Women, in judgment weak, in feeling strong,
+     By every gust of passion borne along.
+     To a fond spouse a wife no mercy shows;
+     Though warmed with equal fires, she mocks his woes,
+     And triumphs in his spoils; her wayward will
+     Defeats his bliss and turns his good to ill.
+     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 class, 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
+mass 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 institution. 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. Titus 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 Titus, 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 passion. All
+classes alike pursued them with restless eagerness. Amusements 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 Titus, 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 passion for gambling in every
+shape, we can form some idea of the effect of these amusements 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 classes 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 classes 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 appetite; 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 Titus, Caracalla, and
+Diocletian in Rome show that they were decorated with prodigal
+magnificence, and with everything that could excite the
+passions,--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 factitious 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 godless 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
+accumulation 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
+pass 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
+certitudes 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 appetite and the _ennui_ of
+realized expectation,--all of the earth, earthy; making a wreck of the
+divine image which was made for God 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
+passion 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 passion
+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 passed away. The
+barbarians were advancing to conquer and desolate; there was no power to
+resist them but enervated and timid legions, with the accumulated 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 accumulation 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 nobler
+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 chastisement
+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 gods 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. Ammianus 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.
+
+
+
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